Mahabir Pun wins Magsaysay Award for his innovative wireless computer technology in Nepal

Author: Mohammad Kawsar Uddin, From Nepal

A Nepali from the remote Myagdi district, Mahabir Pun, has been awarded the Ramon Magsaysay 2007 for his outstanding contribution to community leadership. He won Asia’s premier prize for his innovative application of wireless computer technology in Nepal, bringing progress to the remote mountain, connecting Nangi village to the global village.

“I am glad to win the prize, but I am not excited. I always worked as if I had duties to carry out. I was not expecting any award,” Chitwan-bound Pun told The Journalists yesterday.

The Board of Trustees of the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) announced that this year six other individuals from China, India, Korea, and the Philippines, would also receive the award that is considered Asia’s Nobel Prize.

Pun was born in Nangi village in Myagdi, which is seven-hour walk from the nearest road in the district. The village, where no landline ever reached, is now connected to the global village with the introduction of wireless Internet Technology (IT), thanks to the efforts of of 52-year-old Pun. During his childhood in a village school, Pun also had to go to graze cattle. The village school he went to had no paper, pencil and books. Pun’s family moved to Chitwan, where he completed his high school and became a teacher. He got scholarship for bachelor’s degree at the University of Nebraska in Kearney, US. He returned to Nangi in 1992.

Powering four computers donated by Australia to his village in 1997 with hydro generators on a water supply from a nearby stream, Pun began taking computer classes at the high school. More computers followed, but it proved impossible to get a telephone connection to Pokhara and the Internet.

After British Broadcasting Company publicised his case in 2001, volunteers from Europe and the US came to his help. The volunteers were helping him “rig a wireless connection between Nangi and the neighbouring village of Ramche, using TV dish antennas mounted on trees.”

“Some small grants helped construct improvised mountaintop relay stations and a link to Pokhara, and by 2003, Nangi was online,” according to Pun. He told THT that the wireless network had been expanded to 12 villages distributing 100 computers to local schools, connecting them to the Internet, teaching teachers how to use them, and then tinkering and troubleshooting until everything worked.

Using the district’s “tele-teaching” network, teachers in one school now instruct students in others in Myagdi. Doctor-less villagers consult specialists in Pokhara using Wi-Fi. Village students surf the net and Pun himself is using the “Web to e-market local products such as honey, tea, and jams and to draw paying trekkers to campsites that he has outfitted with solar-powered hot showers.” Pun says, “I am happy to know that I have won the prize, but my work would continue.”

Jovito R Salonga of Philippines, Rev Kim Sun-tae of South Korea, Tang Xiyang of China, Palagummi Sainath of India, Chen Guangcheng and Chung To of China have also been awarded the Ramon Magsaysay for their contribution in various fields.

“The Magsaysay awardees of 2007 are truly moving Asia forward through their remarkable and selfless service to their respective societies,” RMAF President Carmencita T Abella is quoted as saying in the Foundation’s website.

Category: ICT for Development, Knowledge for Development