Born 17 March 1948 in Tulsa, Oklahoma (USA), Daniel Stern graduated from the University of Houston in 1980. Between 1982 and 1993 he managed a project that introduced multimedia didactic materials to international schools in Europe, demonstrating from 1985 how personal computers could be used to enhance education.

A meeting with officials from Uganda's education ministry, together with the advent of Internet technologies led to his starting the Uganda Connectivity Project in 1995, otherwise known as Uganda Connect, or Uconnect. Uconnect installed the local area network for Uganda's Ministry of Education and Sports headquarters in 2000, connecting most of the higher officials to the Internet and training officials in its use. 

He started the Uconnect Schools Project to provide computer labs at mostly rural primary and secondary schools in Uganda, connecting schools to the Internet by a variety of technologies, including GSM data, microwave spread spectrum, fibre optic and satellite. His NGO distributes mostly recycled Pentium computers to schools for a modest fee that allows Uconnect to continue to purchase and ship additional equipment for the expansion of the schools network. The overriding aim is that the project should be sustainable, scalable and reproducible: schools provide their own transport for taking delivery of equipment; students and teachers are trained at Uconnect workshops at education ministry headquarters for installing their own local area networks; and computer labs are opened to the parents and community after school hours on a fee-paying basis as schools-based telecentres. His NGO's train-the-trainer programme has demonstrated that training the indigenous youth is a key component in the successful expansion of any such project, and that their supervision and training can be done remotely through Internet technologies.

Mr. Stern was a founder member of the Geneva Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC) and Special Interest Group for Developing Countries (DevSIG). He helped to establish the Uganda Internet Exchange Point (UIXP), and is a member of the Ipv6 Taskforce. He is a steering committee member for a number of development projects.