How Boston-Based Tech Entrepreneur Sanjay Manandhar Brought the Internet to Nepal
Before the internet was everywhere, there was a time when Nepal had very limited connectivity — no easy way to send emails or browse websites like we do today.
Enter Sanjay Manandhar, a tech entrepreneur based in Boston, who helped change all that.
The Idea: Bringing Internet to Nepal
In 1994, after finishing work with Siemens, Sanjay thought, “Now’s a good time to bring the internet to Nepal.” But how?
He didn’t want to rely on Nepal Telecom’s slow and unreliable landlines. Instead, he thought, “If I can’t go through the land, maybe I can go through the sky.”
That meant satellites — giant space devices that orbit Earth and can beam internet signals down.
Searching for a Satellite
Remember, this was pre-internet times — so no Google to search with!
Sanjay went to the Sloan Business School Library at MIT and searched through directories, looking for satellites that passed over Kathmandu.
After digging through countless names, he found one: a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite owned by a nonprofit called HelpNet. This satellite passed over Kathmandu every 90 minutes.
The Lucky Break
Getting access to satellite time is super expensive — usually hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.
But HelpNet was a nonprofit, and when Sanjay explained he was an MIT engineer from Nepal, they gave him something incredible — a “black brick.” This black brick was a ground station that could communicate directly with their satellite.
Setting Up in Nepal
In April or May of 1994, Sanjay collected 10 dial-up modems (which was cutting-edge tech back then) and bought a laptop — a huge investment at $4,500!
He took the black brick, modems, and laptop to Nepal and installed the setup in the Teaching Hospital.
Here’s how it worked:
The hospital could use the modems to send emails.
The laptop would store outgoing emails and send them to the black brick.
The black brick would communicate with the satellite when it passed overhead every 90 minutes.
The satellite would then beam the emails to HelpNet’s main office in Cambridge, MA.
Incoming emails followed the same path in reverse.
This system allowed Nepal to send and receive emails without going through Nepal Telecom’s network — a huge breakthrough at the time!
Expanding the Network
Soon after, Sanjay helped another local team start one of Nepal’s first Internet Service Providers (ISPs), helping the internet grow even more.
Challenges Along the Way
While the tech was amazing, Sanjay also faced challenges — especially dealing with corruption in Nepal.
Still, his work laid the foundation for the internet access Nepal enjoys today.