Breaking poverty through wireless networks
Ganesh Prasad Adhikari · 2010
Pokhara is a bustling tourist centre 89 miles north-west of the capital of the country, Kathmandu. And, 22 miles northwest of Pokhara, in Myagdi district, lies Nangi, a remote village, disconnected from the country because of absolutely no telecommunications facility, let alone the internet. However, all of that was to change after a team led by a determined national, Mahabir Pun, put in five years of hard work and the best of their ingenuity-solar power, tree based relay system among others-to connect the village with Pokhara. The project has lived up to its expectations; it has managed to connect families, educate children and keep the yak farmers in touch: in fact, it has turned out to be so successful that it has already expanded to forty-two villages across the western regions of Nepal, and is planning to reach out to nineteen more. Already, it has attracted support from international institutions-George Mason University, the World Bank, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Pacific Wireless among others, and it has even managed to infuriate a member of the Scottish parliament; apparently, some villages in one of the poorest countries on earth happen to have better internet facilities than all of his constituents.Many impoverished Nepalese, who had not even seen computers a few years back, now use wi-fi network systems that have greatly improved their lives. What's more, they have adapted remarkably fast to this new system; electronic mail, credit card transaction and local trading by e-commerce have become common now.