Students at the Plan de Chorcha Educational Center in Panama. Photo: Hispasat

Hispasat, the Spanish satellite operator, is piloting a new tele-education project in Panama for the Panamanian government. The company said March 11 that it is bringing tele-education services to the Plan de Chorcha Educational Center, located in Ngäbe-Buglé, one of Panama’s most mountainous regions.

Hispasat donated a satellite internet service to the school with a tele-education system that allows educational contents provided by the Ministry of Education to be sent and stored locally. This allows students to download the material on their devices and work with them at home. Hispasat will also set up a Wi-Fi connectivity service for the community, apart from the one at the school, which will allow the rest of the residents to connect, allowing the entire rural community to become part of the digital society.

Francisco Javier Pagalday, ambassador of Spain to Panama, said he believes the satellite solution in the school has “great potential to not leave rural communities in the country behind.”

“We’ve been working for years on providing stability to Latin American society using satellite internet access, especially in its rural and disconnected areas. That’s why we’re so happy to contribute today with this pilot to improving education in this school in Emplanada de Chorcha and we’re making ourselves available to the Panamanian government to collaborate on new initiatives that help to bridge the digital divide in the country,” Miguel Ángel Panduro, CEO, Hispasat said in a statement.