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Google's Internet Balloons Connect Remote Locations To The Web

Looks like the sky really is the limit.
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By 

Voices Editorial Fellow, The Huffington Post

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Huffington Post

Fast Company: Sri Lanka Is The First Country To Deploy Google's Balloon-Based Internet

Google is on a mission to get everyone around the globe faster and cheaper Internet using an unlikely source of connectivity -- balloons. The balloons, which are attached to a solar panel, carry a transmitter that connects with stations on the ground. Each balloon goes about 12 miles high -- double the height at which airplanes travel or clouds form -- and provides connectivity to a ground area 25 miles in diameter.

Sri Lanka, where only 1 in 5 people are online, will be the first country to make use of the ballon-powered Internet. Earlier this year, Google brokered a deal to let local telecommunications companies transmit signal to the balloon network for free. The technology has the potential to allow people living in rural areas across the world access to the Internet. The initiative is part of a Project Loon, which seeks to increase educational and social well-being in places that were previously unable to access the Internet.

"Hopefully, in a few months, every person and every device on the island will be covered by 3G," said Harsha De Silva, deputy minster of policy planning and economic affairs, on Facebook.

"Today's agreement will certainly provide a huge boost to our game plan to create a knowledge based highly [competitive] social market economy that will help every household achieve their own dreams," De Silva added. 

Other tech companies are also finding ways to connect rural and remote areas to the web. Facebook recently launched its flying drone web-initiative, Internet.org, that beams Internet via lasers to locations that don't have access. 

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The What’s Working Honor Roll highlights some of the best reporting and analysis, from a range of media outlets, on all the ways people are working toward solutions to some of our greatest challenges. If you know a story you think should be on our Honor Roll, please send an email to Aaron Barksdale at aaron.barksdale@huffingtonpost.com with the subject line "WHAT'S WORKING." 

Also on HuffPost:

The Most Buzzed About Female-Led Tech Startups Of 2013
Alexandra Chong -- Founder and CEO of Luluvise(01 of08)
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Chong is the founder and CEO of Luluvise, which The Good Web Guide described as a “male database which allows female users to shame or praise potential dates, exes or simply men they know." It's more colloquially known as a "Yelp for Men" and, according to Time, has been downloaded over 75,000 times. (credit:Twitter)
Poornima Vijayashanker -- Founder and CEO of Bizeebee(02 of08)
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Bizeebee helps fitness studios and other membership based businesses across the world grow. According to Bizeebee's website, Vijayashanker was inspired to start the company after consulting with local businesses looking to improve their management practices. She is also a dedicated athlete -- she practices Bikram Yoga and runs half-marathons. (credit:Twitter)
Leah Busque -- Founder and CEO of TaskRabbit(03 of08)
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Busque describes TaskRabbit as a service "for automating your most annoying errands and outsourcing your chores. Whether it's getting groceries, putting together furniture, or picking up a Craigslist purchase, Task Rabbit's network of reliable do-ers will take it off your hands." According to TaskRabbit's website, "since bootstrapping TaskRabbit in 2008, Leah has expanded the company nationally, grown the team to more than 60 employees, raised nearly $40 million in venture funding." (credit:TaskRabbit.com)
Amy Sheng -- Co-Founder of CellScope(04 of08)
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According to its website, “CellScope builds disruptive hardware and software systems for mobile disease diagnosis." According to INC.com, CellScope "also gives doctors the ability to capture a patient’s visual history over time…[it] ultimately aims to build a digital first aid kit for the home." (credit:CellScope)
Dr. Michal Tsur -- Co-Founder and Presidentof Kaltura(05 of08)
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Kaltura, according to its website, is "the world's first and only Open Source Online Video Platform." Tsur has also written for The Huffington Post about employing women in the tech industry and how video technology is the new frontier for schools. (credit:Kaltura)
Shikoh Gitau -- Founder of Ummeli(06 of08)
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Ummeli is "a mobile network that helps communities create their own employment opportunities." Kenyan tech blog iHub called Gitau, "passionate about technology especially mobile phones and their possible catalyst effect in empowerment and development," and wrote that, "Shikoh provides mentorship and support to various start-ups and research efforts in Africa both in the academia and industry that strive to make technology relevant, usable and useful in the everyday life of African users." Gitau was also the first African to win the Google Anita Borg award. (credit:LinkedIn)
Mary-Alice Brady -- CEO of MosaicHUB(07 of08)
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A graduate of Boston College and Boston College Law School, Brady worked as an attorney and in a venture capital firm before founding MosaicHUB. The Boston Business Journal described MosaicHUB as "an online community created to help entrepreneurs find the people and resources they need to succeed." (credit:Twitter)
Prita Uppal -- Founder and CEO of Hooked(08 of08)
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Hooked is a game recommendation app which, according to Forbes, "uses machine-learning algorithms to suggest apps with the highest potential relevance to users up to an exact percentage." Hooked has an impressive 24 percent conversion rate of apps suggested to its users (as compared to the more typical 3 percent response rate of mobile ads). (credit:LinkedIn)

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