Win-win when those in need benefit, and so Satnews learns of the state-of-the-art satellite communications solutions that are to be applied globally to meet an increasing need and demand for tele-health and telepractices solutions to address healthcare and education access disparities. This will be accomplished through a new partnership of GlobalPartnersUnited (GPU), a Bethesda, MD-based tele-health public-private alliance, and the Global VSAT Forum, the U.K.-based association of the satellite communications industry. 

GPU is a social enterprise comprised of universities, telehealth entrepreneurs, health, disability, education, e-learning, and social media experts, and civil society organizations, designed to strengthen systems and provide content expertise by enabling information and communication technologies (ICT) for achieving international development goals. The organization’s primary mission is to achieve global social, human rights, and economic development by delivering capacity-building programs for health, education, and related civil society systems via the use of telecommunications, IT, online and blended learning, broadcasting, social media, mobile technologies, and the Internet.

GVF is a non-profit association representing the international satellite communications sector, and which has a mission of facilitating expanded access to fixed and mobile satellite-based communications solutions that promote socio-economic development in all nations by enabling training, capacity building, peer-to-peer dialogue, research, and multi-stakeholder ICT programs. The organization’s more than 225 Member companies are increasingly being called upon to provide tele-health services.

“Recognition of the value of tele-health solutions is spreading quickly, and there is an urgent need for closer collaboration between health and education specialists and the satellite communications sector to expedite fulfillment of the related Millennium Development Goals and human rights treaties tenets,” said Evelyn Cherow, Executive Director of GPU. “GPU’s tele-health and evidence-based practices expertise and the GVF Membership’s capabilities will be a powerful combination to elevate health and education access, communities of practice development, and service delivery worldwide. GPU aims to be a ‘value innovation’ actor and partner in the capacity building, telepractices, and policy arenas.”

“Large-scale delivery of satellite-based tele-health services is now within reach,” said David Hartshorn, Secretary General of GVF. “Collaboration with GPU will enable the satellite industry to take tele-health and related solutions to the next level. We have already begun to identify potential opportunities in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, and we are inviting organizations interested in exploring tele-health collaboration to come forward.” 

Specifically, the objective of the GPU-GVF agreement is to explore cooperation in all spheres of telecommunications and to collaborate in the following areas:

• Joint approaches to funding agencies, development partners and private sector organizations to provide financing for projects and programs that the parties agree to undertake.
 
• Joint work in research and analysis in the field of telecommunications, particularly on satellite communications, in such areas as policy & regulatory work, technological developments, skills building, and infrastructure readiness and deployment.


• Jointly organizing and conduct of events, capacity building workshops, e-learning and networking forums, and symposia on topics of mutual interest.


• Joint work to initiate and operate a program to track developments in satellite communications, especially in the fields of technology, policy and regulations to enriching each party’s knowledge base.

Parties interested in exploring initiatives with the two organizations are invited to contact Evelyn Cherow at globalpartnersunited@gmail.com or David Hartshorn at david.hartshorn@gvf.org.