Mahabir pun was born and raised in Nangi, a remote village in the mountainous Myagdi District of western Nepal. Traditionally, the local people.  He had no education, and most men joined the British army. After finishing high school,

he worked as a teacher for about 12 years in four schools, while supporting his brothers’ and sisters’ education. In 1989, after numerous

applications to UK and US universities, he succeeded in gaining a partial scholarship to the

University of Nebraska at Kearney from which he graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Science Education. After graduation, he returned to his native village, twenty-four years after having left there as a child. He recognised the critical need for sustainable education in Nangi, and began to formulate his goal of creating a high school to serve as a model for local educational and economic development. He founded the Himanchal High School with a special focus on computer education and other programmes with income-generating capacity.

He then returned to the University of Nebraska for a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration, which he completed in 2001. While in the United States, He recognised that information technology had the potential to transform the education system and the economy of his village, and he had taken courses to acquire the skills needed to assemble, refurbish and use computers. On his return to Nepal, he successfully campaigned for the donation of used computers from Japan, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, and the USA, and powered them with two small hydrogenerators (donated by Singaporean climbers on their way to Mount Everest) installed in a nearby stream.

He began teaching computer classes to students and fellow teachers, but it proved impossible to establish a telephone connection to the nearest city, Pokhara, and the Internet. He e-mailed the BBC, asking for ideas. The BBC publicised his dilemma, and soon volunteers from Europe and the USA responded. In 2001, donors and volunteers helped him to rig a wireless connection between Nangi and the neighbouring village of Ramche, using small handmade TV dish antennae mounted in the trees. Small grants soon led to the construction of improvised mountaintop relay stations and a link to Pokhara. By 2003, Nangi had a wireless connection to the Internet. Later, He brought in more used computers donated from abroad, distributed them to other schools in other villages, and began work to develop a wireless distance-learning project supported by income-generating ventures.

International Recognition

In 2002, he was elected Ashoka Fellow by the Ashoka foundation, the global association of leading social entrepreneurs. In 2004, he received the Overall Social Innovations Award from the Global Ideas Bank aka the Institute for Social Inventions In 2007, he was awarded the Magsaysay Award, the only one to receive the Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership. Later in 2007, the University of Nebraska awarded him an Honorary Degree as Doctor of Humane Letters for his outstanding work for the country, Nepal.

A Community Lodge in Nagi Village