Presentation by Mahabir Pun at APRICOT 2018 on Sunday, 25 February 2018.

1. Crowdsourcing the National
Innovation Center
Mahabir Pun, Nepal
Chairman
National Innovation Center

2. Nepal Wireless
• In early 2000s, I spent time building wireless
network, to bring Internet to my villages in the
mountains.
• The early use was for communications, i.e, e-
mail and voice.
• Then we expanded the network to more than
200 villages to support tele-medicine, tele-
teaching and other applications.

3. Computers Assembled in Wooden Boxes

4. DLink 900AP Wi-Fi Router, the first wireless equipment we
got for making the link.
With Maximum Outdoor Range 100 m and
Transmit Power – 60 mW

5. Testing Phase (Year 2001)

7. Relay Station 2

8. Wireless Station in Kagbeni

9. Relay Towers

10. Goals of the Nepal Wireless Project
Maximize the benefit of the technology to the rural population.
• Tele-education and tele-training – Online educational content sharing,
video conferencing between teachers and students
• Tele-medicine – Medical service through online or offline consultation
using the Internet and Intranet
• Communication – E-mail, Internet Telephony.
• Information share – Webpage, bulletin board, group discussion,
research works
• E-Business – Internet banking transaction, remittance services etc

11. Recent TVWS Project

12. Do you know why is Nepal a least
developed country?
Import export ratio = 9:1

13. How that happened?
• No government in the last 65 years gave
priority for the development of science,
technology and innovation in Nepal
• No government understood that talented
human capital is the most important capital
needed for the development of a country.
• Lost all the talented, innovative people

14. It is still not too late.

15. Vision of the Innovation Center
• To use the most precious human resources for
the economic development of Nepal
• To provide opportunities for creative and
talented people in Nepal to use their creativity
• To uplift Nepal from the list of the least
developed country to a developed country
through innovation

16. Goal
• To establish an independent and financially
sustained innovation center.

17. How NIC will support the innovators?
• Step 1 - Provide full financial support and
mentoring for accelerating prototype design,
• Step 2 - Provide full financial support and
mentoring for product development,
• Step 3 - Provide full support for getting patent
right, trade mark, intellectual property right, etc.
• Step 4 - Provide support for connecting them to
investors so that they can launch innovative
products and services aimed at impacting the
economic and social development.

18. Plans for Sustainability
• NIC is ready to invest on anything that can bring
income for the center on regular basis.
• Working on several plans to generate financial
resources.
• One idea is to register a hydropower company as
a major stakeholder and develop a 10 MW to 15
MW hydropower station.
• Other ideas: Invest on renewable energy such as
solar, bio-gas and manufacturing businesses.

19. Request to All
• By bringing ideas and skills to establish and run
innovation center the most productive ways.
• By signing up to become mentors for the talented
Nepali innovators and inventors.
• By providing financial support and material
support in your capacity.
• By contributing about 30 minutes per week of
your time for to share and promote the
importance of innovation center with your
relatives, neighbors, friends and other Nepalis

20. Current Activities – Technology Driven Projects
• Building a medical drone to deliver medicine in remote
areas – 12 people working
• Developing water filter that can also treat the water
using chemical – 4 people working
• Developing battery maintenance system for electric
three wheelers – 2 people working
• Association of Nepali Food Scientists working to
develop some food products for commercialization
• Finding ways to develop some herbal products
• Ginger processing technology and ginger products
• Many more ideas and requests have been received.

21. Projects driven by public needs –
Smart Village/City
• There are 753 units at local level government – village, town,
cities, metros.
• Need to find ways to service people effectively.
• Building a package of applications that can help to provide
health, agriculture, education services.
• ‘Smart’ is buzzword – it implies things like sensors and big
data to many, but for us – it will be all about process
improvements and information distribution using Internet
and broadband.
• Support from APRICOT can be very useful in these areas.

22. Building a Maker’s Space and Research Lab in Kathmandu at the premise
of Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur

23. Funding Received So Far
• Started the campaign in July 2016.
• In what I now realize as crowd-sourcing, we have
raised close to USD 600,000 through support from
Nepalis and others in Nepal and abroad.
• I have donated my Land worth USD 300,000
• I have put all the national and international medals
that I had received for auction.

24. How Can You Contribute?
• Send money to bank accounts of NIC available at
http://www.nicnepal.org/
• Donate online through Gofundme.com at
https://www.gofundme.com/nic-nepal
• If you prefer tax deduction, donate through
Himanchal Education Foundation, a 501 (c3)
organization in the US at http://himanchal.org/

25. Chinese Proverb
“Give a Man a Fish and You Feed Him for a
Day. Teach a Man to Fish, and You Feed Him
for a Life time”.

26. Thank you
Website: http://www.nicnepal.org/
Email: nicnepal.mahabir@gmail.com
Mobile: +977 9841592361