digital-divide
(5)
The Maine ISP Betting a Tower Can Beat a Trench - And Reach the Roads Fiber Skips
Redzone Wireless spent years proving that rural broadband does not always need a trench. Its wager is simple: use fiber where it helps, radio where wires get expensive, and keep a Maine support desk close enough to know what an ice storm does to a back road.
The Data Center That Fits Inside a Hydro Plant
A San Francisco startup led by an Alaskan energy trader is betting that the next wave of AI compute won't be built in Virginia. It will be built next to a waterfall in Cordova.
LinkSure Network
LinkSure Network is the mobile-internet company behind WiFi Master Key (now WiFi Master, at wifi.com), a peer-to-peer app that lets people find and connect to shared Wi-Fi hotspots for free. Founded in 2013 in Shanghai by serial entrepreneur Chen Danian and later headquartered with an overseas base in Singapore, the app grew into one of the world's most-used utilities, reaching roughly 800-900 million users at its peak. LinkSure layers cloud security detection, encrypted tunnels and machine-learning risk scoring on top of the connection experience, and monetizes primarily through in-app advertising and content.
Darsel
Darsel is an education-technology nonprofit that teaches K-12 math over the messaging apps students already have. Instead of an app or a laptop, students practice curriculum-aligned questions through SMS, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, and an AI-powered chatbot delivers hints, explanations, and personalized practice while auto-grading homework and reporting progress to teachers. Founded by Stanford MBA and MIT alum Abdulhamid Haidar during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Darsel has grown from a spring-break prototype to a platform used across Jordan, India, and Nigeria, reaching hundreds of thousands of students who have answered hundreds of millions of math questions.
Nucleos
Nucleos is a San Francisco Bay Area public benefit corporation building secure e-learning software for people who are incarcerated. Its Learning Platform runs inside the locked-down IT environments of prisons and jails, stripping out the roughly 95% of digital coursework that facilities normally block for security reasons, so incarcerated learners can access GED prep, college degrees, vocational training, and wellness programs on tablets and kiosks. Founded by Noah Freedman and Camila Vega out of a Stanford education-technology project, Nucleos aims to reduce recidivism by making education - one of the most effective reentry interventions - actually usable behind bars.