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Not Satellites. Not Towers.This

Mohamed-Slim Alouini is one of the world’s leading voices on near-space infrastructure. As the UNESCO Chair in Education to Connect the Unconnected and a pioneer in wireless communications at KAUST, Alouini argues that the next leap in global connectivity won’t come from satellites or towers — but from the stratosphere.
Picture of Daniel Hoffer

Daniel Hoffer

Managing Partner

Dan Hoffer has experience as a General Partner at seed fund Speedinvest and as a Partner at seed fund Tandem Capital (where 2 of his portfolio companies were acquired).

He also has experience as a Managing Director at multi-stage fund Autotech Ventures where 7 of his companies exited (3 IPOs + 4 acquisitions), and as a former Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark Capital.

He also served as co-founder and CEO of CouchSurfing (a global travel website with more than 25 million members). Daniel has appeared on the cover of Inc. magazine and has been a guest lecturer at Stanford GSB and Harvard Business School.

In this episode, we break down how High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS) could deliver broadband to 3 billion unconnected people, unlock direct-to-phone 6G, enable smart agriculture, disaster response, and redefine how we think about infrastructure in the sky.We explore:

  • Why satellites alone can’t solve global connectivity
  • The “missing middle layer” between towers and LEO mega-constellations
  • How HAPS deliver low-latency broadband straight to standard smartphones
  • Near-space for disaster recovery, border monitoring & smart farming
  • Why HAPS avoid the satellite debris problem entirely
  • The technical breakthroughs still needed: endurance, payload, free-space optics
  • What a full stratospheric constellation could look like in 2040

About Mohamed – Slim Alouini

Listen on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/2o3gt9VaGD8HJlUs1rsW3M?utm_source=generator

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