Many of us have read stories about technological experts who start a business in their garage, and grow it to become billion-dollar successes. Hewlett-Packard Company and Apple Computer are two examples of small beginnings that have had huge results. You
Many of us have read stories about technological experts who start a business in their garage, and grow it to become billion-dollar successes. Hewlett-Packard Company and Apple Computer are two examples of small beginnings that have had huge results.
You can add a young Kenyan Adventist, Enoch Mogusu, to the list of those who started their enterprises in a garage. Mogusu—who is not a billionaire, by the way—built his garage-based start-up into an enterprise. Only his enterprise is one that works for Jesus.
Mogusu, now associated with the Seventh-day Adventist church-owned Hope Channel International, began building satellite-receiving dishes in a garage in Kiisi, Kenya when he discovered that commercial ones were too expensive. Now based in Nairobi, Mogusu is trying to spread low-power television (LPTV) broadcasting around the continent so that the gospel and Adventist teaching can reach millions.
The language and specifications differ between Africa and America, but the concept behind low-power television is the same: use small transmitters of 40 to 50 kilowatts, as measured by the African standard, to cover a limited area, say a part of a city. Because the transmitters have a limited range, they do not need the licensing a major television station would. Also, these low-power stations are less expensive to set up and maintain, advocates say.
“If you were to put [up] maybe a 1 kilowatt [television] transmitter (that’s 10 kilowatts in the United States), it will cost around [U.S.] $50,000 to $75,000,” Mogusu explained in an interview while on a visit to the Adventist church world headquarters. “But if we get only $6,000, we [can] get a complete setup for low-power TV in Africa.”
He added, “I feel that the whole of Africa can be covered with LPTV. It’s affordable, it can reach the people, and it’s localized. Local programs can be inserted, people can be reached in the local language, and many people would accept the reality that Jesus Christ is coming back again. That’s my passion, and my dream to see the whole of that continent covered with the message through media.”
This passion has taken Mogusu on a long, yet fruitful journey. Trained in mechanical engineering, his love for evangelism led him to develop ways to build a better satellite dish than commercial models for less money. Once perfected, he shared his skills with young people in Cameroon and Rwanda, where 68 dishes were built and installed in advance of a 2004 satellite series held by Pastor Mark Finley, now a general vice president of the Adventist world church.
In the Rwandan capital of Kigali, one of the satellite receivers was paired with a low-power television transmitter, and reached 50,000 homes—Adventist and non-Adventist—with the satellite series, he said.
Recently, Mogusu said, he’s taken the retransmission technology to the Western part of Kenya.
“Four weeks ago we installed a low power television station in Kiisi, in Western Kenya. It is 80 kilometers square [about 31 square miles]; it is a very small geographical region as you can imagine. But it is [home to] 3 million people.”
The results are dramatic, he said: “It’s reaching thousands of homes with the Hope Channel 24 hours a day; it’s the only Christian television in the place, and it’s the only television station which is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and we are able to insert local programs. So you can imagine the power of ‘low power’ in Africa.”
Mogusu added, “We have come up with this concept of low power [television] and we have tested the concept. We are actually encouraging [church areas] in Africa and even outside of Africa to acquire permits and licenses from the government and local authorities to get permission to broadcast [through] both radio and television in their local cities.”
Mogusu explained that in his part of the world Hope Channel programming is favored by Adventists, who appreciate the availability of church teaching, and by non-Adventists, who want “family-friendly” broadcasts.
“When they watch the secular programs in Kenya, they have a lot of bad material, which at times, as per the African culture, it’s wrong to watch such explicit materials, especially in front of your kids,” he said. “So it’s a big shame; you can get embarrassed actually, watching a program with your children around. ... But with Hope Channel International, they can watch, all members of the family, without any fear.”
The Hope Channel is the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s global cable and satellite network with headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.