Paul English, the cofounder of travel search engine Kayak.com, wants to blanket all of Africa with free and low-cost Wi-Fi. Its a big, big project, one that will consume the next decade of his life, English tells FastCompany.com.

JoinAfrica aims to bring a world of information to a continent whose population only has 8.7% Internet penetration right now. At the core of JoinAfrica is the belief that providing basic Internet is as essential to society as clean water and clean power.

English plans to kick off the nonprofit/for-profit hybrid this summer and begin creating partnerships between JoinAfrica and local African for-profit telcos. JoinAfrica would first branch out existing Web connections in villages using, for example, simple WiMAC hubs. Through these hubs, JoinAfrica would provide residents with free basic Web service, including access to email, Google, Wikipedia, and various news sources. Downloads of data-rich video, porn, or other non-essential sites would be limited (similar to what libraries in the U.S. do now), via a process called bandwidth shaping. Local for-profits would charge for upgraded access and faster connection speeds, and English is also searching for ways to make sure these local companies continuously improve the service and lay more fiber.

I want this to be completely self-sustaining, he says.

From his home in Boston, English says hes already bought satellite dishes and other gear and helped hook up villages in a number of African countries over the past decade, from Burundi to Uganda and Malawi to Zambia. Having email and Skype has been transformative for the handful of villages Ive worked in, he says. He cites the example of a doctor who, unable to diagnose a patients rash, was able to take a photograph of it, email it to a doctor in Boston, and then communicate online to find a cureturns out the mystery rash needed immediate treatment.