RightMesh Welcomes Second Ambassador, Hiten Shah (India)
In early 2018, the RightMesh team noticed a number of posts in our online community by one particular member. He asked thought provoking questions, posted about use cases, dove into technical discussions, and went so far as to start answering other community members’ questions. His passion for the project and its potential to impact those within India was clear with every post.
A few months later, our team invited Hiten Shah to be our Online Community Manager. After nearly 11 months of working with our team, Hiten is ready to take on a larger role within the company by representing RightMesh in his local community.
We are very excited to officially welcome Hiten Shah as our second RightMesh Ambassador!
Hiten’s understanding of RightMesh, having come from within our community, and his desire to bring connectivity to the 65% of India’s population without internet, make him an excellent addition to our growing global team.
Amber: Can you tell me a bit about your background?
Hiten: I grew up in Mumbai, India and currently live there. I truly love my city. It may sound cliché to call Mumbai the New York of India, but that is what describes this city of dreams the best. The energy here is electric, and people are always on the move. It is a city that has a spirit of gold.
Amber: How did you end up becoming interested in the blockchain space?
Hiten: I studied at the Hinduja College of Commerce where I received a bachelor’s degree in Management Studies majoring in Finance. Finance and financial markets are my main areas of interest. I’d spend hours studying and researching the stock market and its fluctuations. During this time, a friend introduced me to Bitcoin.
Like with the stock market, I began reading as much as I could on both Bitcoin and blockchain. The more I learned about blockchain technology and its immutable nature, the more excited I got. In May of 2017, I started investing in the space.
Amber: What first excited you about the RightMesh project?
Hiten: I came across the RightMesh project in early 2018, and it was a line on the homepage, ‘Connecting the next billion without infrastructure’, that caught my attention. With the lack of connectivity in parts of India, I immediately identified with the vision.
Although I wasn’t familiar with mobile mesh networking, I started reading everything I could and asking tons of questions to the RightMesh team through their online community. It was through my research that I realized that the possible use cases for mesh networks were endless — and so were the use cases for RightMesh.
Following that realization, I became very passionate and active in the online community. So much so that the team decided to bring me on as a Community Manager! It has been about eleven months since I started working with them, and I am really excited about taking on an Ambassador role to create a bigger impact in my local community.
Amber: You clearly have a love for Mumbai and India, why do you think RightMesh is important to your community there?
Hiten: India is a vast country with a huge population of around 1.35 Billion. In a 2018 survey, it was revealed that only 500 million people in the country have access to internet. That is less than 35%!
I believe that the reason for this digital divide is linked to either of the following problems:
The first issue I see is that the telecom infrastructure in India is centralized around urban and semi-urban areas only. Since the ROCE (Return on Capital Employed) for laying infrastructure around rural areas is very low or negligible, telecom companies do not see the value in investing into rural areas — leaving them with no internet connectivity.
Second, there is still a huge percentage of the Indian population that falls below the poverty line. They can’t afford the monthly subscription fee charged by telecom companies.
In both cases, RightMesh could play a big role in solving these barriers to entry. As RightMesh does not need additional infrastructure, relying only the mobile devices people already have, users would not have to wait for telecoms to build out costly infrastructure.
In addition, RightMesh users are able to buy excess/ unused internet from others, or sell their own throughout the network. This greatly reduces costs for the end-user as people are only paying for what they need and are able to sell what they do not. RightMesh enabled apps can be used offline, bringing connectivity and access to information to those who cannot afford it.
Amber: What do you hope to achieve by being an Ambassador representing RightMesh in India?
Hiten: India ranks 4th in military power and 7th by our GDP, but when we talk about internet penetration and education index we lag far behind.
With 95% of the world’s information online, and only 35% of the country’s population being able to access it, we’re being stunted from potential growth.
In addition, the illiteracy rate in India is very high, nearly 10% below the world average. Within that, there is a large gender disparity in the literacy rates, with women being almost 15% lower than men. Although the government is implementing a lot of initiatives to bridge this gap, it will be a long while before any effects are seen. As a nation, we cannot develop further if there are millions who are unable to access the tools and information they need to grow their education. So many are being left behind… this worries me.
RightMesh would a great aid to boost literacy initiatives and to help bridge the digital divide by providing access to needed information.
As an Ambassador, I hope that with the help of Rightmesh, every Indian citizen will have access to Internet, no matter where they live.
Stay in touch:
- Rocket.Chat: https://rocketchat.rightmesh.io
- Telegram announcements: https://t.me/rightmeshannouncements
- Website: https://rightmesh.io
- FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheRightMesh/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Right_Mesh
- Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/rightmesh
