Macedonia Becomes World’s First ‘Wireless’ Country Page 1 of 2

AED > Technology Applications > Macedonia Becomes November 30,

Education World’s First ‘Wireless’ Country 2005

Environment & Energy

Technology Applications: Macedonia Becomes
Health World’s First ‘Wireless’ Country
HIV/AIDS
Leadership & Democracy Working with the Government of Macedonia and the private sector,
Youth AED has helped transform Macedonia, once the least developed of the
Yugoslav republics, into the world’s first ‘wireless country’ of its size or
larger.

Communications
Now a vast majority—95 percent—of the country’s population has
Gender access to wireless, broadband Internet service.
Partnerships
Social Marketing Through a grant from USAID, the AED project Macedonia Connects
& Behavior Change worked with a local Internet service provider to connect every one of Glenn St
Research & Evaluation the country’s 460 primary and secondary schools to a wireless Macedonia
network. Two years ago most of these schools did not even have works w
Technology Applications
working telephones. Now each is outfitted with a computer lab, and the school stu
Training students are connected to the world. learning t
Internet
That network became the backbone for the national wireless system.
Select a Region/Country Macedonia Connects also worked to extend the reach of the wireless
Select a region/country... network to rural communities scattered throughout the rugged
mountainous countryside.
For U.S., Select State
Select a state... "Our project team had the technical vision of how the network we
created for the schools could be expanded to benefit the entire
country," said Dennis Foote, vice president and director of the AED
Center for Applied Technology. "We were able to make it happen
Enter email here through support from USAID's 'Last Mile Initiative,' which Administrator
Natsios created to expand the access of the rural poor to
Macedo
communications."
participa
conferenc
The public-private partnership involved in making this exciting country's
advancement possible includes members from the Government of the Intern
Republic of Macedonia, the Macedonian Ministry of Education and
Science, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the People’s
Republic of China, Microsoft, and Motorola. Microsoft provided
valuable software packages and licenses to the government of
Macedonia, and Motorola contributed necessary hardware.

“This infrastructure will bring in investment and create jobs”, says Jani
Makraduli, President of the Committee for Information Technology of

http://www.aed.org/TechnologyApplications/macedoniaconnects.cfm 11/30/2005
Macedonia Becomes World’s First ‘Wireless’ Country Page 2 of 2

the Government of the Republic of Macedonia. “The benefits to the

country are mind boggling. Already, private companies are poised to
take advantage of the new system.”

Another result of the Macedonia Connects project was a steep

reduction in the costs associated with Internet access. According to
Glenn Strachan, who directed the project for AED, there is now more
competition among Internet service providers in Macedonia, prices
have dropped, and “the Internet is accessible to students, teachers,
and the general population, rather than just the wealthiest section of
society.”

For more information, contact Glenn Strachan.

Read more about AED’s work in Technology Applications, or visit the
homepage of the AED Center for Applied Technology.

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http://www.aed.org/TechnologyApplications/macedoniaconnects.cfm 11/30/2005