The incredible story of affordable wireless technology for Africa struggling for support

Togolese scientist, Victor Agbegnenou, has developed a groundbreaking technology that allows very affordable telephony, internet and video services without the use of landline cables like fibre optics.

Although African countries typically pay as much as three times for the cost of internet compared to other continents, the revolutionary technology by the Togolese scientist is struggling for support.

Victor Agbegnenou’s polyvalent technology, dubbed Polyvalent Wireless Communication System (PWC), allows telephony, internet and video service provisions from a satellite broadband connection.

The Matloop, the antenna that looks like a mushroom, is one of the key components of the inventor’s technology.

It took Victor Agbegnenou ten years of research to develop this cutting-edge technology in his laboratory (Ka-Technologies) which is located in Paris.

With the PWCS, it will become possible for African countries to significantly cut down on huge investment for landline infrastructures.

PWCS also provides lower costs for voice, video and internet compared to the bandwidth costs of current fibre optics cables deployed along the shores of East and West Africa.

Victor Agbegnenou and his team have also designed and manufactured educational tablets, which are also solar-powered.

These tablets are actually digital school bags as pupils no longer need to carry heavy school bags on their back. All the applications that they need to learn are already available in the tablet.

This concept is called RETICE and is compatible with the PWCS.

Some schools in Nigeria, Senegal and France have already tested and adopted the digital learning platform developed by Victor Agbegnenou who is heading KA Technologies, the company which is developing PWCS and RETICE technologies.

The invention was filed on October 11, 2002, with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) under the International Application Number PCT/FR02/003458. The application was then published on April 14, 2003, under the International Publication Number WO 03/034668 A1. Thus, the invention is protected in more than 125 WIPO member states, and the inventor has refused to sell it to American and Swiss companies so that he can make the technology available to African countries.

Watch more in this Aljazeera documentary.

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