The following might be interesting ..
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 16:12:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tak Utsumi <utsumi@solar.cini.utk.edu>
Subject: Program of GLH from Manaus, Amazona, Brazil.
Dear Electronic Colleagues:
(1) Attached is the program of our "Global Lecture Hall" (GLH)
videoconference, which is now being organized by Dr. Alexandre
Rivas of Fundaá o Get£lio Vargas/ISAE in Manaus, Amazona, Brazil.
This event will be aired in the evening of October 21st via AMAZONSAT
throughout South America and via Internet throughout the world.
We are now preparing to have NetMeeting, CU-SeeMe and web
broadcasting, via the Internet, with panelists at various locations,
e.g, Tokyo, Finland, Houston, Washington, D.C., etc.
(2) The world renowned panelists will present their talks, e.g., Professor
Tapio Varis of the University of Tampere in Finland (a former Rector
of the U.N. University of Peace in Costa Rica), Dr. Peter Knight (a
former echelon of the World Bank) and many others.
(3) The major presentation will be made by Professor Takahiro Kiuchi of
the University of Tokyo and Mr. Yasutaka Onuma of Space Communication
Corporation (one of the Mitsubishi family companies) from Tokyo via
Internet. This presentation is about the "Medical Information Network
by Communication Satellite for University Hospital (MINCS-UH)," which
connects about a dozen university hospitals around Japan via two-way,
broadband (45 Mbps) digital satellite with HDTV for high resolution
medical image transfer.
Dr. Rivas and other organizing committee hope that this presentation
will stimulate the interest of viewers and hence will subsequently
lead to the installation of similar networks around South, Central
and North America so that the advanced telemedicine and telelearning
services can be provided to the people in remote areas of those
regions from North America and Japan (and later, vice versa). Our
Japanese colleagues are now investigating the technical feasibility
of making this network as the backbone of broadband Internet.
(4) Professor Varis will also talk about an epoch-making meeting on
"Emerging Global Electronic Distance Education." This will be held
at his University of Tampere in Finland next year with the funds
from the World Bank and Soros Foundation, etc. -- see
<http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/GLOSAS/Tampere_Conference/Executive_Summary/
Executive_Summary.html>.
The deployment of broadband Internet obviously requires huge funds.
The major subject of this forth coming meeting is to establish the
"Global Service Trust Fund (GSTF)" with the Official Development
Assistant (ODA) funds of G7 countries which is to finance the
installation of the aforementioned networks in global scale,
especially for the "have-not" developing countries -- see
<http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/GLOSAS/Tampere_Conference/GSTF/GSTF.html>.
(5) Since early 1970s we have been devoting our activities for the
extension of the U.S. packet-switching networks (e.g., ARPANET, a
predecessor to Internet) to overseas countries, particulary to Japan,
and the de-regulation of the Japanese telecommunication policies for
the use of e-mail which have been emulated in many other countries
(now 80 countries with Internet access and 180 with e-mail access).
Out of the experiences of many of our GLH multipoint-to-multipoint,
interactive, multimedia videoconferencings since 1986, the current
direction of our activities is to extend the U.S. Internet to
particularly "have-not" countries with broadband (45 Mbps) wireless
Internet -- see
<http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/GLOSAS/Tampere_Conference/Outline_of_Events/
Outline_of_Events.html>.
We hope that this GLH from Manaus will kickoff the movement for
establishing global broadband wireless Internet as the second stage
development in the use of Internet, thus eliminating congestion
problems for web teaching with 3D animation and virtual reality,
Internet telephony, web broadcasting and videoconferencing, medical
diagnostic quality image transfer with high-definition TV, etc.,
with less cost.
(6) We have already briefed the above projects to the Japanese
Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Deputy Minister of Posts and
Telecommunications and a candidate for the Director General of
the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Director General
of the National Center for Science Information System (NACSIS) of
the Japanese Ministry of Education, Chairman of the Internet
Association of Japan and many other Japanese colleagues, and
received their strong support and encouragements.
(7) Please enjoy viewing the GLH videoconferencing either via AMAZONSAT
or RAT local TV broadcasting, or the Internet.
Best, Tak
**********************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA *
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.) *
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education *
* Founder of CAADE *
* (Consortium for Affordable and Accessible Distance Education) *
* President, Global University in the U.S.A. (GU/USA) *
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998, U.S.A. *
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Fax: 718-939-0656 (day time only--prefer email) *
* Email: utsumi@columbia.edu; Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676 *
* http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/GLOSAS/ *
**********************************************************************
-- happy trails .. Stephen Loosley