Expanded Connectivity For India: Microsoft To Provide Low-Cost Broadband To 500,000 Villages In Rural India

It looks like more tech giants are joining in the effort to provide broadband to more of the unconnected countries highlighted in the UN Broadband Commission report. Microsoft recently announced that they are going to provide low-cost broadband access to 500,000 villages in rural India.

If you recall, the UN released a report that 57% of the world is population, which translates to 4.2 billion people, are still “in the dark,” so to speak. This means that 4.2 billion people do not have access to an ocean of jobs and opportunities, information, and better learning resources.

It seems like the tech companies are prioritizing India, as most of the head honchos and top engineers of the giants nowadays are Indian. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft himself, is an Indian, while Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai is also an Indian. Indians are also known for their proficiency in programming and tech, and the country had been tapped to handle outsourced tech support and programming tasks.

With a potential tech workforce numbering in millions, it certainly makes sense why the tech companies are prioritizing the potential manpower pool first. While Africa and a good portion of Southeast Asia, as well as some European countries also lag behind in connectivity, India’s potential as a tech hub seems to be foremost on the major tech companies’ agenda.

With Microsoft gearing to provide affordable broadband to 500,000 rural villages in India, an additional 4 million Indian residents will soon find themselves exploring the wonders of the World Wide Web.

Should this translate to greater progress for the country, this means a potential 4 million citizens contributing to overall productivity, for their country, and hopefully for the rest of the global community.

It is worth noting that the tech companies have declared that their moves to connect more of the world to the World Wide Web is not purely altruistic. They have openly admitted that it will benefit their operations, overall, with more people connected online.

As to the real-world impact of these moves, the next 10 years will be the best witness to the possible progress that these can create.

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The UN Broadband Report on Droid Report: https://www.droidreport.com/un-report-more-half-worlds-population-still-has-no-regular-internet-access-11291

Google’s Move To Connect 400 Train Stations on Droid Report: https://www.droidreport.com/google-provide-free-wifi-400-train-stations-india-11319