A groundbreaking summit to help close the global digital divide is taking place this June. It’s the first in-person session since 2019, when it inspired transformation in a rural community in Armenia.
In the mountainous village of Shaghap, in the Armenian region of Ararat, over 170 families live in a quiet area far from urban centers. Agriculture and husbandry have long been their main source of income, with other activities complementing it: a tobacco factory, a small pastry shop, and a bed and breakfast for tourists who are eager to venture into the Armenian mountains. But the lack of new opportunities has led to the exodus of Shaghap’s youth to the capital city of Yerevan and other larger cities, where they can find other jobs and create better opportunities for their future.
The lack of opportunities was partly due to the limited Internet access available in Ararat: the whole village relied on mobile connectivity with data caps to get online. Left behind by service providers because of their remote location and costly infrastructure investment, high-speed Internet was just a dream. Entertainment options were also scarce, limited to a handful of TV channels that were also the main source of information.
But this started to change when the village came together to build a fiber community network—after learning from similar experiences in the region.
Becoming Part of a Global Movement
Driven by Kristine Gyonjyan, Director Union of Operators of Armenia, the people in Shaghap saw an opportunity when they learned about community networks during the 2019 European Community Networks Summit. The summit was led by the Internet Society and held in the neighboring country of Georgia. During the summit, people from all over the region working with community networks shared their experiences, including representatives from guifi.net in Barcelona, Sarantaporo in Greece, Suusamyr in Kyrgyzstan, and Tusheti in Georgia. The event also shared how to leverage public and private investment for these types of networks, and how to create an enabling regulatory environment allowing them to grow and thrive.
In the mountainous village of Shaghap, in the Armenian region of Ararat, over 170 families live in a quiet area far from urban centers. Agriculture and husbandry have long been their main source of income, with other activities complementing it: a tobacco factory, a small pastry shop, and a bed and breakfast for tourists who are eager to venture into the Armenian mountains. But the lack of new opportunities has led to the exodus of Shaghap’s youth to the capital city of Yerevan and other larger cities, where they can find other jobs and create better opportunities for their future.
The lack of opportunities was partly due to the limited Internet access available in Ararat: the whole village relied on mobile connectivity with data caps to get online. Left behind by service providers because of their remote location and costly infrastructure investment, high-speed Internet was just a dream. Entertainment options were also scarce, limited to a handful of TV channels that were also the main source of information.
But this started to change when the village came together to build a fiber community network—after learning from similar experiences in the region.
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