I am Manisha Aryal. I am advising the Digital Empowerment Foundation on technology. Recently, I found myself in the rugged mountains of Uttarakhand, India — a place of breathtaking beauty, but also immense challenges when it comes to digital connectivity. Internet Service Providers ignore this landslide-plagued region, as the ROI in setting up towers for remote, sparsely populated villages is very low.
The result? Military veterans, small landholders, business owners, entrepreneurs, and students have to traverse across tough terrain just to access e-government portals, do their banking, download lesson plans and test results, and use basic public digital services. Connectivity is a journey — quite literally.
I spent the week with colleagues from the Digital Empowerment Foundation, who are working tirelessly to bridge this digital divide, linking far-flung Uttarakhand hamlets to the digital world — one village at a time.
My takeaway: For digital transformation to truly work in geographically-challenged and historically-marginalized regions, we need to anchor our efforts in what I’m calling the “Three Eyes of Digital Transformation”:
- Digital Citizen Infrastructure: Building robust, context-specific digital infrastructure — think point-to-point connections, mesh networks, signal boosters, satellites, and more.
- Infomediaries Rooted in Communities: Upskill trusted community members so they can be their community’s information intermediaries (DEF calls them soochnapreneurs — a blend of “soochna,” or information, and entrepreneurs).
- Actionable Information: Accurate, timely, and usable information — whether related to state and federal benefits, health and disaster information, digital financial services, or social enterprises.
These villages in India are living proof that investing in the three “Eyes” — digital citizen infrastructure, upskilling of local infomediaries, and making actionable information accessible — pays off. It transforms remote hinterlands into opportunity hubs by connecting them to the India’s digital public infrastructure.
Hello Manisha,
In the early 2000s, Mahabir Pun, a teacher from a small village in the Himalayan foothills, faced a similar problem. Using scavenged telenet devices he pieced together an Internet connection from a server in Pokera, literally mountain top to mountain top to his tiny village called Nangi. Using rope tree limbs and scavenged metal piping. The relay devices were strapped to the top of trees. Periodically they would need readjustment done by local villagers who climbed up the trees. Donated PC computers were set up in a IT learning lab for local students.
I wish you the best in your endeavors. Google Mahabir Pun, and reach out to him.
Hi Debra:
Thank you for taking the time to write.
I know Mahabir Pun’s work through the Nepal Wireless Networking Project quite well. He is an inspiration to all of us working on bridging digital divides. And he continues to go great work through his National Innovation Center in Nepal.