Villagewide Wi-Fi: WIRELESS INTERNET IN AFRICA

WIRELESS INTERNET IN AFRICA

Robyn Twomey for TIME

Bob Marsh, Mark Summer and Kristen Peterson

To reach the village of Nyarukamba in western Uganda, visitors have to clamber up a thin, almost vertical dirt track. It's not the kind of place you would expect to find subsistence farmers surfing the Web with wi-fi computers or making VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) phone calls. But that's exactly what the village's 800 or so inhabitants have been doing--thanks to a wireless, solar-powered communications system installed in the Ruwenzori mountains by Inveneo, a San Francisco nonprofit.

Inveneo was launched in 2004 by three Silicon Valley veterans--Mark Summer, 36; Kristin Peterson, 45; and Bob Marsh, 59--who share a passion for...

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