[Satnews] On September 17 at the 17th annual VSAT satellite industry conference held in London, Hughes Network Systems, LLC (Hughes) was selected as winner of the “Changing Lives” award, which recognizes an inspiring initiative that has significantly impacted telecommunications in a community, assisting in alleviating hardship and contributing to subsequent economic and social development.

Hughes has developed an innovative satellite-based training solution, known as the Hughes Interactive Onsite Learning platform, and is working with medical tutoring schools in India to help  meet the growing demand for key specialties such as gerontology and endocrinology, as well as to deliver basic healthcare services to rural communities. The solution delivers virtual 3D-quality capabilities enabling direct eye contact, voice interaction, and chat-based queries between students and instructors, and is reaching rural communities across India.

Accepting the award for Hughes was Vinod Shukla, senior vice president International at Hughes, who commented, “Hughes is honored to be recognized by this major satellite industry group for a very meaningful award—which applies the latest technology in connecting people and improving lives no matter where they live or work.”

Executive Comments

“The quality, cost-effectiveness and adaptability of the satellite-based training solutions developed by Hughes and its partners for medical specialties opens the door to their application in basic health care—such as pre- and post-natal education in the large number of rural communities across India—as well as non-medical areas, such as business practices and engineering,” said David Hartshorn, secretary general of the Global VSAT Forum and one of the judges for the award.

Another judge, Robert Bell, executive director of the Society of Satellite Professionals, said, “Hughes won the award in my view because of the scale of the solution, reaching 25,000 medical students in 50 cities; its targeting of a serious bottleneck in healthcare, which is the physician training in underserved areas; and the fact that it should be possible to reproduce it fairly easily in other emerging market countries facing similar problems. When it comes to changing lives, Hughes has made a big dent in a vital quality-of-life issue for India.”