Date and Time
Wednesday, 16 October 2024, 11:00 - 12:30(UAE LOCAL TIME // UTC+4)
Organizer
Taara,X - The Moonshot Factory,taarateam@google.com
Abstract
Nearly 3 billion people remain unconnected to the internet, and billions more are under-connected, meaning they can’t get fast, reliable, and affordable internet.Taara is X’s connectivity moonshot, with a mission to provide fast, affordable internet for all. Taara’s optical communication technology uses beams of light to deliver high-speed, long-range connectivity. Telcos and internet service providers (ISPs) in over a dozen countries are deploying Taara links to quickly expandhigh-capacity, affordable digital infrastructure.
In Kenya alone, Taara is helping deliver fast, affordable connectivity to tens of thousands of people in over 20 communities. In particularly underserved communities, Taara’s software platform enables local ISPs to manage their network, control bandwidth usage, and optionally enable community micro-entrepreneurs to resell excess bandwidth delivered by Taara links. In Ghana, Taara’s local ISP partner has served fast, affordable connectivity for more than 320 small businesses and 20,000 people to use in their homes and businesses, in an innovative partnership with Kiva, a microfinance nonprofit.
This distribution model creates a far-reaching internet infrastructure. Micro entrepreneurs can earn extra income not only from their own internet connection provided by Taara links, but also from reselling that connection in smaller data bundles, making the internet affordable to even the lowest income demographics of their community. In the process, community members help reduce stubborn barriers to digital transformation for one another, such as affordability, digital literacy, and cultural acceptance.
Description of the proposal
In 2022, Taara began extending their work with local ISPs to community networks supported by the Internet Society. Community networks are connectivity infrastructures that community members build, operate, and own, to bridge the digital divide where commercial internet service providers find it cost prohibitive to operate. Today, 5 community networks in Kenya are deploying Taara links, Taara’s software platform, or both.
We propose a 90 min industry panel that brings together a spectrum ofearly learning partners around Taara’s work with local ISPs and community networks. The panel will deliver an in-depth look at innovative approaches to partnerships, business, and distribution models to connect the unconnected and under-connected.
Objectives
- Share learnings from Taara’s work with local ISPs and community networks in Kenya, Ghana, and Malawi, learnings that are applicable across Africa and potentially around the globe to connect the unconnected
- Showcase innovative approaches to partnerships, business, and distribution models to connect some of the hardest to connect communities around the world, and address barriers to digital transformation beyond infrastructure.
- Foster meaningful discussions among stakeholders in industry, academia, and government, those who can pull support, investment, and align additional pieces of the ecosystem to build on this work and scale impact in underserved markets
Intended audience
The IEEE Future Networks World Forum brings together an ideal ecosystem of stakeholders for Taara to engage in meaningful discussions around our work with local ISPs and community networks. Our target audience include industry members, policymakers, community leaders, social enterprises, and impact investors.
TentativeAgenda
- Welcome, introduction & context setting
- Mahesh Krishnaswamy, Taara |LinkedIn
- Moderators
- Ellie Joo, Taara |LinkedIn
- Invited panelists
- Conclusion & closing
- Mahesh Krishnaswamy, Taara |LinkedIn
Bio of the organizers and panelists
Mahesh Krishnaswamy leads the Taara team at X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory. Taara is X’s moonshot to bring fast, affordable connectivity to communities around the world using a new approach to wireless optical communication technology. Mahesh served as a judge on Africa50’s Innovation Challenge in 2020 to discover innovative solutions to last-mile internet connectivity across the continent, and a judge on IEEE’s Connecting the Unconnected Challenge in 2022. Before founding Taara, Mahesh headed the manufacturing and supply chain for Project Loon, which used floating balloons in the stratosphere to augment cellular connectivity. Prior to joining X, Mahesh led product teams at Apple and Motorola. Mahesh holds a Bachelor of Science, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from Northwestern Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Ellie Joo leads marketing and policy for Taara at X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory. Taara is X’s moonshot to bring affordable high-speed internet to underserved communities around the world by using a new approach to wireless optical communication technology, or beams of light. Ellie joined Taara in 2017, helping operationalize the project in India and Africa, building strategic partnerships, and driving global marketing efforts with telcos and internet service providers. As a spokesperson, Ellie evangelizes X’s moonshot mindset and 10X thinking across various storytelling channels to help with recruiting and propelling innovation. Prior to X, Ellie worked at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center, in lean process improvement across the university healthcare system and conducting public health research in the field of hyperbaric medicine for critically ill patients. Ellie has a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry at UCLA and a Master of Applied Science in Spatial Analysis for Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Brian Longwe has been building technology driven networks that connect Africans to each other and to the rest of the world for over 26 years. Over this period, he has co-founded and ran Internet Service Providers in Kenya, Uganda and Malawi. He also has facilitated the establishment of internet exchange points in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, DR Congo, Rwanda, and others as well as participated in the formation of key institutions such as KICTANET, AfriNIC, KeNIC, AfTLD and others. Brian has vast experience in ICT public policy, regulations, and Public Private Partnerships and has served in various capacities in regional and continental initiatives that seek to address the policy, legal and regulatory challenges of intra-African connectivity and African internet development in general. Brian is currently co-founder and CEO of Converged Technology Networks, a broadband internet service provider in Malawi.
Michuki Mwangi is the Distinguished Technologist for Internet Growth at the Internet Society. He leads the Internet Growth portfolio, which focuses on measuring, building, and extending a resilient Internet to those who need it the most. Michuki has a passion for developing strong local Internet technical communities and community-centered connectivity solutions, empowering local champions, promoting collaboration, and advancing Internet interconnection. These elements underpin a resilient and affordable Internet for all. He is based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Barrack Otieno is a Trustee of the Kenya ICT Action Network and the current lead of the Kenya School of Internet Governance a flagship program of the Kenya ICT Action Network aimed at bringing new voices into the Internet Governance arena in Kenya and beyond. He is a management information systems specialist with over 20 years’ experience specializing inInternet Infrastructure and Policy development,system analysis and design, implementation of enterprise resource planning systems, design and deployment ofwireless community networks, domain name management and Standards development.Mr. Otieno served at the United Nations Secretariat of the Internet Governance Forum in Geneva, Switzerland as a Fellow as well as a consultant between the years 2010 and 2011 and was involved in the preparation of the fifth and sixth Internet governance fora in Vilnius Lithuania and Nairobi Kenya respectively. He was also a Commonwealth Fellow to the fourth Internet Governance Forum in Sharm El Sheikh Egypt in 2009. In addition he has contributed to the planning and organization of the Kenya Internet Governance Forum since its inception in 2008, the East African Internet Governance Forum and the Africa Internet governance fora for the last ten years. At continental level, he has served as a member of the technical committee and trainer of the Africa Union led Policy and Regulatory initiative for a Digital Africa (PRIDA) an EU funded initiative aimed at increasing the number of National and Regional Internet Governance initiatives in Africa from 24 in 2018 to 54.
Mr. Otieno serves as the General Manager of Africa Top Level Domains Organization, the regional association of Country Code Top Level Domain Registries through which he has overseen technical and operational reforms aimed at positioning African ccTLDs as sustainable entities through various capacity building and capacity development initiative such as the African ccTLD and DNSSEC program developed in partnership with the Internet Society that resulted in the DNS forum series at National, Regional and International levels and the Africa Domain Name Observatory initiatives that have impacted over 200,000 Internet users. Mr. Otieno was actively involved in delegation of the dot Africa domain, the regional identity for the African continent and is the current Chair of the Dot Africa Foundation (www.fondation.africa).Other contributions to the Internet Community he has made include being the founding president of the Internet Society Kenya Chapter, former secretariat of Africa Regional At Large Organization (www.afralo.org) the voice of Internet users from the African continent within the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. He is involved in local, regional and international standards development for the International Standards Organization (ISO 27000 series on Information Security Management) through the Kenya Bureau of Standards Technical Committee on IT Security which he chairs as a representative of the Computer Society of Kenya. He is also an instructor for the Internet Society and has facilitated courses such as Building Wireless Community Networks, Designing and Deploying Computer Networks and Community Networks Readiness Assessment and current Chair of the Association of Community Networks in Kenya. Mr. Otieno also serves asa Director at Africa Higher Education Research Institute where he is responsible for partnerships and serves as the Chief Technology Officer at the AHERI Community Network (aherinet) that serves over 30,000 Community members in the Western Kenya counties of Kisumu, Siaya and Homabay. He is also the Chairman of the Association of Community Networks in Kenya.
Mohamed-Slim Alouini was born in Tunis, Tunisia. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute ofTechnology (Caltech) in 1998. He served as a faculty member at the University of Minnesota then in the Texas A&M University at Qatar before joining in 2009 the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) where he is now the Al-Khawarizmi Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the holder of the UNESCO Chair on Education to Connect the Unconnected. Prof. Alouini is a Fellow of the IEEE and OPTICA (Formerly the Optical Society of America (OSA)). He is currently particularly interested in addressing the technical challenges associated with the uneven distribution, access to, and use of information and communication technologies in rural, low-income, disaster, and/or hard-to-reach areas.
Bhavesh Mistry is the Regional Lead for Taara in the Middle East and Africa. Bhavesh has nearly two decades of experience in telecommunications. Prior to joining Taara, Bhavesh was part of the founding team at Kenya Data Networks (acquired by Liquid Intelligent Technologies) and co-founded and led Project Link, Google’s first fiber infrastructure project in Africa. Project Link was spun out into an independent company called CSquared, where Bhavesh was the Group CTO and interim CEO. Bhavesh holds a BSC in Computing from the University of Greenwich, an MSC in Networks and Distributed Systems from the University of Kent, and an MBA from the Edinburgh Business School.
Gregory Eid is a seasoned entrepreneur and business leader with over 30 years of experience in the telecommunications and information technology sectors. As the Founder and CEO of Teledata ICT, Gregory has been instrumental in shaping Ghana’s digital landscape by providing innovative broadband internet services, managed IT solutions, IP telephony, and cloud services to businesses and households across the country.Gregory’s career is marked by a commitment to expanding access to reliable and affordable internet, particularly in underserved regions. His leadership at Teledata ICT has driven significant advancements in digital infrastructure, contributing to the growth and empowerment of local communities through enhanced connectivity. Before establishing Teledata ICT, Gregory held leadership roles at MTN Ghana and founded BigNet SARL, the first ISP in Lebanon. His work in these roles laid the foundation for his expertise in strategic planning, business development, and product management. Gregory’s entrepreneurial spirit and forward-thinking approach have earned him recognition as a key figure in the African telecom industry. Gregory holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing from the Lebanese American University and has completed the Stanford Seed Transformation Program. Fluent in English, French, and Arabic, Gregory is passionate about leveraging technology to create lasting social impact.
