Tech Meets Good: Got Satellite?

If you are somewhere near middle age, you probably remember the consumer satellite dishes of yesteryear — huge, round, and sometimes dwarfing the nearby house as they faced the heavens.  Portability was not a word that came to mind. In fact, when I saw these satellite dishes next to mobile homes, I always chided that the owners could move the house, but not the accompanying dish. Boy, have things changed!

A lightweight, cloth satellite dish set inside an eight-foot cloth globe resembling a large beach ball, costs a fraction of the price of a traditional dish and consumes a sliver of the power, has made its way to places not previously accessible to such technology. It is compact (it fits in a trunk of a small car) and inexpensive to ship via FedEx or other service.

The GATR Inflatable Deployable Satellite Communication System is ideal for disaster recovery where events have rendered existing communications unusable. The GATR system was used extensively during recovery efforts for Hurrican Katrina, recent Southern California wildfires and following the 2005 tsunami in Southeast Asia. Medics can easily deploy the GATR sat dish, coupled with computers and cellular phones, to begin work at ground zero of a terrorist attach or disease outbreak, accessing files and other much-needed technology at their labs to benefit victims and those affected in the field, anywhere in the world. Rural communities in developing areas might utilize the dish to access the internet to order agricultural supplies, access educational resources, or learn what's happening with the monsoon rains they are experiencing. All in all, the GATR is a remarkable move forward for alleviating poverty, disease, and making our world just a bit smaller.  For more information, check out GATR's web site. “

Technology Meets Good” is a regular Monday feature at Tonic News Network.  If you have cool examples of technology doing good in our world, please email dan@tonic.com.