GAIUS Networks, co-founded by researchers at New York University and NYU Abu Dhabi, has been selected for Facebook Accelerator London’s program—a 12-week session that pairs start-ups with the team at Facebook’s London lab (LDN_LAB).
GAIUS Networks (GaiusNetworks.com), which provides innovative mobile content for companies and users in emerging markets that lack access to broadband, was one of 13 start-ups selected from more than 600 applications.
“The start-ups we’ve selected are harnessing the power of technology to create positive impact on the world, including improving digital connectivity around the globe,” Facebook said in announcing the selections.
GAIUS Networks’ co-founders include Lakshminarayanan Subramanian, a professor at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and NYU Abu Dhabi’s Yasir Zaki, an assistant professor in computer science, and Thomas Poetsch, an assistant lecturer in computer science.
GAIUS Networks, also co-founded by CEO Arjuna Sathiaseelan, seeks to make mobile technologies more accessible to those in regions without broadband—nearly half the world’s population—by enabling the creation of simplified content that is less reliant on access speed.
GAIUS, its core platform, aims to benefit the estimated three billion users around the globe lacking broadband access with an innovative browser that enables hyper-local communities in emerging markets to create, interact, and monetize content relevant to their users—and in their own languages. In doing so, GAIUS removes these regions’ dependency on the World Wide Web, immensely broadening access to digital content in the process.
Notably, GAIUS-backed pages are 60 percent lower in size and download 90 percent faster than traditional mobile browsers—a feature that empowers the creation of content ecosystems that are not dependent on broadband.
So far, GAIUS Networks, now serving more than 22,000 users across several countries, has:
- Worked with a network of colleges in India to offer technology workshops and help students find promising career opportunities
- Established partnerships in India with community radio stations, which have used the platform to deliver pre-recorded audio content for their users to download on demand
- Launched in Kenya in a joint partnership with Liquid Telecom and has signed operator partnership agreements in Malawi with Converged Technology Networks and Tanzania with the Tanzania Community Networks Alliance
- Partnered with India’s YOYO Cabs to power the company’s app screens on cabs
- Collaborated with Kenya’s Tunapanda Institute to enhance free course offerings in technology, design, and entrepreneurship for disadvantaged young people in Nairobi’s Kibera neighborhood
EDITOR’S NOTE
About NYU
Founded in 1831, NYU is one of the world’s foremost research universities and is a member of the selective Association of American Universities. NYU has degree-granting campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai, and has eleven other global academic sites around the world. Through its numerous schools and colleges, NYU conducts research and provides education in the arts and sciences, law, medicine, business, dentistry, education, nursing, the cinematic and performing arts, music and studio arts, public administration, engineering, social work, cities, global public health, big data, and continuing and professional studies, among other areas.
About NYU Abu Dhabi
NYU Abu Dhabi is the first comprehensive liberal arts and science campus in the Middle East to be operated abroad by a major American research university. NYU Abu Dhabi has integrated a highly-selective liberal arts, engineering and science curriculum with a world center for advanced research and scholarship enabling its students to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world and advance cooperation and progress on humanity’s shared challenges. NYU Abu Dhabi’s high-achieving students have come from 115 nations and speak over 115 languages. Together, NYU’s campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai form the backbone of a unique global university, giving faculty and students opportunities to experience varied learning environments and immersion in other cultures at one or more of the numerous study-abroad sites NYU maintains on six continents.
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Original post https://alertarticles.info
