Dave Hughes is a West Point Graduate who fought in the both the Korean and Vietnam wars and served at the highest policy levels in Washington during a 27 year career as an Army officer.

        He has been researching, developing, and operating, online dial up, or wirelessly connected systems the 30 years since retiring from the military in 1973. He is 76. His particular interest has been extending net connectivity to very rural areas and for distance learning education to those same places. He is a futurist.

        In 1993 Hughes was awarded the Telecommunications Pioneer Award in by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) of Washington, DC for his effective work in grass roots connectivity.

      In 1998 Wired Magazine named Hughes one of the leading "Wired 25"pioneers in the world.

      The United States Military Academy Association of Graduates has named Hughes a 2004 ‘Distinguished West Point Graduate.’ He is only the 7^th retired Colonel ever to receive that award.

      He has been published in Scientific American and the MIT Press as well as other professional publications. He lectures world wide. He has been covered by media from Japan and Italy to Instanbul, Turkey. Most recently he has been featured in a globally distributed Associated Press wire services story. Welsh BBC has documented his wireless work for its applicability to rural Wales.

      Since 1996 the National Science Foundation has awarded Hughes, as a Principal Investigator, 5 grants totaling over $2 million, to  model unlicensed wireless solutions for biological and environmental field scientists in collecting their data from remote places.

      Hughes owns his own company, Old Colorado City Communications, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

      His Nepal work is online at http://www.linkingeverest.com/gallery/index.php

His science work is at http://wireless.oldcolo.com

      He can be contacted at dave@oldcolo.com

Wireless in the Himalayas   ~  article and pictures