--- title: Internet for Everyone: Here's How It Can Be Done description: More than 5 billion people around the world do not have access to the Internet. Kosta Grammatis has a novel idea about how to change that. canonical: https://time.com/130477/internet-human-right/ author: TIME Video article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-28T21:25:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T08:52:54.565Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Is it Possible to Wire the World? Meet the Guy Who Has a Plan to Make it Happen og:description: Kosta Grammatis and his company Oluvus are on a mission to bring free internet access to the most remote regions of the globe og:url: https://time.com/130477/internet-human-right/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd1f5afd944959d95/698691181eebf72f493710fd/intern_everywhere1280.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1280 og:image:height: 720 og:image:alt: Intern_everywhere1280 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Is it Possible to Wire the World? Meet the Guy Who Has a Plan to Make it Happen twitter:description: Kosta Grammatis and his company Oluvus are on a mission to bring free internet access to the most remote regions of the globe twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd1f5afd944959d95/698691181eebf72f493710fd/intern_everywhere1280.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Internet As a Human Right > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=5c9fa15c-be7a-46d3-8a26-6184cdf0274b&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 5 Billion People Off-line? Here's How to Fix It [Watch (HLS stream): 5 Billion People Off-line? Here's How to Fix It](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/hx6Xuusq.m3u8) (3:52)  _Published 2014-05-30. You might not know it but 5 billion us have no internet access. Web evengelist Kosta Grammatis has a novel idea to wire the world for free._ by [TIME Video](https://time.com/author/time-video/) ## TIME Video May 28, 2014 9:25 PM UTC by [TIME Video](https://time.com/author/time-video/) ## TIME Video May 28, 2014 9:25 PM UTC Kosta Grammatis likes to think big. In 2011, around the time of the Arab Spring, Grammatis grew frustrated at the ways governments can pull the plug on people’s Internet access as a form of social and political control. He wanted to figure out how to circumvent political and physical obstacles and bring digital media to anywhere it was otherwise unavailable. He and some colleagues set out to [buy a satellite from a bankrupt company](http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2045428,00.html) and use it to beam connectivity to places like Tunisia. That plan turned out to be harder to realize than to it was to imagine. But Grammatis, a web evangelist, is a true believer in the good things that can happen in a more interconnected world. He recalibrated his thinking to rely less on expensive orbital technology and more on working with established communications and financial institutions. But the idea remains big. His new startup, Oluvus — i.e., “all of us” — remains focused on wiring the entire planet and bringing free Internet to the[ five billion people who do not have access](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global%5FInternet%5Fusage). In the video above, Grammatis tells the story of how he got where he is now and why _this_ time, the odds of success look good. ## Transcript You might now know it, but for every one of us that is online, two aren't. Bill Gates said that the internet isn't that important. We should be working on some of the causes that he's working on, malaria. Totally noble causes, but the thing that I love about the internet and why it's so important to me is how it brings everyone together, and so although internet access may not be solving world hunger, it is creating a new way for all of us to work together as a humanity. And that's why I think everyone should be connected. [ MUSIC ]. My name is Kosta Grammatis and I am the founder of A Human Right. A Human Right is a non- profit organization charged with ensuring everybody has access to the internet. After college, I was, puttering around on a whole bunch of projects and, and I applied for this think- tank innovation camp out in Berlin, and I was accepted. So I met all these crazy people working on all sorts of incredible projects to help others. It was while I was at this camp, I started to ask questions about, what do you mean we still have to build schools? I mean, I had this experience where I didn't necessarily need to go to school, I was learning things that my school couldn't even teach me. Cuz the internet had, had answered a lot of the questions for me and helped guide me towards the knowledge that I needed. And then it donned on me, well maybe the world doesn't have internet access. And I Googled around for it and, in fact, it's, it's true. Five billion people don't have access to the internet. So at this think tank, about five or six of us got together, and we started A Human Right. [ MUSIC ] We started this project by the satellite. There was a satellite of, from a bankrupt company. And if you don't understand how satellites work, they, they hover in space and, and they're able to bring internet access to entire continents. Except they're really expensive, so we started a crowd funding campaign. This is kind of before kickstarter was really a big thing at that point. Ultimately, we fell a little bit short of the billions of dollars required. We started several other projects to like Move This Cable where we were trying to route a trans- Atlantic table to connect one of the most remote islands. And it's going to miss the island by just a couple hundred kilometers. Why don't you just move it down just a little bit, and you can give 5000 people internet that don't really have it? And they did it. It was cool. We really want to bring the vision of everyone connected to life. So, what if we built a company that stood for everything that we value like universal connectivity? And empowering people through online connectivity. And that's what we've been working on for the last year is, is building this public benefit company called Oluvus that inspires to ensure everybody has free access to the internet, so we have plans that are built around free internet access. And when you run out, you can buy more. It's always affordable. And then we keep track of how much bandwidth we've sold across the entire network. And once we hit a certain amount of bandwidth sold, we launch a connectivity project somewhere in the world to get more people online. We've reached out to the world's largest refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. In Dadaab there's half a million people there who, if given a little bit of information, a little bit of access to knowledge, can solve their own problems. Any person has the power within them to make the change that they want to see in the world. I don't have a huge ego invested in you know, me being the person who brings internet to the world. In fact, I'm so excited that there are so many other companies and individuals and people who are working on this idea to bring internet to as many places as possible because of the potential and power of internet access. 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