Issue of
November 3, 1999

Ethiopian Student Union sponsors talk by CEO of satellite radio company

Noah Samara, Ethiopian-born founder and CEO of WorldSpace Corp., a Washington, D.C.-based satellite radio company, will give a public lecture titled "Satellite Communication and the Third World in the 21st Century" at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 5, in Kresge Auditorium. The event is sponsored by the Ethiopian Student Union on campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Samara, who holds a law degree from Georgetown University and a bachelor's degree in Renaissance history from UCLA, has set a goal of providing international digital satellite audio broadcasting service to the Third World. WorldSpace, with its subsidiaries, has obtained licenses to provide digital broadcast services to Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. Its first satellite, AfriStar, was launched into geo-stationary orbit 22,300 miles above central Africa on Oct. 28, 1998, with three beams delivering more than 50 channels of audio and multimedia content directly to portable receivers. International news and music, talk and other formats are broadcast in English, French and other languages. AfriStar serves Africa and the Middle East.

Next year Samara plans to launch AsiaStar and AmeriStar, which will serve Asia and Latin America. He projects that in full operation, WorldSpace will reach 4.6 billion people.

Samara's visit is cosponsored by 14 student groups and departments on campus, including the Associated Students, the Dean of Students Office, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Bechtel International Center, the Center for African Studies, the Stanford African Students Association and the Black Student Union.

"It has been an extraordinary collaborative effort," says Abel Bogale, president of the Ethiopian Student Union. "We are very much encouraged." SR