From Classroom to Community – the official podcast of the Signal to Soar campaign, underwritten by Hughes, an Echostar company – shines a spotlight on the tremendous difference connectivity can make for schools, especially those isolated by terrain and other factors, and how connectivity via satellite transforms the communities that surround those schools. When a remote school connects for the first time, everything changes. Students gain access to global knowledge, and teachers tap into new tools. Families and communities begin to share in the benefits. In the first episode of our series, we hear more on this topic from Germán Otálora, Director of Microsoft's Airband Program for Latin America.

Germán Otálora is the Director of Microsoft's Airband Program for Latin America, a role in which he dedicates most of his time to building partnerships between the public and private sectors, NGOs, and academia to bring purposeful connectivity to underserved rural communities across the region. He joined Microsoft in 2015 after a successful career in consulting, working for multinational firms such as PwC, where he led a team of over 30 consultants.

As an avid traveler, Germán is well-acquainted with the economic and social realities of rural Latin America and has received several awards and recognitions for his hard work and dedication to connecting the unconnected.

Germán holds a degree in Industrial Design (2001) and an MBA (2015) from Universidad de Los Andes. He currently lives in Bogotá, Colombia, with his wife, two children, and their Boston Terrier named Lupita.