GSTF Presentation at the Sir Arthur C. Clarke CITI Founder's Conference

<<February 6, 2000>>

Dr. Joseph N. Pelton <ecjpelton@aol.com>

Peter T. Knight <ptknight@attglobal.net>

Francis J. Method <unesco1@cais.com>

Salah H. Mandil <mandils@who.ch>

Ellie Alavi <ealavi@worldbank.org>

Mr. Jim Miller <jimmsl@aol.com>

Mr. Uri Bar-Zemer <Uri@ids.net>

Dr. Ihor Bogdan Katerniak <ik@litech.net>

Dear Joe:
=========

(1) I fully enjoyed attending the Founder's Conference of the Clarke
Institute for Telecommunications and Information (CITI) at INTELSAT
headquarters in Washington, D.C. on 2/5th.

It was certainly a very impressive, interesting and exciting occasion with
the greetings by Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Mr. Walter Cronkite, etc., and
also with the presentations of many prominent delegates.

Dear Peter and Frank:
=====================

(2) I greatly appreciated your effort on the refinement of the synopsis of
our Global Service Trust Fund (GSTF).

Dear Electronic Colleagues:
===========================

ATTACHMENT I below is the final version of the synopsis of the GSTF
project which was distributed at the conference. This will appear soon
at the web site of the CITI.

Dear Salah:
==========

Rejoice, thing are starting to move!! You may recall you worked on the
composition of the original synopsis of this project a few years back!!

Dear Joe, Peter and Frank:
==========================

(3) I am very grateful that you are now willing to forge ahead this project
under the auspices of the CITI.

Dear Ellie:
===========

(4) You may include this in your InfoDev web site, since this is the
extension of our Tampere event which your InfoDev financed, as mentioned
in the footnote.

Dear Jim and Uri:
=================

(5) It was my great pleasure to have met with you at Peter's house!! Our
dinner discussion with Frank, Peter and his wife was very inspiring!!

Dear Frank:
===========

Many thanks for your very interesting papers (ATTACHMENT II). I will try
to read them as soon as I get time.

Dear Uri:
=========

Your lamb stew was very tasty!!

Dear Ihor:
==========

(6) Very glad to have met you at the conference (ATTACHMENT III). Hope you
will continue a safe and pleasant trip to California before you go back to Ukraine.

Dear Tapio:
===========

(7) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT IV), and congratulations on your
successful talks with important people in Finland.

I hope that you can use your new office even after you incorporate GUS in Finland.

(8) As my previous listserve distributions have mentioned, we have the following three major projects:

(a) Establishment of the Global University System (GUS) with regional
groups in the Asia/Pacific, North, Central and South Americas, Europe, and Africa;

(b) Establishment of a global private virtual network of broadband Internet;

Our highly successful Tampere event last August raised
substantial momentum to start moving these projects in the right direction
now. I am very grateful for everybody's cooperation and effort.

Best, Tak
****************************************
ATTACHMENT I

Project to Create a
Global Service Trust Fund (GSTF)
for Tele-education and Tele-health

This proposal was prepared by a working group described in the footnote at the
end of this document. This paper is presented for discussion at the Founder's
Conference for the Sir Arthur Clarke Institute for Telecommunications and
Information (CITI) to be held at INTELSAT Headquarters on 5 February 2000.

Objective

Education and healthcare are basic needs, fundamental for human development.
The main goal of the proposed Coalition is to expand educational opportunities
and improve health in developing countries by enabling these countries to:
* Make full use of electronic distance education and telemedicine.
* Participate actively and fully in data-intensive and
media-intensive exchanges with both developed countries and other
developing countries.
* Participate interactively and fully in joint research,
professional development, and knowledge-building activities with
institutions and organizations in other countries.

To do this, steps must be taken to:
* Reduce the cost of broadband connectivity to a level poor
countries can afford.
* Create policy and regulatory frameworks conducive to the
development of sustainable distance education and telemedicine programs.
* Establish high-quality applications in sufficient developing
country sites to demonstrate technical feasibility, increase
demand, and build support for more extensive use of such
technologies in developing country contexts.

Ideally all countries would have access to free or low-cost broadband
connectivity and would have the technical capacity to make use of it for
improving education and healthcare. This assumes a number of favorable
economic outcomes as well as changes in policy and regulatory environments
supporting the effective use of these technologies.

This proposal takes a more limited objective: to make available sufficient
broad bandwidth at free or highly reduced cost to enable a significant number
of developing countries to undertake major new initiatives in distance
learning and telemedicine. The fund would support tele-education and
tele-health programming only through the provision of broad bandwidth, without
making any judgments about the content to be purveyed by specific projects.
This content could be in any language and from any source, subject only to the
telecommunications, education, and healthcare policy conditionality spelled
out below.

Background and Rationale

The Internet, with its rapidly expanding and improving infrastructure, will be
the main telecommunication media of tomorrow. It has been extended to most
countries, albeit with slow-to-medium speed in most developing countries, and
even in large parts of the developed world. But the full potential for
achieving revolutionary advances in education and healthcare in developing
countries cannot be realized with the currently available information delivery
infrastructure and at currently prevailing market prices.

Improved distance education requires much better ways of presenting
information and of enabling learners to interact with facilitators to enable
the learners to process that information into personal knowledge.

At present most electronic distance learning takes place rather limited
programming and delivery modes. Much of the instructional programming is
limited to text and simple graphics delivered over the web and/or through
email and its derivatives (electronic fora, bulletin boards, chat rooms). On
the other, there is "room-based" or desktop-based videoconferencing, usually
with relatively small groups involved and low production values so far as the
video and audio are concerned. Both techniques allow significant interaction,
but the quality of instruction can suffer from the lack of high-quality audio and video.

High-quality instruction is possible by broadcast television, with
multi-million dollar production budgets having been deployed to good effect in
some countries for example Annenberg/CBP in the US, BBC/Open University in
the UK, and The Roberto Marinho Foundation's Telecurso 2000 and Canal Futura
in Brazil. But there has been limited interactivity for these programs beyond
what is possible by telephone, fax and more recently email and its derivatives.

Narrow bandwidth and high telecommunications costs limit the use of streaming
video and audio on a large scale. Often telecommunications networks get
clogged even with heavy net use of more conventional kinds. Many audiences,
even in developing countries, are "spoiled" by commercial television with high
production values. Even for educational programming, these audiences do not
easily accept jerky movement, small windows, failing connections, and low
production values. The quality of tele-lectures, video inserts and the like
can only approximate the high production values of commercial television. As
for telemedicine, there is a proven need for high-definition moving images, or
at least extremely high-resolution still images for many applications. Even
with low-cost or free broadband connectivity between nations, the cost and
pricing structure of telecommunications in many developing countries keep the
cost of access to the Internet at prohibitive levels, and inappropriate policy
and regulatory frameworks do not encourage efficient use of those public
resources for education and healthcare.

In sum, what is needed is both high quality audio/video delivery and high
quality interactivity. A true revolution in distance learning and telemedicine
requires high-speed access to the World Wide Web, allowing the flexibility to
offer a variety of media. These might include two-way audio, full-motion
video-conferencing up to MPEG 2 quality, television-quality netcasting, and
high-resolution image transfer for tele-medicine. Such capabilities require
medium to broad bandwidth. Developing countries need broadband Internet via
international satellite and fiber-optic cable.

The revolution in education and healthcare in developing countries also
requires a more favorable policy environment not just for telecommunications
but also for education and healthcare. A key to bringing down prices to
affordable levels is to establish national and international competition or at
least flexibility in the provision of telecommunications, education, and
healthcare services. Also rapid transfer of knowledge from developed to
developing countries needs to be possible.

Finance and Organization

Deployment of this high-speed Internet for education and health applications
in developing countries would be financed with a Global Service Trust Fund
(GSTF) for tele-education and tele-health. The Fund might be modeled on the
Universal Service Fund of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, which
provides for discounts of 20-90% on a variety of telecommunications services
and equipment for schools and libraries.

Ideally, funding would be sufficient to eliminate the telecommunications cost
for qualified education and healthcare applications. A second solution might
be a subsidized International E-Rate akin to the "E-Rate" now benefiting
schools in the United States. A third option could be to begin with free
bandwidth, but raise it toward (expected to be declining) market prices in
gradual steps using the International E-Rate model.

Two separate contribution "funds" or "sources" would be established an
in-kind bandwidth transmission source and a financial assistance source. The
Coalition ideally would include a broad coalition of commercial and
governmental sources. These might include key international organizations such
as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the United Nations
Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), and the World
Health Organization (WHO). The Coalition would also include international
development banks, bilateral aid agencies, foundations, and companies
contributing to the Fund as well as organizations contributing education and
healthcare knowledge. The Fund could be administered in a variety of ways, but
it must have well organized, credible and financially scrupulous entity of
significant international standing in charge in the disbursement of funds.

The proposed Fund would be financed from a variety of public and private
sources, which could include:
* Overseas Development Assistance funds of countries belonging to
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
* Cash contributions from the profits of international financial
institutions such as the World Bank and the regional development banks.
* Cash contributions from foundations and companies.
* Contributions in kind from companies owning underused satellite
transponders and/or fiber optic cable. For these companies, the
marginal cost of making available underused existing bandwidth is
near zero, but providing it may build future markets for sale at
(declining) commercial prices.

The Fund's bandwidth source might be allocated through a variety of means that
might even include an auction process to organizers of distance education and
telemedicine projects in qualifying countries. The cash source might be used
for grants to fund access to bandwidth for such projects, with rules favoring
poorer countries and end beneficiaries, assuring a certain geographical
distribution of benefits between regions, and so forth. Grants might also
favor international knowledge sharing. All grants would be made through open
competitive process. These are only some preliminary ideas. The details,
including the establishment of a pilot version of the Fund to test operational
principles, need to be worked out during the next stage in proposal development.

Next Steps Recommendations of the Working Group

Establishing the Fund and Coalition requires a critical mass of global support
for these new organizations. The ability to mobilize financial and in-kind
resources for the Fund depends on the credibility of the membership of the
Coalition. That credibility would be furthered by early support from such key
international entities as commercial satellite and fiber optic service
providers, multi-national businesses, national governmental aid agencies,
foundations, and agencies of the United Nations such as the ITU, UNESCO, WHO,
the World Bank Group (including the International Finance Corporation), and
the regional development banks (African Development Bank, Asian Development
Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Inter-American
Development Bank). No legitimate agency of standing would be excluded from
participating. Creation of a preliminary coalition of participants to support
the "bandwidth source" as well as the "financial aid source" would be critical
to the initial testing of this concept.

To that end, the working group recommends that:

1. A more polished and developed draft of the proposal be put before
major international conferences in 2000. These would include the
Second International Global Knowledge Conference (GKII) to be held
in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 7-10 March 2000, and other international
conferences that follow that of the Founder's Conference of the
Clarke Institute for Telecommunications and Information.

2. An intensive effort be made to enlist the support of the
leadership of the key international institutions mentioned above,
facilitating the mobilization of bilateral aid agencies,
foundations, and multinational corporations.

3. Working groups on telecommunications policy conditionality,
education policy conditionality, healthcare policy conditionality,
and operational aspects of the Fund and the Coalition be convened
respectively by ITU, UNESCO, WHO, and the World Bank. These
working groups would include representatives of other interested
international organizations, bilateral aid agencies, companies,
foundations, and other NGOs, as well as of relevant information
and telecommunications industry organizations, e.g. the Global
Information Infrastructure Commission.

It is hoped that attendees at the CITI conference will be willing to offer
helpful comments concerning this paper either to Tak Utsumi, Peter Knight or
Joseph Pelton at the following e-mail addresses < utsumi@columbia.edu,
ptknight@attglobal.net, ecjpelton@aol.com.

It is further hoped that providers of satellite or fiber optic system capacity
would be willing to join in further working group discussions to shape the
framework for the "pilot version" of the GSTF for tele-education and tele-health.

_____________________

* The first draft of this proposal was developed by Dr. Takeshi Utsumi,
Chairman of the GLOSAS/USA and presented at the International Workshop and
Conference on Emerging Global Electronic Distance Learning (EGEDL'99) held
August 9th - 13th, 1999 at the University of Tampere, Finland. EGEDL was
sponsored by Alprint, the British Council. Finnair, Finnish Broadcasting
Company, Foundation for The Support of The United Nations (FSUN), Japanese
Medical Society of America, Ministry of Education Finland, Pan American Health
Organization (PAHO), PictureTel, Sonera, Soros Foundation/Open Society
Institute, United States Information Agency (USIA), United States National
Science Foundation, and the Information and Development Program (infoDev)
administered by the World Bank. The conference conclusions included a
recommendation to work for the establishment of the Fund and the Coalition.
Subsequently a working group was formed at a meeting held at the Pan American
Health Organization to further develop the proposal and include policy
conditionality. This proposal was prepared by that working group composed of
Peter Knight (Knight-Moore Telematics/CDI), Frank Method (UNESCO), and Lane
Smith (USAID). Helpful comments were received from Carlos Braga and Michael
Moore. Joseph Pelton. and Bruce Ross-Larson provided editorial assistance and
revisions to adapt this paper to a format common to the project proposals
being considered by the Founder's Conference of the Clarke Insitute for
Telecommunications and Information.
****************************************
ATTACHMENT II

Collection of articles, from Frank Method

Kotulak, Ronald, (Science Writer, Chicago Tribune), Learning How to Use the Brain," <http://www.newhorizons.org/ofc_21cliusebrain.html>;

NASH, J. MADELEINE, FERTILE MINDS,"
<http://www.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1997/dom/970203/cover0.html>;

Dickinson, Dee, Questions to Neuroscientists from Educators,"
<http://www.newhorizons.org/blab_dickinson.htm>;

Diamond, Marian Cleeves, The Brain . . . Use It or Lose It,"
<http://www.newhorizons.org/blab_diamond2.html>;

Tallal, Paula, Language Learning Impairment: Intregrating Research and Remediation,"
<http://www.newhorizons.org/blab_tallal1.html>;

Pycha, Anne, How Do We Learn Language?"
<http://www.brainconnection.com/BC/BC_GetPage.pl?pid=Nh_NW_Dir/v1n3/pycha_finding.html> and
<http://www.brainconnection.com/BC/BC_GetPage.pl?pid=Nh_NW_Dir/v1n3/pycha_finding3.html>

A "Living Laboratory"
<http://www.brainconnection.com/BC/BC_GetPage.pl?pid=Nh_NW_Dir/v1n2/chudler2.html>;

Chudler, Eric H., Neuroscience Education: Exploring the Inner Unknown,"
<http://www.brainconnection.com/BC/BC_GetPage.pl?pid=Nh_NW_Dir/v1n2/chudler.html>;

Cognitive Sciences Collection,"
<http://williamcalvin.com/bookshelf/cogsci.htm>.
****************************************
ATTACHMENT III

Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2000 17:59:21 +0200
From: Ihor Katernyak <katernyak@lim.lviv.ua>
To: jpelton@SEAS.GWU.EDU
Cc: ik@litech.net, utsumi@columbia.edu, peter@knight-moore.com,
ggamota@erols.com

Dear Joseph,
It was a pleasure to meet you at the conference today (Saturday). This was a
good opportunity for me to meet old friends like Tak Utsumi and to make
contacts with new people. For example, I met Peter Knight (about whom I knew
from his website).
It was a thrill to meet you and learn about the future plans of The Clarke
Institute for Telecommunications and Information. I believe that the idea for
the Global Trust Fund for Tele-education has a bright future, and I can see it
being very effective in a country like Ukraine.
I was also pleased to learn that George Gamota is a mutual friend. I look
forward to working with you on future endeavors. If you every would need any
of my assistance, please do not hesitate to write.
Yours truly,Ihor

Quoting "Joseph N. Pelton" <jpelton@SEAS.GWU.EDU>:

> Dear Ihor: I have only seen your e-mail today. This was due to a
> transfer of e-mail systems at my university in which I lost over 1 week
> of incoming messages. We can register you for the conference at no
> charge but we have no travel monies. Tak Utsumi will do a report after
> the Clarke Institute meeting. Best regards. Joe Pelton
========================================
<<February 6, 2000>> Rest removed by T. Utsumi,
========================================
****************************************
ATTACHMENT IV

Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2000 10:24:56 +0000
To: utsumi@columbia.edu
From: Tapio Varis <tapio.varis@uta.fi>
Subject: GUS activities in Hameenlinna

Dear Tak,

Following my briefings with the Members of the Parliament and the following day
with the Minister of Education we plan now to create a Digital Learning
Laboratory in Hamenlinna (similar to the Hypermedia lab in Tampere). It would
combine the University of Tampere campus there, Polytechnic of the Hame
Region, the City of Hameenlinna, and private businesses and corporations.
Global University System would be one independent part of the consortium.
We would have an office and technical staff for financial administration,
for example, and all options to grow even separate if we wish. If I
register GUS now as an independent corporation or institute I would need bylaws
and annual controls in the Finnish language. We may consider any improvement
to my plans but at this stage I feel very satisfied with this. Regards,
Tapio
****************************************
List of Distribution

Dr. Joseph N. Pelton
Senior Research Scientist
Institute for Applied Space Research, Rm 340
George Washington University
2033 K Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20052
202-994-5507
Fax: 202-994-5505
ecjpelton@aol.com
jpelton@seas.gwu.edu

Peter T. Knight
Knight, Moore - Telematics for Education and Development
Communications Development Incorporated (CDI)
Strategy, Policy, Design, Implementation, Evaluation
1825 Eye Street, NW, Suite 1075
Washington, DC 20006, USA
Tel: 1-202-775-2132 (secretary), 1-202-721-0348 (direct)
Fax: 1-202-775-2135 (office), 1-202-362-8482 (home)
ptknight@attglobal.net
webmail: ptknight@netscape.net
http://www.knight-moore.com
http://www.cdinet.com
IP for CU-SeeMe: 198.77.80.46
http://www.knight-moore.com/projects/projectsindex.htm -- about GSTF
http://www.unesco.org/webworld/future/docs_2000/knight.html -- about GSTF

Francis J. Method
Director, UNESCO-Washington
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
1775 K St. N.W.
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: (1) 202-331-3755
Fax: (1) 202-331-9121
unesco1@cais.com

Salah H. Mandil, Ph.D.
Director-Advisor on Informatics
World Health Organization
20, Avenue Appia
CH-1211 Geneva 27
SWITZERLAND
+41-22-791-2426 (direct)
+41-22-791-2111
Fax: +41-22-791-4702
mandils@who.ch

Ellie Alavi
Information for Development Program (infoDev)
The World Bank, F5P-152
1818 H Street NW
Washington, DC 20433 USA
Tel: + 202-458-7715
Fax: + 202-522-3186
Email: ealavi@worldbank.org
Web: http://www.worldbank.org/infodev

Mr. Jim Miller
President
SYNECTICS, Ltd.
2 Nickerson Street, Suite 100
Seattle, WA 98109-1652
206-283-9420
206-283-4136
Mobile: 206-619-2144
Fax: 206-283-4538
Paging: 206-955-1036
ShareVision: 206-283-4538 (call 206-283-9420 first)
ISDN Equipped - 206-218-0027/8 (call 206-283-9420 first)
jimmsl@aol.com
jwm@synecticsltd.com
http://synecticsltd.com
E-Rate SPIN - 143004591
74640.2214@compuserve.com

Mr. Uri Bar-Zemer
48 Montague St.
Providence RI 02906
Phone/fax: 401 272 0305
Uri@ids.net

Dr. Ihor Bogdan Katerniak
Director
Lviv Institute of Management-LIM
Technology Promotion Center
57 V.Chornovil Ave.
Lviv 79601
UKRAINE
Tel: +380-322-52 2681
Fax: +380 322-52 2682
Fax: +380-322-52 4463
ik@litech.net
tpc@lim.lviv.ua
http://www.lim.lviv.ua/
http://www.uar.net/conference/
http://www.lim.lviv.ua/english/de/
**********************************************************************
* 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 *
* Laureate of Planet Earth Pathfinder Award *
* 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://friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/ *
**********************************************************************

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