Naveed Haq Of Internet Society On The Digital Divide and Why & How We Should Close It
An Interview With Monica Sanders
No work is insignificant; it takes two to tango.
Early in my career, I realized that solo flights don’t last long. You shouldn’t be ashamed of any minor work if it helps to achieve the team goal.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Naveed Haq.
Naveed Haq still remembers that evening in 1998 when he connected to the Internet for the first time sitting at a friend’s place. Those connectivity tones from that 56kbps modem, that command line to enter credentials written on the Internet pre-paid card, and those blinking lights icon showing two terminals are still fresh in his mind. Fast forward four years, and he started his professional career on the Internet as a network support engineer. Over the past twenty-one years, he can hardly remember a day not connected to the Internet. Perhaps that evening did plot the Internet as a center point of his life.
His professional career also went through various Internet roads, from Internet engineer to regulatory officer, to working with the communities to build their Internet networks, aka community networks.
He has seen anxiety, smiles, excitement, and joy on people’s faces when they first communicate over the Internet. Coming from a farmers’ family who lived in an unconnected village in Pakistan, he relates well with these unconnected people from remote plains or uplands across the Asia-Pacific.
His passion for connecting the unconnected keeps increasing with every new person accessing the Internet through these community networks. He believes in a world where the Internet means opportunity!
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?
I was born in a farmer’s family in a remote village in Punjab province in Pakistan, spending my childhood around wheat fields and tube wells. I still remember taking our small cattle herd to a small pound a few Kilometers away from our village home. The days were busy, and the evenings were cold, staring at the open sky, counting stars, and sharing a bed with my cousin. We didn’t have any telephone service in the village, and I used to visit the nearest post office each week to collect and submit letters.
I moved to the city at the age of eight to continue my early primary school education as my father got a job at a private company and could afford a small, rented house and fees at a federal government school. I lived in the city for the rest of my school, college, and university education but would spend my two months of summer vacation with my grandparents in the village. The city life was hard, given the low resources, but we did manage to have a TV and a telephone connection at home when I was in 10th grade, which opened the world to us.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Due to our financial state, I couldn’t buy many books except for a few spy-based fiction until I started earning myself at 22. Since then, I have been a regular reader. Several books impacted my thinking and life, but the one that stands out is “Forty Rules of Love” by Elif Shafak, a Turkish writer.
The book is not a straightforward story, but it gives us rules that, if followed, can help to find true love. It reflects on some spiritual and practical notions that I find relevant. These notions are: be honest with yourself, be willing to work on yourself, bring patience, and be open to love. It also tells you that living an authentic life is not entirely happy and comes with costs, but the prices of not living one are far more significant.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or work?
“Keep moving, have patience, work hard, trust yourself, and don’t look back” is my life quote!
I remember my first internship in a regional city in Pakistan after completing my computer science degree. We were supposed to pitch a software database project for some big textile factories. We couldn’t succeed for the first three weeks, but ultimately won the project. However, the factory owner said he was not interested in a software database; instead, he wanted to install a CCTV camera system across his factory to monitor his workers in various units. Management immediately said yes without realizing we have zero skills in such work.
They returned and appointed me as the lead for installing the cable and cameras inside the factory units. At the same time, they headed back to Islamabad to develop software that could control and manage the whole system. It was the month of June when I started laying and ducting the coaxial cable on the roof of this factory with the help of a local electrician. It was 40-plus degrees Celsius during the day, and my hands used to burn while touching the cable.
I did cry out loud one day, wondering if this is what a career looks like after completing a university degree in computer sciences, but those tears gave me strength and determination to complete the job no matter how difficult it was. Since that day in June 2001 and today, working as a Regional Director for a global organization, I have never looked back.
Ok, thank you. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. How would you define the Digital Divide? Can you explain or give an example?
For me, the digital divide is not just about who has access to the Internet and who doesn’t.
It is about who can afford Internet access, who has high-speed Internet, and who has the required skills and knowledge to use the Internet meaningfully.
In 2017, while providing Internet connectivity to a remote school in Pakistan, I asked a question to sixth-grade girls learning about the Internet as part of their course work: “What is the Internet?”. All of them answered either “Google is the Internet” or “Facebook is the Internet.” These answers stunned me and made me realize the gulf that existed in knowledge between a pupil at a remote school and those in places with fast, reliable, and affordable Internet — otherwise known as the digital divide.
Can you tell our readers about your experience working with initiatives to close the digital divide? Can you share a story with us?
I still remember that evening in 1998 when I connected to the Internet for the first time sitting at a friend’s place. Those connectivity tones from that 56kbps modem, that command line to enter credentials written on the Internet pre-paid card, and those blinking lights icon showing two terminals are still fresh in my mind.
Fast forward four years, and I started my professional career on the Internet as a network support engineer. Over the past twenty-one years, I can hardly remember a day I wasn’t connected to the Internet. That evening placed the Internet and its infrastructure as a center point of my life.
My career led me to be an Internet engineer and a regulatory officer and to work with communities to build their Internet networks. Community networks are “do-it-yourself” networks built, managed, and used by the people they serve and are the best way of connecting underserved communities in all corners of the world.
I have seen anxiety, smiles, excitement, and joy on people’s faces when they first communicate over the Internet.
Over the past seven years, I have led many community network projects across Asia-Pacific. Still, the one project very close to my heart is providing Internet access to the Sherpas of Nepal living at an altitude of 4000m in the Mount Everest area.
It is the world’s highest community network, and the Internet Society team that I led was able to work with the Sherpa community to connect two villages amid the enormous challenges of the isolation of the Himalayas and extreme weather. In its final stages, we had to lay optical fiber cable, which in such a harsh environment meant five people carried the materials on their backs to the villages.
Our work brought the Internet to a local school, connecting children to the Internet for the first time and opening a new world for them online. In the process, it has given the community a new way to build technical skills and diversify their economy beyond being Sherpas for tourists. We also established a podcast studio so that the community can share their stories with the rest of the world.
This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so important to change in this area?
We saw during the Covid-19 pandemic how critical the Internet is to people’s lives. The Internet proved itself as not a luxury but a ‘lifeline.’ The pandemic allowed us to tackle digital inequalities and make universal Internet access a real conversation. We should not have a world where a lack of Internet access prevents children from learning when schools are closed, where digital inequalities undermine the efforts to contain a human pandemic, where people in remote places are not able to connect with their loved ones, and where lockdowns force people to stop working because they don’t have access to the Internet.
What specific actions has your company or organization taken to address the digital divide, and how do you ensure that your efforts are making a positive impact in the communities you serve?
In addition to building community networks, we provide training and capacity building for maintaining Internet infrastructure. The Internet Society has worked in countries around the world to build Internet Exchange Points, which are vital to bringing faster and more affordable Internet to people.
In Nepal, we deployed a community network in the villages of Khunde and Khuming, which connects both the Khunde community club (located at 3890 meters / 12,700+ feet) and the Edmund Hilary School in Khumjung (3780 meters / 12,400+ feet).
The project was completed on May 29th, 2023 — World Everest Day, which commemorates Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s successful ascent of Mt. Everest. It is a day of celebration for both the local Sherpa communities and the larger international hiking community and now, made even more special for the villages of Khunde and Khumjung as their community network came online on the 70th anniversary of that first successful climb.
To make sure the network continues to benefit the community, the following services are being planned :
● A monitoring system using IP-based cameras to help the Sherpa people implement security of their own land and assets during the winters when they need to migrate.
● A telehealth clinic at Khunde Hospital to support the existing health infrastructure and minimize dependency on traveling long distances to receive health and emergency services.
● A Sherpa innovation lab for the local people to learn and ideate solutions to address issues facing their community, including energy deficit and farming techniques.
● Sherpa Home Stay services, which would invite trekkers and climbers to visit and stay in the villages.
● Supplement education opportunities to students to uplift their STEM learning.
● Local capacity building to help the Sherpa community digitally transform their lives through the Internet.
What are some of the challenges that individuals or communities face when trying to bridge the digital divide?
In my experience, there are two critical challenges faced by the individual or communities. First, you need a more favorable regulatory and policy environment for complementary access solutions, including community networks. A good policy environment supports individuals and communities to create small or medium-sized connectivity solutions and businesses. These communities then spur entrepreneurship to provide Internet access in areas where traditional telecommunication operators do not reach due to high risk and low to zero ROI. Such policy measures can open spaces for cooperatives to invest in providing Internet access to their community.
The second challenge is the lack of financing or funding support available. Today, a handful of organizations offer funding to individuals or communities to build their own networks. Even if a local community or an individual is eager to construct a small connectivity network to provide access to the Internet, they can’t find many avenues of support. I advocate for opening funding opportunities through universal service obligations (USO) funds. The USO funds ensure the provision of telecommunication services, including the Internet, particularly in areas of a country (such as rural or sparsely populated areas) where the market players might not otherwise deliver these services. International organizations should take up this matter as one of their funding areas; the Internet is now considered a human right, so while we have so many organizations working to fund education, health, childcare, food, and other necessities, it’s time to include the Internet as a ‘must-have.’
Nearly three billion people are being left behind. They’re living without the Internet. In June 2022, the Internet Society joined the Partner2Connect Digital Coalition (P2C) and pledged to scale our work to help achieve universal connectivity.
What role do you see technology companies playing in closing the digital divide, and what steps can they take to ensure their products and services are accessible to all?
The two major areas where technology companies can play a role are digital adoption and affordability. They need to look from the more holistic angle of digital inclusion, where marginalized communities have an equal opportunity to access technologies. Technology companies need extra consideration to engage and listen to marginalized communities’ needs, especially persons with disabilities in developing economies. They must also put extra effort into bridging these gaps by implementing digital skills programs for women and girls, who are often kept away from digital opportunities in developing countries.
Some of these technology companies carry a lot of influence, which provides them an excellent opportunity to lead the charge for digital accessibility and create more opportunities for all.
Because of investment from the federal government, we have funding for excellent access to infrastructure and digital skills training. In your view, what other policy changes are needed to address the digital divide? How can companies and policymakers work together to implement these changes?
Well, this notion of investment from the federal government is true in the case of developed countries. However, if you look at the developing economies where most of these unconnected communities reside, we don’t see any investments from the government in digital infrastructure and skills.
We have seen several public-private partnerships in developing economies expand digital skills training. However, many such programs are carried out what we call Tier 1 cities, which by default exclude the intended users living in small cities, towns, and villages.
We are already in Web 3.0. What should we be doing as leaders to ensure the Web’s next iteration(s) are green, accessible, and beneficial to as many people as possible?
Web 3.0 is the next stage of web evolution that would make the Internet more intelligent with the power of AI systems to run innovative programs that assist users. One more promise that Web 3.0 has is to build a decentralized and democratized Internet owned by the builders and users.
It offers an immense opportunity to benefit as many people as possible by preparing them with skills and talents that can give them more control over services and applications. But the question remains, would such skills remain inside the industry giants, OR would they empower individuals? The role of leaders is essential to ensure that such skills are offered to individuals all around the world, regardless of background, so they can contribute towards a more accessible and beneficial Internet.
This is the signature question we ask in most of our interviews. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why?
- Don’t let your criticism impact your confidence.
I remember my first-ever work presentation was highly criticized by my peers, calling it a complete failure. I noted their points, and the same people congratulated me a month after my next presentation in front of our CEO.
2. Try to find local ways to solve as not every problem requires a high-tech solution.
A few years back, we needed a ladder to put up a wireless antenna on a pole in a remote community. No ladder was available in the village, so we started building one using local woods, binding them with ropes and clothes. That ladder was as effective as any other classic ladder.
3. Learn quickly to manage your time and learn how to say No.
I understood this at a very later stage of my career. I was always a “yes, it will be done” professional, which affected my work-life balance and health on many occasions.
4. No work is insignificant; it takes two to tango.
Early in my career, I realized that solo flights don’t last long. You shouldn’t be ashamed of any minor work if it helps to achieve the team goal.
5. Do celebrate team success irrespective of its scale.
I remember a particular manager who would always say he was unhappy with our work and would take credit for any of the team’s success. It created a ‘slow poison’ effect, and a time came when none of us felt motivated to complete a task. It is important to celebrate team success together by giving credit to every contributor.
What role can individuals play in closing the digital divide, and what steps can they take to support these efforts?
Each one of us can play a role in closing the digital divide. You can be an advocate, you can be a practitioner, or you can be a change agent. It is important that we as individuals realize the importance, need, and urgency of the matter. Try to put yourself in the place of a school student, a young individual, or an elderly person who doesn’t have access to the Internet. Together, we can help to raise their voices for them, help them to build their own network, or appeal to policymakers to pay attention to bridging the digital divide.
How can our readers follow you online?
Twitter: @NaveedHaq
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naveed-haq/
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
About the Interviewer: Monica Sanders JD, LL.M, is the founder of “The Undivide Project”, an organization dedicated to creating climate resilience in underserved communities using good tech and the power of the Internet. She holds faculty roles at the Georgetown University Law Center and the Tulane University Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy. Professor Sanders also serves on several UN agency working groups. As an attorney, Monica has held senior roles in all three branches of government, private industry, and nonprofits. In her previous life, she was a journalist for seven years and the recipient of several awards, including an Emmy. Now the New Orleans native spends her time in solidarity with and championing change for those on the frontlines of climate change and digital divestment. Learn more about how to join her at: www.theundivideproject.org
