This man has a vision. “I am thinking to write about how we can make Nepal a developed country in 30 years. It is not an impossible dream and I believe that it is doable”, Mahabir Pun writes on Facebook. The 59-year-old teacher was born in Nangi, a remote mountain village in the west of Nepal. After completing his studies in the USA Mahabir returned to his home country and founded a high school in Nangi. He brought WiFi and thus also the Internet to the mountains. For his achievements Mahabir Pun has received several awards, e.g. in 2007 the Ramon Magsaysay Award which is often considered to be Asia’s Nobel Prize.

Just now Mahabir has started a new project. In the region around the 8000er Annapurna a new tourist tracking system is being tested for six months. It was developed i.a. to locate and rescue single trekkers who have got in trouble. Nearly a dozen foreign tourists have gone missing from several hiking and trekking trails in Nepal over the past decade. I wrote to Mahabir to get some more details. He replied promptly.

Mahabir, did you develop this system by yourself?

“E-Networking Research & Development” is a NGO and I am the chairman. We developed this system with our Japanese partners from Japan International ICT (Information Communication Technology) Association. Hardware was developed in Japan and we worked together for its overall development.

read more