Outernet: A satellite based one-way information distribution system

Saša Vučinić is a Serbian journalist and is the co-founder and former CEO and Managing Director of the Media Development Loan Fund.

In 1995, with seed money from George Soros's Open Society Institute (name changed today), Vučinić and the late Washington Post journalist Stuart Auerbach formed the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), an international non-profit organization based in New York City, Prague, Hong Kong, and Singapore with the goal of establishing a fund to provide loans to independent press organizations in new democracies with histories of government oppression of the media.

Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) is a New York-registered 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and investment fund that provides low-cost financing to independent news media in countries with a history of media oppression. It works with newspapers, radio stations, and TV companies in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the CIS, and the Balkans.^[1] It was originally founded as the Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF) before changing its name in 2013.^[2]

Outernet Inc is a global broadcast data startup currently being incubated by the Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), a United States-based impact investment fund and non-profit organization established in 1995 by Saša Vučinić and Stuart Auerbach. Outernet's goal is to provide free access to content from the web through geostationary and Low Earth Orbit satellites, made available effectively to all parts of the world.

(information source: wikipedia) - read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outernet

Social entrepreneur Syed Karim plans to make universal Internet access a reality through small satellites. Syed Karim founded Outernet to broadcast digital content from a constellation of miniature satellites to areas where internet access is blocked or unavailable. If it’s successful, anyone with a smartphone, satellite dish or simple antenna could receive news, information, online education and entertainment from the sky.

Karim, who, from September 2011 – Oktober 2014, has been also director of innovation for the Media Development Investment Fund, compares the vision to “modern shortwave radio” or “BitTorrent from space,” and expects to begin launching the satellites in early 2015.