hey say you have to give in order to receive. Regardless of size, the first earning of the day of Easy Link Cyber Caf? in Thamel goes to a fund that provides scholarships to needy students from Rampur, Palpa. This may be why Nepal's first cybercafe survives even in the face of heavy competition. The fund currently supports ten students.

The man behind it is Mahendra Poudyal, who is also from Rampur. He started Easy Link Cyber Cafe with two 486s in 1996, when the internet was still a mythical figure in Nepal. Poudyal, who received his degree in computer science in India in 1988, had until then been a teacher at computer institutes in Kathmandu. He wanted to do something different and innovative, and decided to experiment with running a cybercafe, something he had seen on his travels abroad. He was such a success that scores of internet cafes popped up in Thamel in his wake. Easy Link now has 27 PCs, which it upgrades regularly.

Mahendra is serious about his job. He spends about 16-18 hours on the net everyday and even his elder son who is just in class eight is already starting to build web pages. But Easy Link is not Poudyal's only project. One of the first websites on Nepal, www.visitnepal.com was his creation. The website was in operation even before Visit Nepal Year 1998, and became a vital component of its marketing on the net. The site disseminates diverse information about Nepal, though the main focus is on the travel trade sector. Although the site got little support from the government's side, Mahendra still went on with it. "People thought it was the official site because we had so much information there and we tried our best to answer their queries," says Poudyal, who likes to do his bit for the country. Today he also has a web design firm called Visit Nepal Network.
Poudyal who is innovative by nature is sceptical about the current mushrooming of cybercafes in town, especially in Thamel. "The unlimited internet access provided by ISPs has made things even more difficult for the already saturated cybercafe market."

Poudyal, of course, already has another trick up his sleeve. He will soon be starting Nepal's first tele-marketing operations which will provide real-time service and an easily accessible call centre. "It's not necessary to go abroad to make money. You can earn a decent living in Nepal too, you just have to think," says Poudyal. He knows that all right.