WorldSpace Foundation Satellite Broadcasting - Africa

The flagship project, "Africa Learning Channel", launched in 1999, delivers distance education and social development information via satellite to radios in rural and isolated regions of Africa. A collaboration with UNICEF brings multi-media social development and educational material to community information centers that have no phone lines and, hence, no internet connection in Sudan. In Bankilare, a community in Niger, the community has set up the Bankilare Community Information Center (CIC) for the broadcast of their local radio station. They supplement their local information with a translation of the national and worldwide information from the ALC WorldSpace broadcast.

In addition to the audio service, the ALC transmits text-based multimedia information such as web pages and CD-ROM content, targeting specific audiences in regions where Internet connections are unreliable and/or prohibitively expensive.

Technology, Education.

In June 2003, First Voice International (FVI), formerly WorldSpace Foundation (WSF), was established with the mandate to become a conduit and catalyst for knowledge, experience and solutions, gathering and disseminating information on issues of pressing concern to people who have the greatest need -- the impoverished rural and urban populations of Africa and Asia. FVI builds on the existing Africa Learning Channel (ALC), which was established by WSF in 1999 with grants from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. It also further develops the Multi-Media Service (MMS) to target audiences in regions where internet access is unavailable, unreliable, or very expensive.