Meet Tsering G. Sherpa, Bringing Wifi to Mt. Everest.

Tsering G. Sherpa, the CEO of EverestLink.com, shared his journey of bringing internet to Mount Everest. He started in 1999 with a small cybercafe in Namche Bazaar and expanded despite the challenges of the Maoist insurgency. He faced threats but continued to provide internet services to villages. In 2014, he rebranded as EverestLink and focused on community business. He provided internet to over 3443 businesses in the Kumbu region and helped introduce virtual money and support schools during the pandemic. He has set up nodes and is laying optical fiber along the trail. His future plans include teaching telemanagement software and expanding into AI and IoT. The following interview took place April 30th, 2024, is a copyrighted production of the Kala Radio Communications Group. Meet the man who brought the internet to Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Your moment in tech is next. Like any trek in the Hawaiian region, the startup for EverestLink Internet was long and sometimes dangerous. Meet Tsering G. Sherpa, the CEO of EverestLink.com, and that's EverestLink.com.np, who has been described as a supercharged Nepali entrepreneur. Tell us, how did EverestLink get its start? Initially, EverestLink started back in 1999 with a different name called Namche Technical Support. It was a small cybercafe in Namche Bazaar connecting with a three-meter VFAT dish, you know, catering simple internet and email services to the ongoing tourists. But then we started expanding, the country was into chaos due to the Maoist insurgery, so communications were blankly out. And to give a service, I sort of connected 13 villages then with radio phones. So with a radio phone, and I connected 13 villages, everything was going perfect, was going perfect, unless, until the Maoists found themselves, they found me as a threat, and I started getting a lot of life threatening. But regardless, I continued, and I started my journey up towards Basecamp back in 2003. The first cybercafe at Basecamp was established by me in 2013. Even after that, I started getting constant threats from the Maoists for another two or three years, and then it was pretty scary. So I shut down my company in 2004, remained silent for 10 years, and we bounced back with a different name from EverestLink in 2014 with a different motivation. And that's how the journey started. There was an incident with your family where you needed, and you found a lack of communication. Well, that was, that was when we had this, initially, the idea struck then, it was by, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. So me and she walked down to about two days down to a place called Lukla, and then flew to Kathmandu, to the nearest hospital, that's Kathmandu. So checking out, we found that she was, I mean, she had breast cancer on advanced stage. I mean, it was bad, but then like, you know, she wasn't, you know, she wasn't dying instantly. And my sister, she was running a hotel up in Tengboche, and as soon as she heard that her mom was sick, she closed, shut down all the business and ran down to Kathmandu to see her. And what I thought is, you know, everybody wouldn't, for one, be able to afford to shut down the whole business for a whole season and sustain. And that's when I just struck that I should do something for the people. So then I started a small fabric affair, as I said, with the reset antenna, and then certain villages were connected with radio phones, you know, the communication was, a small scale communication, you know, was built for a little sister services, a little communication system was built, which initially, again, had to be shut down in 2014 in Kirovo, and then had to open back in 2010, and 2014. But when I started in 2014, I came with a different motive. Okay, now, you know, this is something that I have to think for everybody. So there are over 3443 business entities in the Kumbu, starting from Lukla till the last place called Gorakhchev, which is, which is supposed to be the base camp, it was a base camp of 1953 expedition. So in total, I'm talking about like 400 plus hotels or lodges. So I went with my internet, gave these people internet, I said, Okay, let's do a community business. So I said, like, let's do a joint venture. So it is more like I focused more on community. So I said, like, I mean, we have clients, we have guests coming in, we have a lot of tourists coming in, let's give them a good service, and if they expect, and let's charge them, you don't have to pay me, you're not my client, you're my strategic partners. So let's do it together. And that's how we went to the community business. And at the moment, almost all the villages up in Kumbu are connected. I've given the privilege to the Sherpas of using free, except base camp, I charge a minimal charge because base camp gets, you know, base camp service gets very expensive at every base camp, it gets very expensive for us to run. So I've got, at the moment, I've got six people, four people at base camp, two people at the PDB station at Lobuche, and another four at the base station. So I have about, like, 12 people at the moment, 10 to 12 people were just looking at the base camp. So it's been running. So it's kind of tough. So yeah, I mean, I've done that. So that's how the business started. So it's more like a community run, I don't charge the people. So during the pandemic, so I didn't charge the locals. I mean, we split up things, so it's basically a fringe net for the people. And then the journey, now what we're expecting, see, now what are we expecting and what we're planning is to go into some different thing. Hello Doctor, you know, the biggest achievement when I found, it's not Hello Doctor or anything, but something that I was able to help people in every aspect was trying to introduce the virtual money. I spoke with a bank here, said, okay, you go, let's start teaching shepherds, the people about virtual money. If people start spending with credit cards, if you accept your credit cards, people tend to spend more. And that's what we did back in 2018, and it's doing pretty good at the moment. So people are, you know, I'm sort of contributing into generating more income to the people. And then the pandemic came, it was a chaos everywhere around the world. So again, back in Gumbo, I took a trip then, looking down, going over the villages, what I saw was kids, kids, kids, kids, kids. So you're helping with the schools as well? Oh yes, yes. So how are you helping with schools? With the schools, it's tough in Nepal to work with schools. I mean, it's, I've been trying to create, you know, I've been trying to go into business learning programs. See, okay, every region is a very rugged terrain, no good teachers want to come up and then work permanently up there. So it's tough to find a good teacher. So we were talking about online education, I was talking about online education, I spoke to certain people, we tried, but we failed in certain cases, but I'm not going to give it up. You know, during the pandemic, what I saw, I even brought the attention of all the local government. During the pandemic, what I saw was, all the schools were shut down, and I saw kids every way doing nothing. So I said, I'm sure they have online classes. And I talked to the parents, don't you think they have the online classes? Yes, they have the online classes, but we don't have the resources to go into online classes. So that struck me. For over 400 students, I provided free internet for the entire pandemic sessions. And a lot of them, they were able to finish the high schools, you know, and there were a few people came back to me saying thank you, and that was, that was good. I mean, I felt good with that, at least I'm contributing something. So yeah, that's what I've been doing with the schools, I'm trying to, there are about like 14, no, there are about like 18 schools, primary, you know, kindergarten, primary schools, high middle schools and high schools, I think there are only two or three high schools, but there are about 14 or 15, no, approximately 20 schools, I guess, where we try to interconnect those schools. But you know, I don't have the authority to do it, it has to go through the government. Tell us a little bit about the technology involved. How many nodes do you have set up in the valley? Well, initially, when we started, we had about like to get up to every space camp, we had at least like 30, 36 plus nodes, stations, so-called, all solar powered, middle of nowhere. And it was tough maintaining those stuff, it was very tough maintaining the stuff. But now we've come down to approximately, we've come down quite a lot, I think we just have about like nine or 10 left now. And so at the moment, we've got all the way, you know Lukla, right, the starting point of the trek? Yes. So I've started laying for optical fiber, so I've reached up to Lobuche, so I'm just talking about like 10, about like seven kilometers away from every space camp. So I've got now a whole stretch of fiber running around, the whole entire thing. So that's kind of a lot of work for us. That's amazing. So you got fiber running along the trail? Yes, sir. Now I have approximately 65 kilometers to cover up from not, I won't say from Kathmandu, but from the nearest hub, a fiber hub that goes into the National. So if I connect, if I do 65 kilometers more, then the Kumbh is off with fiber. That's amazing. What are the plans for the future? We are now, now what we are planning is, we are planning a different stage of, I can't introduce everything at once to people, the education level is low, so what I'm trying to introduce people is a lot of different mechanism of telemanagement software. I've installed cameras all around, if you go, every space camp is live, you go through all the cameras, you have a lot of, we have at least like 15 cameras at the moment, you can see everything from Kumbh live. So slowly, slowly, I'm teaching, we run a seasonal business. We run a seasonal business. So we, it's basically, we work for six months and we sleep for six months. So basically I'm trying to make this another six months productive for the people, to teach them, okay, you could start another business in the city or anywhere in the world, okay, but you can, at the same time, you can run your business back home through online. So what basically, now we're going into AI, to be frank, and we're moving into, we're planning into going into a lot of our network. So hopefully we'll be going into IoT now, okay, so yeah, I mean, basically we're moving to a lot of our network and yeah, so we'll have, especially at the moment, what I've been talking with the government, in fact, I've submitted a proposal for the last two, it's been two years, but I haven't got any reply from the local government. Every year, a lot of people come and track and they're lost and they're never found, right? So what I told these guys was, what I told these guys was like, okay, I gave them a simple proposal, you know, I think let's go into, there are a lot of things about you're tracking people, if you're going to give them a smart card and you want to track them, blah, blah, blah, blah, that's the thing. I said, you're breaching into people's privacy, right? So simply what I said is- Unless, until they're lost and then they want to be found. So simply what I said is, okay, fine, I'm charging, people are charging, we're charging a lot of money to the, we are charging for internet now, right? So I said, you guys are charging $20, approximately $20 just to enter the village, to enter the area. I said, why don't you add another $10, add another $10 to the people and make sure you stay internet free. So what I said is, okay, and I need the $10 to run my business and I'll make sure every individual at the checkpoint, when you ping them, give them a unique ID, give them UID so that they can run that through internet, so that they can use their, you know, as a credential for to use internet up in the mountains. And I can simply track, I'm not tracking their privacy, private life, but what I can simply say is, okay, this man with this UID has connected my, this tower at this time. So I can give an exact proximity of like, you know, a two kilometers radius, I can find him in my, we can find him in that point. So I said, okay, that's I can do. And I said, let's install, let's install certain wifi stations up in the, during, after passes, but I haven't got any replies from these people. And yeah, I mean, and I said, I mean, like, another thing is we have a lot of, a lot of problems, you know, up in the Kumbu, we don't have a proper health center, we don't have a proper hospital. It gets, it gets, gets very expensive for not only for tourists, for people still, you know, when you have to, when you, when you have to chop yourself out of the mountain, it's cost you a hell of a lot of money. So I, that's when I started the Hello Doctor, but for some reason, the Hello Doctor was too early. It wasn't that matured. It's called RDS system. So we were trying to, you know, our user, a system that would, that doesn't require an app to call. So you're calling me through Skype at the moment. So you have to download a Skype in your phone to call me. But what I was expecting is one touch without anything, the browser would lead us to a call. And that's what we're trying to do. And that's called RTGS. That didn't work out in iOS, but now it's okay. It's working fine. But now we're relaunching Hello Doctor, and at the same time, you know, we are, we are trying to give the, what you call the, there are a few health checkpoints. We've given them at the moment, we've sent helpers and we've given them free internet and we're trying to connect them with the hospitals in Kathmandu so that, you know, they could give, they could run a telemedicine thing. Yeah. And then like, we're going into a lot of smart stuff now, like example, you know, we're going into at the moment, we just established a software man, a hotel software management for the people up there, which is eventually, I'm not going to charge them out. It's basically, you know, just an accounting system and, you know, it's a, the business up in Kumbu is a total, up in everything is, it's totally cookie jar business. Nobody knows their proper income. So just to track a proper income at the moment, what I'm doing is I'm just tracking the sales. I'm giving you a particular software that would track the sales and they have an inventory. So we just started that software. I just launched it in Namche about a couple of weeks ago. So, you know, you can take care of, you can, you can place your orders through online, you know, you don't have to go to a menu, you can place your order, the order's going to be placed. So these things, what I'm doing at the moment, we started with Namche at the moment. We started with a few hotels and they're liking it. So it's gradually, we try to improve and grow. That's real good. Let me repeat again, the website and that's everestlink.com.np. In this case, the world is shrinking for the better. For your moment of tech, this is Jay Melnick.