Dr. David A. Johnson, AICP <daj@utk.edu>
Dr. Gayle D. Cooper <gcooper@knoxville-notes.ips.utk.edu>
Alexandre Rivas, Ph.D. <alex_mau@argo.com.br>
Dear David:
===========
(1) Albeit rather long, I hope this will do the job.
(2) In my following msg, I will send you
its ClarisWorks version with the
letter head of our GLOSAS/USA.
Best, Tak
****************************************
TM
April 6, 2000
To Whom It May Concerned:
This letter supports the travel grant application
which the University of
Tennessee/Knoxville (UTK) is now submitting to
the US National Science
Foundation (NSF). This travel grant is
to enable Americans to attend the
epoch-making international interactive workshop
and conference on "Technology
and Distance Education for Sustainable Development
of the Amazonia" in Manaus,
Amazona, Brazil from May 31st to June 2, 2000.
The reasons of our support are followings in chronological order:
1. GLH from UTK in July of 1994:
By the kind invitation of Professor David Johnson
of UTK, we held a Global
Lecture Hall (GLH)" multipoint-to-multipoint,
multimedia, interactive
videoconferencing from the UTK. It connected
several universities around the
US and with an international conference on distance
learning in Moscow,
Russia, with the use of Plain Old Telephone Service
(POTS) and ShareVision on
desktop computers, ISDN with videoconferencing
units, and analog satellites.
One of the highlights of this event was the first
public introduction of
Friends-Partners" program in cooperation
of its founders at the UTK and in
Moscow. Sun Microsystems kindly donated
its Solaris software to the Russian
counterpart at this occasion. Thanks to
their subsequent effort, the program
received a substantial fund from the NSF for
their establishing MirNet, a
broadband Internet connection between the UTK
and Moscow, Russia.
Dr. Gayle D. Cooper (PI of this application) and
Dr. Alexandre Rivas (then a
graduate student at the UTK and the General Chairman
of the Manaus workshop)
witnessed its highly successful conduct.
2. GLH from Manaus in October, 1998:
Dr. Rivas invited me to conduct a GLH from Manaus
in October, 1998 to enact a
similar one as he saw at the UTK. This
was at the occasion of the conference
on New Technologies and Distance Education."
It was an extraordinary
historical event in the middle of rain forest
Jungle, with panelists located
from Tokyo, Japan to Lviv, Ukraine, spanning
almost 18 time zones.
Tokyo team presented Medical Information Network
by Communication Satellite
for University Hospitals (MINCS-UH) which connects
about thirty hospitals
around Japan with two-way, broadband digital
satellite channels for medical
diagnosis with HDTV -- return for question uses
C-band analog channel
simultaneously.
Ukrainian team demonstrated the cutting-edge audio/video
streaming technology
via Internet to those Amazonians, in spite of
mere 1.5 Mbps Internet linkage
from Lviv to Warsaw, Poland. Amazonians
also broadcasted the video of our
event via Internet throughout the world.
The most significant finding at this event was
the clear audio of NetMeeting
videoconferencing on distance learning from Houston
Community College via mere
56 Kbps Internet line. This was thanks
to EMBRATEL's installing four of 34
Mbps digital satellite channels between the US
and Brazil -- in the previous
year, my test use of Internet telephony from
Florianopolis, Brazil was
complete failure, though there were 15 lines
of 2 Mbps Internet connections
between Brazil to the north America.
The above hard track experiences prompted us to
emulate NSF's program of
extending broadband Internet to overseas countries
(e.g., MirNet, etc.) with
advanced global broadband wireless and satellite
Internet with Global Service
Trust Fund (GSTF) which is an emulation of the
Universal Service Fund of the
US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
3. Tampere workshop and conference:
We then held a highly successful International
Workshop and Conference on
"Emerging Global Electronic Distance Learning
(EGEDL/'99)" from August 9th to
13th at the University of Tampere in Finland,
with financial support from the
World Bank, the NSF, USIA, British Council, Soros
Foundation, Finnish Ministry
of Education, etc. -- see <http://www.uta.fi/EGEDL>
for the compilation of the
conference materials.
This event brought together approximately 60 education
professionals,
decision-makers and leaders in distance learning
and telemedicine from 14
nations. They discussed practical ways
to establish a Global University
System (GUS) with prominent groups in the major
regions of the globe, e.g.,
Asia-Pacific, North/Central/South Americas, Europe
and Africa. The GUS is to
harness the emerging technologies to provide
learners of all ages with
affordable global distance learning across national
and cultural boundaries.
We subsequently invited Dr. Rivas to participate
in this event who then
submitted us his draft pilot project proposal
for the international distance
learning and telehealth/telemedicine.
4. Manaus mini-workshop:
Thanks to the introduction of UNAMAZ (a consortium
of 77 universities in 8
Amazonian countries) to Dr. Rivas by Dr. Marco
Antonio Dias (Former Director,
Division of Higher Education of UNESCO and one
of our board members), Dr.
Rivas and UNAMAZ officials decided to pursue
the proposed pilot project
further.
They are now committed to succeed this event as
the first example to other
regional activities. We also intend to
make this occasion for securing close
partnership between universities in Amazon areas
and the universities of the
Tennessee Virtual University System and in the
US to ensure students'
learnability. This partnership will not
only initiate export of US distance
learning courses and telemedicine services, but
also will be the educational
exchange among them in the near future -- i.e.,
"the 21st century version of
the Fulbright exchange program."
I am certain that the above historical backgrounds
warrant the NSF's granting
the requesting travel funds.
Sincerely yours,
Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D.
Vice President for Technology and Coordination
Global University System
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
****************************************
List of Distribution
Dr. David A. Johnson, AICP
Board member of GLOSAS/USA
Former President of Fulbright Association
Professor Emeritus, School of Planning
College of Arts and Sciences
University of Tenneseee
108-I Hoskins Library
Knoxville, TN 37996-4015
USA
Tel: +1-423-974 5227
Fax: +1-423-974 5229
daj@utk.edu
davidj@buncombe.main.nc.us
http://web.utk.edu/~djohnutk/
Dr. Gayle D. Cooper
Associate Vice President
Statewide Continuing Education
Public Service and Continuing Education
The University of Tennessee
Suite 109 Student Services and Administration
Building
Knoxville, TN 37996-0212
423-974-6622
Fax: 423-974-9014
gcooper@knoxville-notes.ips.utk.edu
gcooper@utk.edu
Alexandre Rivas, Ph.D.
Adjunct Professor
Director of the Center for Environmental Sciences
University of Amazonas - Brazil
C.P. 4208, Manaus 69053-140
BRAZIL
+55-92-644 23 22
Fax: +55-92-644 23 84
alex_mau@argo.com.br
http://www.argo.com.br/~alex_mau/alex.htm
http://www.argo.com.br/~alex_mau/workshop/workshop.htm
**********************************************************************
* 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/
*
**********************************************************************
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