Alphabet, formerly Google, has been working on a project for some time that holds great promise for people in rural or remote areas in the Global South. The Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation has described this project as one that offers great hope for breaking the cycle of poverty for millions.
It’s called “Project Loon”. It’s one of the “moonshot” projects developed by the R&D group
within Alphabet (formerly Google) known as X.
While we often think that everyone in 2017 has access to the internet, actually more than half of the 7 billion plus people do not have any access to the internet, and nearly two-thirds lack reliable and consistent access. Anyone who has visited a place like South Africa knows just how difficult it is to access the internet, especially in rural communities.
Think of Project Loon by X as a network of “floating cell towers” that ride wind movements within regional launch bases to offer internet access to previously unreached areas of the globe. These balloons have floated in the stratosphere for as long as six months. X is using AI and machine learning to make the balloons “smarter” and increase communication among balloon clusters. Local telecommunications providers are partnering with X to reach potential customers that they haven’t been able to reach in the past.
Technology analysts believe that Project Loon will lead to better, cheaper and faster access to the internet for those people who have largely been left out of the enormous benefits generated by web-related technologies. This includes smallholder farmers and micro-entrepreneurs who will be able to affordably access the web to routinely and in real time reach out to customers, negotiate with suppliers, and access markets, capital and pricing information. Cell services like MPesa (through Kenya’s Safaricom) that allow poor people to send and receive money with SMS/text messages can also be accessed in remote places for the first time.
And in addition to be a tool for entrepreneurs, balloon-powered internet access will allow
children to complete their school assignments and supplement their learning with learning tools offered by social enterprises like Khan Academy, Bridge International Academies and Enerva. For the first time doctors in remote health clinics will be able to access instructional videos and advanced medical information in real time to diagnose and treat a wide variety of medical emergencies and other conditions.
While Project Loon is still in its development stage, the engineering team at X has established that the technology and the network does indeed work, and that the long-term goal of balloon- powered internet access for everyone, regardless of where they live or what their limitations might be, is achievable.
Access to the practical benefits of technology by everyone regardless of where they live makes us optimistic about the future.
