Dr. Kalam was unable to travel much as a scientist and technologist, because he was in charge of highly sensitive areas in the space and defence departments. Yet, as the president he handled foreign affairs really well. He took care of diplomatic niceties and sometimes brought about surprises.
When he visited Africa, he understood that the continent did not have enough facilities for higher education and health care. One night in Dares Salaam, Tanzania, he envisioned the idea of providing tele-education and telemedicine to all 54 countries in the continent through a dedicated satellite, which can serve exclusive programmes to classrooms and hospitals in each of these countries. He made plans for a satellite donated by India, along with uplinking centres in each country for the satellite to send down programmes prepared both in India and that country. Converting the thought into action took only a few hours as he enquired with G. Madhavan Nair, the then chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, about the viability of the project and then got the clearance from the then prime minister Manmohan Singh.
Before his term ended, he had the satisfaction of seeing the Africa satellite, donated by India, being able to telecast programmes to ten African countries.
Picture Credit : Google
