Bringing the Outside World to the Remote Mountains: the Nepal Wireless Networking Project

Abstract:
This teaching case presents the story of the Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP) and its effort to connect villages in remote areas of Nepal to the outside world. Despite lack of access to proper equipment, the fact that it was illegal to install wireless network, lack of technical competence and the difficult terrain in the Himalayan mountains, Mahabir Pun, the initiator of NWNP, succeeded in bringing Internet access to these villages which led to improvement in education, health services and income-generating activities. The case describes the development of NWNP from inception to today, the stakeholders involved, services provided, current challenges and ideas for future improvements. It illustrates the importance of the champion, the process to get stakeholders commitments, the importance of contextual understanding, and the challenges of scaling up from pilot projects to wider implementations in the context of developing countries.

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#This paper has won the Best paper award in IS education at the Thirty Third International Conference on Information Systems, Orlando 2012 (ICIS 2012).