<<February 27, 2000>>
Dena S. Puskin, Sc.D. <dpuskin@hrsa.gov>
Ben I. Haraguchi <haragucb@arentfox.com>
Kimberly K. Obbink <kobbink@montana.edu>
Mr. Myron Nordquist <myron_nordquist@burns.senate.gov>
Dear Dena:
==========
(1) It was my great pleasure to speak with you again over the
phone, after
we met at the International Consultation Conference on TeleHealth
and
TeleMedicine at the WHO in Geneva last month.
(2) As described in Geneva and during yesterday's phone conversation,
we are
forging ahead to initiate a project to connect Native American
and
Canadian communities with broadband wireless and satellite Internet,
for
tele-education and tele-health/tele-medicine. The communities
are
located in Arizona, Montana and Calgary.
The mission statement of this project can be found at;
2. Click "FINAL REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE",
You may also enjoy the photos of our Tampere event as
clicking Roger Boston's web site, too.
3. Click "North America Group" in PART II, which comes to;
Pls also go to "Native American and Canadian Community
Project -
February 11, 2000" at <http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve/global-univ-2000.html>.
(3) We are very grateful for your provision of time from 9:30
am to 10:30 am
of March 3rd at your office for our describing this project to
your people.
The parties who will visit you are;
(a) Ben Haraguchi,
(b) Someone from Senator Burns' office, and
(c) me.
Pls fax the direction how to get to your office tomorrow morning,
to
Ben, Myron, and me.
Kim and Myron will talk tomorrow morning to select someone
from
Senator Burns' office.
(4) During our phone conversation with you, you suggested that
we should
check if there is already similar projects for Native American
communities. Kim told me that she has never heard of such a project
in
Montana which utilizes broadband Internet.
(5) Niches of our project are;
(a) The packet-switching technology of Internet is to "share"
valuable
telecom media. We expand this concept of "sharing" as
utilizing
broadband Internet for both tele-education and tele-health and
-medicine.
In this way, we hope our project will be self-sustainable even after federal funds
are over, since each of them cannot be cost-effective alone.
(b) By utilizing broadband Internet, we can leapfrog various
conventional telecom media, combining and integrating them,
e.g., audio, fax, email, video, etc., etc., thus reducing telecom
cost, and hence to bring self-sustainability.
Our approach is community development with non-profit organizations
(education, health, library, local government, etc.) in the initial
phase and later with commercial firms' involvements to subsidize
telecom
infrastructure for K-12 schools' connections.
We hope that a local higher educational institution with a
broadband
Internet downlinking earth station becomes a major Internet Service
Provider (ISP) in their locality so that the institution can also
provide technical services and teacher training to nearby secondary
and
K-12 schools, and others.
This project would also be an ideal test bed for our Global
University System project (see below), i.e., the tested telecom
technologies there can be transferred to many developing countries.
(6) Kim's BTC is to raise $6 million for the fiscal year 2001
($3 million
from federal appropriation, $3 million from other sources -- $0.5
million has already been pledged (not received yet) by CitiCorp
which
can be used for international project, e.g., Canadian's involvement).
(7) Parties which are interested in this project are;
(a) Burns Telecommunications Center and Extended Studies
Montana State University/Bozeman
(b) Senator Burns' office,
(c) Arizona State University West/Glendale
They are to construct a web site for Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ.
(d) Phelps-Stokes Fund/New York
(e) Dr. Ronald A. Wells/Connecticut
Former board member of Phelps-Stokes Fund and worked many
years on Native American issues; knows presidents of almost
a half of the tribal colleges.
(f) Foundation for the Support of the United Nations (FSUN) in New York
(g) GLOSAS/USA in New York
(h) Global University System in Tampere, Finland
(i) University of Calgary
Continuing Education and Community Health Services
(j) Glenbow museum/Calgary
(k) Health Canada/Ottawa
Dr. Hannah of the University of Calgary whom we met at the
WHO introduced this project to them.
(l) First Nations and Inuit Health Programs/Ottawa, Canada
Health Canada then introduced to this organization.
(m) Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT)/Ottawa
(n) A Canadian friend of Allyn J Radford in Melbourne, Australia
We plan to hold a workshop with them in the near future at
which time we
can figure out the scope of this project, plan on the feasibility
study
and system design of the infrastructure, action plan, etc.
(8) FYI, we are now forging ahead to establish a Global University
System
with global broadband Internet which are to be financed with Global
Service Trust Fund (GSTF). Pls visit following URLs for more
information;
(a) Global University System:
<http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/asia-pacific/index.html>,
(b) global broadband Internet:
(c) Global Service Trust Fund (GSTF):
<http://www.informatics.org/clarke/projects.html>.
We intend to construct a global private virtual network (PVN)
of
broadband Internet among non-profit institutions of education
and
medical fields in the initial phase (*), with the GSTF which will
be
collected from the Official Development Assistant (ODA) funds
of G7 (or
OECD) countries. However, in due course, it will need to be opened
to
commercial fields in order to have self-sustainability, by having
profit-oriented organizations subsidizing the K-12's accessing
the broadband
Internet in the later stage of the development -- as the US Universal
Service Fund is now doing or the case of the US St. Thomas Island
with
the support of its governor with medical background.
(*) the predecessors are PEACESAT of the University of Hawaii
and
USPNet of the University of the South Pacific in Fiji.
(9) Those projects were discussed during our International
Workshop/Conference on Emerging Global Electronic Distance Learning
(EGEDL)," August 9th - 13th, 1999, University of Tampere,
Finland
<http://www.uta.fi/EGEDL/>.
Pls click Roger Boston's web in the home page of this site.
Then, click
August 9 in the left column.
You can then click Telemedicine1 and Telemedicine2 at the top
of the
right-hand side column to view video clipping of our echocardiograph
demonstration with Presbyterian Hospital of Columbia University
in New
York with PictureTel via ISDN at 384 Kbps.
In this home page, pls also click "FINAL REPORT OF THE
CONFERENCE."
Then go to "IV. Compilation of comments:" in PART I.
Then click Shin
Takuma on October 8th. You can then find Dr. Takuma's (Presbyterian
Hospital) report of this demonstration.
In PART II of this final report, you can also find drafts of
pilot
project proposals by groups in Asia-Pacific, North America,
Central America, Amazonas, European and African regions.
We will hold a mini-workshop in Manaus/Amazona on May 31, June
1
and 2. The telepresence demonstration with echocardiography will
be performed at the workshop by the Presbyterian Hospital of
Columbia University in New York. The echocardiograph image of
a
patient on a tread mill in Manaus will be sent to the Presbyterian
Hospital for diagnosis, as we did during our Tampere event in
Finland last August. However, this time, the 3D image of his
heart will also be constructed as an upgraded feature, which can
be cut into a half to examine its inside. The images will be
disseminated to the participants around the world via ISDN and
Internet.
<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Pantheon/7197/global-univ-2000/2-8-a.html>
BTW, this workshop in Manaus will have participants from;
1. Pan American Health Organization (PAHO),
2. UNAMAZ (a consortium of universities in 8 countries in Amazon area),
3. PanAmerican Federation of Associations of Medical Schools
(a
consortium of medical schools in Latin America),
4. University of Amazonas,
5. local TV station, etc.,
6. University of Tennessee/Knoxville,
7. Columbia University, etc.
(10) Looking forward to meeting with you again soon,
Best, Tak
Return to Global University System Early 2000 Correspondence
****************************************
List of Distribution
Dena S. Puskin, Sc.D.
Director, Office for the Advancement of Telehealth
Deputy Director, US Public Health Service
Office of Rural Health Policy, Room 905
Health Resources and Services Adiministration
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20857
USA
Tel: 1 301 443 0447
Fax: 1 301 443 1330
dpuskin@hrsa.gov
dpushkin@hrsa.gov
http://telehealth.hrsa.gov
Ben I. Haraguchi
President
Foundation for the Support of the United Nations (FSUN)
809 United Nations Plaza, Suite 1200
New York, NY 10017
USA
Tel: +1-212-986 8114
Fax: +1-212-986 8131
haragucb@arentfox.com
bharaguchi@fsun.org
http://www.fsun.org
Kimberly K. Obbink
Director
Burns Telecommunications Center and Extended Studies
128 EPS Building,
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59717-3860
USA
Tel: +1-406-994 6550
Fax: +1-406-994 7856
kobbink@montana.edu
http://btc.montana.edu
Mr. Myron Nordquist
Legislative Counsel
U.S. Senator Conrad Burns' Office
187 Dirksen Senate Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-2603
202-224-6808
Fax: 202-224-8594
Cell: 301-646-8153
myron_nordquist@burns.senate.gov
http://www.senate.gov/~burns/
804-924-7573 -- at the U. of VA.
Fax: 804-982-2622 -- at the U. of VA.
**********************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., 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 Emeritus and V.P. for Technology and Coordination
of *
* Global University System (GUS) *
* 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://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/ *
**********************************************************************