Thanks to new opportunities offered by innovative information technologies, an information society in which solidarity prevails is no longer a utopian dream. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals is now a real possibility.

Since its creation two years ago, the Global Digital Solidarity Fund has supported the idea that reducing the digital divide and achieving the Millennium Development Goals rests on five concepts: connectivity, accessibility, content, training and solidarity. These objectives are now shared by public authorities and the private sector.


The new technological opportunities emerging in today’s market have made achieving the Millennium Goals a real possibility. However, those goals will only be achieved if access to new information technologies is made available to all developing countries. It is in this context that the DSF devised an innovative financing mechanism, the “1% digital solidarity”, designed to facilitate, within the framework of a new private-public partnership, achievement of those goals. According to the DSF’s IT Director Mehdy Davary, these new opportunities are illustrated by two “simply revolutionary” achievements, “which place the installation of a high-performance telecommunications network for the countries of the South within reach”.

One of these opportunities is being realised within the ”X-Station“ project organised by the entrepreneur Kamal Alavi, CEO of StratXX SA. ”X-Station“ is a geostationary HAPS (High Altitude Platform System), consisting of a blimp filled with helium and a UAV (unmanned air vehicle) airplane which carries the technological components, delivering a wireless network covering an area of up to 1,000 km. The signals are picked up on the ground by antennae integrated into the various receivers (mobile phones, computers, etc.). The services provided by ”X-Station“ cover all digital applications: high-speed data traffic, fixed and mobile telecommunications, videoconferencing, access to media (TV, radio, VoD), road and sea traffic control, border control, weather and agricultural monitoring.

This European project is benefiting from the know-how of leading-edge institutions. A group of 75 experts from the EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Zurich), the Universities of Neuchâtel and York, as well as RUAG (Aerospace Defence Technology), the SSO (Swiss Space Office) and DLR (German Aerospace Centre) are developing the various components. According to Kamal Alavi, the “XStation“ will be marketed in 2009-2010. “We’re currently working on a triple challenge: placing the station at 21 km altitude, keeping it in a geostationary position and resolving issues linked to power and temperature differences.”

The second opportunity takes the form of a console (screen + keyboard) linked via the Internet to a server that simulates 10,000 computers. It is the “Blackbox/SunRay” system developed by SUN Microsystems SA. Thanks to this new solution, problems relating to software and system maintenance and upgrading, data security, and so on, will be a thing of the past, added to which, each user will be able to access his or her data from any place equipped with this system.

In the words of Mehdy Davary, “the development of these technologies does, however, require resources and a political will that is broadly shared by all public and private stakeholders concerned with ensuring access to knowledge for all the world’s countries, particularly developing countries. The technologies offered by SUN Microsystems and StratXX constitute a decisive step towards making solidarity more than just a utopian dream. With its ”1% digital solidarity“ principle, the DSF is making these goals a reality.”

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www.stratxx.com
www.sun.com