With a population of more than 1.3 billion people, India presents one of the biggest challenges to the endeavor to connect the next billion people to the Internet. Especially given the fact that 67% of all Indians reside in small, often rural, villages, community networking is proving to be a vital tool to assist in raising rural teledensity, which currently rests at around 49%.
Given the challenges of providing Internet connectivity in rural and tribal districts, the Internet Society (ISOC) partnered with New Delhi-based Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) in 2010 to launch the Wireless for Communities (W4C) program.
The program focuses on two key areas: expanding access to adequate infrastructure, and capacity and skill building.