Title: AsthaNet: co-creating network solution for socio-economic development of disconnected communities

Authors: K. Habibul Kabir; Ashraful Alam Khan; Ashir Ahmed; Masahiro Sasabe; Khondaker Hasibul Kabir

Addresses: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Islamic University of Technology (IUT), Dhaka, Bangladesh; Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Islamic University of Technology (IUT), Dhaka, Bangladesh ' Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Islamic University of Technology (IUT), Dhaka, Bangladesh; Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Islamic University of Technology (IUT), Dhaka, Bangladesh ' Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan ' Division of Information Science, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan ' Department of Architecture, BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract: We co-create networking solutions, called AsthaNet, to connect disconnected rural communities with global resources. AsthaNet combines a bundle of modern technologies, e.g., variant of ferry-assisted-delay tolerant network (DTN) with TCP/IP, content delivery network (CDN), disconnected internet of things (IoT), etc. AsthaNet provides autonomous solutions to serve information demand, which re-invents networking among rural communities (especially technically-less sound people) to enjoy quality localised contents with different dialects/accents. For socio-economic development of these communities through humanitarian technology, AsthaNet adopts the concepts of people's empowerment of Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, and people's development as freedom of Amartya Sen. As a result of this humanitarian technology-based development, AsthaNet becomes the perfect blend of knowledge society to connect the disconnected rural communities to develop with freedom to empower.

Keywords: delay tolerant network; DTN; message ferry; internet of things; IoT; localised contents; people's empowerment; knowledge society; content delivery networking; CDN; community development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHT.2020.112457

International Journal of Humanitarian Technology, 2020 Vol.1 No.2, pp.172 - 209

Received: 18 Dec 2019
Accepted: 24 Oct 2020

Published online: 18 Jan 2021 *

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