Mr Mahabir Pun spent more than a decade providing wireless Internet services to villages which had lacked even a telephone service, opening up access to education, commerce and health care.

"I am a strong advocate of a free Internet, I want the Internet to be available to people living under the poverty line," Mr Pun told AFP in an interview in Hong Kong, where the Internet Hall of Fame held its annual awards ceremony on Tuesday.

Mr Pun was inspired by the Internet in the US, where he studied for university in the early 1990s, and was able to connect his native village of Nangi using television dishes and homemade antennas in 2002.