Agencies rally to spread Internet access to Africa’s remote regions

This follows a project by the GRA in rural Zambia.

GRA is collaborating with other organisations including Macha Works on the project to boost Internet access in rural Sub-Saharan Africa.

“The rural areas of Africa are not well served by the Internet because the technology is typically built for urban environments,” Gertjan van Stam, former chief executive officer of Macha Works, said.

According to the Internet World Stats, Africa has some 140 million Internet users compared to the 2.1 billion worldwide users. Africa hence lags behind. The GRA project therefore aims to boost use of Internet from the village level.

“Macha is a living laboratory of innovation and it is showing GRA how to implement it. I think the GRA is recognising a partner that is not the best in technology, but is certainly a role player on how to deal with local communities,” said van Stam.

The project was conceived following a board meeting held earlier this month in Sydney, Australia by the GRA to help the developing countries achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

Bart Follink, GRA’s chief operating officer, told SciDev.Net that this was the first board meeting since the organisation decided to establish an executive office in Melbourne, Australia June last year, to coordinate collaborative work between members and partners, and help the network to get to the next level of generating impact.

“GRA has developed and matured over time and is now able to solve complex problems in areas like food security, health, energy availability, clean water availability and Internet connectivity,” said Follink.

The GRA was launched in 2003 and comprises nine applied research agencies from around the world — including India, Malaysia and South Africa — that jointly employ around 60,000 researchers, scientists and engineers.

Macha Works has since started connectiing a rural community in Zambia to the Internet.