Earlier this month when Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat unveiled the country's first ever balloon-mounted internet network that would bring free Wi-Fi to the state's most remote areas, Mumbai-based aerospace engineer Vishal Sharma found himself on cloud nine. After all, it was his baby. For the last seven months, Sharma from IIT Bombay had worked on this pilot project under the guidance of professor Rajkumar Pant to create an aerostat balloon system. The objective being to help facilitate relief and rescue operations in remote areas, besides bringing connectivity.

A floating technology
Sharma, 29, who resides at the IIT Bombay campus itself, says the idea behind the balloon-based internet germinated back in 2003 when an experiment was conducted at their lab to provide internet connectivity to rural areas. The research material was then published in several international journals. Fifteen years later, the Uttarakhand government decided to put this technology to action. "These days a lot of migration is taking place in hilly areas. People are moving to towns and cities because they don't have mobile connectivity and other digital resources. It is a major concern for the government right now," Sharma, explaining how they landed the project.