In many communities overlooked by major internet service providers, connectivity is not the only missing piece. Community networks seeking to bridge this gap often face other structural challenges, including the lack of reliable electricity supply. In Kenya, APC member Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) has turned to a form of clean energy – solar power – as the primary power source for the ALINET Community Network in Sipili, making it resilient to outages and voltage fluctuations and surges, while also protecting their equipment from damage.
Sipili is four hours out of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, in the northern direction into the Rift Valley. It is a small town of about 3,000 trailers, but with a population of over 100,000 mainly engaged in farming. “Many of these people are involved in subsistence farming, because they are growing food for their own consumption. They keep animals. And the area is a bit dry, so issues around climate change affect them in a big way,” according to James Nguo, ALIN’s director, describing the community to the Routing for Communities podcast. They are also a very “hardworking people because they build water dams, water ponds for their animals, and they use them for irrigation. It's a community that relies a lot on the power of information and knowledge,” Nguo added, lauding the community’s capability in food production as compared to many other areas in Kenya.
In 2023, ALIN was able to get one of the first approvals from Kenya’s regulatory agencies and obtained a licence to implement a community network in Sipili. Since then, sustainability has been a challenge in every sense – from financial resources to power supply.
“With the network now stabilised by solar power, usage has doubled in just two weeks – a sign of how much demand had been suppressed by unreliable service,” reflected Nguo in the report on the project, “Renewable Energy for Community Connectivity and Digital Inclusion in Kenya”, implemented from May to July 2026 with support from the APC advocacy and institutional grants.
By being tailored to local realities, community networks do more than connect people in overlooked areas: they seek to be meaningful within that lived reality. This often starts with affordability. ALINET’s monthly cost of internet access for users is 1,000 Kenyan shillings (USD 7.73) – almost half the price of the most popular home package – compared to 2,000 shillings (USD 15.45) charged by lower-tier ISPs, and substantially lower than the 3,000 shillings (USD 23.18) charged by major telecom companies. But community networks go further: ALIN’s project and the existence of ALINET, for instance, has provided a vital opportunity to deliver training sessions within the community, strengthening its members' digital skills and safety.
Overcoming challenges with clean energy and shared knowledge
Before the solar power system was installed, frequent power outages, voltage fluctuations and surges in Sipili regularly knocked out the community network and damaged equipment, disrupting the connectivity of over 200 households, small businesses and public institutions.
With a more stable network, ALINET is better placed to expand paid connectivity services, onboard more of its 200 registered subscribers into active use, and pursue further infrastructure investment. Stable and reliable internet access has also been making a difference by improving income and educational opportunities. But taking advantage of opportunities while being aware of the risks associated with internet access is not something that happens solely through connectivity itself. Coming together to share knowledge and discuss the issue is an important step that was incorporated into this project through two three-day training sessions: one for community members and the other focused on the local youth.
The training sessions carried out by ALIN this year reached 70 community members and 70 youth over three days each, equipping parents with tools to protect their children online, small business owners with practical skills to sell online, and young people with pathways into higher education – with some of them enrolling in a partnership with the Open University of Kenya, offering courses that would otherwise have been out of reach for rural communities.
Nguo explained that one activity involved training community members on child online protection, cyber hygiene, doing business online, and technology-facilitated gender-based violence, including where to report incidents. During this period, the community was also guided through the network's management structure and provided feedback so ALINET could continue evolving its services by working side by side with local people.
The community network sought to involve women in these training sessions. With an initial goal of 50 women, 30 ended up participating in them – mostly businesspersons running different types of micro, small and medium enterprises. They included farmers, university graduates engaged in online writing and boutique owners. The combination of work and often-unequal caregiving responsibilities was a factor that, according to the organisation, made it difficult for women to participate in the sessions. To partially address this barrier, the training schedule was adjusted to include some weekend sessions.
In addition, the youth were trained on e-learning in partnership with the Open University of Kenya. “Seventy youth also attended the three-day training, and 20 students signed up for [the university’s] professional and graduate-level courses,” exulted Nguo. At the same time, ALIN believes that the digital literacy and online safety training also strengthened its role as the community’s trusted knowledge broker and safety resource when it came to digital communications.
“We are interchanging active use with meaningful use, which means that the community is not just using the internet in a passive way for entertainment but as a tool for commerce, learning and improved health,” pointed out Nguo.
“Together, these changes show a rural community network moving from an outage-prone service to a safer and more beneficial digital lifeline for the people of Sipili, Laikipia, Kenya.” ALINET's success here has now created demand in adjacent communities which Nguo hopes to address in the years to come as the network scales.
This piece is a version of the information provided by ALIN as part of the project ,“Renewable Energy for Community Connectivity and Digital Inclusion in Kenya”, adapted for the Seeding Change column. The column presents the experiences of APC members and partners who were recipients of funding through APC's subgranting programmes, supported by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and of subgrants offered through other APC projects.
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