Dr. Dalia Moawad <dmoawad@ritsec2.com.eg>

Dr. Gayle D. Cooper <gcooper@knoxville-notes.ips.utk.edu>

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

Franck BIANCHERI <fbianch@club-internet.fr>
 

Dear Dalia:
===========

(1)  Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT I).

(2)  I am sorry to hear that you did not have the distance learning courses
     from M.I.T. last fall due to the lack of fund for the tuition.

     YES, their tuition fee is relatively high -- I recall that, when I
     brought a Japanese mission team on Systems Dynamics to them in early
     1970s, I had to sign many, many $100 traveler's checks for the tuition.

(3)  When you have global distance learning courses with  Global Campus" as
     your RITSEC terms, we also need to devise some way to pay off the
     tuition by learners in developing countries who often lack any hard currency funds.

     Our proposed Global Service Trust Fund (GSTF), which was mentioned in my
     previous distribution, is to include some kind of funds which will be
     similar to the world famous Fulbright exchange scholarship program for
     which the US government now spend almost $200 million every year.

          When I was a Fulbright exchange student in 1954, the program spent
          about $3,000 per year per student for a Japanese to come over the
          US.  It is now almost $50,000 per year per student!!  The US
          government does not have enough money any more, so that Japanese
          Fulbright alumni members now raise almost $1 million per year from
          Japanese industries to invite American students and scholars to Japan.

          A few years junior Fulbrighter of mine is Professor Heisuke
          Hironaka who is now President of Hiroshima University.  Prior to
          his going back to Japan, he was the dean of mathematics at the
          Harvard University and a Laureate of Field Award which is
          equivalent to Nobel Prize.  He was also one of panelists during
          our GLH videoconferencing in the fall of 1993.  In one of the
          publicity materials of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
          he advocated that distance learning mechanisms should be more
          effectively utilized in order to save the exchange program costs,
          e.g., students attending their courses at their designated schools
          only at the beginning and end of each semester and the rest to
          study from their home base in Japan through telecom media.

          Gayle Cooper of UTK recently told me a very successful conduct of
          a similar approach for their distance learning course on hospital
          management.  After face-to-face meeting for a week at the
          beginning of the semester, students can converse each other
          through web oriented conferencing system, SYMPOSIUM, which can
          have white board, PowerPoint slide show, synchronous audio
          conferencing -- but not video, via Internet.  Some student come in
          with 28.8 Kbps dial-up modem even from India!!  Once you have the
          face-to-face mtg, you would not need to have video capability,
          thus, saving a lots of trouble and costs.

     As your (and our) final reports to the InfoDev mentioned, the face-to-face
     mtg is very important for the success of global distance learning
     courses -- to have students for such a mtg, we also have to devise their
     travel funds -- our GSTF has to include it in due course of its
     development, as similar to the conference travel scholarship fund of the InfoDev.

(4)  About your infrastructure requirement, you may consider to emulate the
     approach taken by the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Fiji for
     their USPNet which has 4 of 128 Kbps channels and 12 of 64 Kbps channels
     over a spare INTELSAT satellite free of charge.  The USP is the hub to
     connect 12 nearby island countries through the satellite.

     Joe Pelton initiated Project SHARE (which is now Project ACCESS) while
     he was at the INTELSAT.  He is now one of our GLOSAS/USA board members
     and will take care of the GSTF project at his newly established [Arthur
     C.] Clark Institute of Telecommunications and Information (CITI).
     According to him, INTELSAT is now willing to provide 1.5 Mbps channel
     for qualified non-profit organizations free of charge under the Project
     ACCESS for one year experiment.  Incidentally, during the Project SHARE
     period, the China National TV University started with the use of
     INTELSAT satellite and has now grown to have 7 million students around
     the mainland China.

     Several months ago, an officer of the UNDP (United Nations Development
     Program) told me that, though several of Arabic countries launched their
     domestic satellites with their national prestige, but they have not been
     used much with ample empty channels left over.  You may consider to
     approach to the PTT of those countries to get the unused channels for
     your use with broadband Internet.  You may need to leapfrog to the
     broadband as soon as possible, instead of following the mistakes made
     with Incredibly Super Duper Nonsense (ISDN) line in many countries.

          Incidentally, there is T1 (1.5 Mbps) satellite connection between
          Johns Hopkins University to Saudi Arabia.

     It seems to me from your description for the Internet demand in Egypt
     that you may need to urge your Egyptian government to install broadband
     Internet satellite channels either from the US or from Europe.  Or, you
     may try to get the aforementioned unused satellite channels of Arabic
     countries.

          Brazil used to have 15 channels of 2 Mbps line (5 to Canada and 10
          to the US), but Internet telephony did not work well.  After
          having 4 of 34 Mbps satellite channels to the US, they have now
          good Internet telephony.

(5)  Pls let me know ASAP when your RITSEC management decided to participate
     in my previously proposed demonstration during Franck's Newropean
     Congress on 10/5-7, 2000.

     I would suggest that you participate in such global occasion as many as
     possible so that you and your Arabic colleagues can build up experiences.

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

Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 15:31:17 +0200
To: Tak Utsumi <utsumi@friends-partners.org>
From: Dalia Moawad <dmoawad@ritsec2.com.eg>
Subject: Cooperation with Egypt/Arab Region

Dear Dr. Utsumi,

Regarding the LearnNet (Arab Regional Distance Learning Network Project
sponsored by InfoDev) I would like to clarify that the network is in
place (in three Arab countries) in terms of infrastructure and potential
content to be delivered. However, due to a number of factors, there has
been a delay in the delivery to the arab countries.

These factors are related to the Egypt site where:

1. ISDN lines are in the very initial stage of introduction into the
country. We need nine ISDN (128k)lines installed at RITSEC (being the
Regional Hub of the network)to be able to provide the bridging service
from any global provider to Kuwait and Jordan. (<italic>Note: We expect
to have two lines within two weeks, and the rest to follow.)

</italic>2. The capacities of the Egypt site are currently being
upgraded, based on the realization of the tremendous demand on IT
professional training services in Egypt..once we started testing the
market potential we realized the available facilities were not sufficient
to cope with the market demand in Egypt, especially relaying to the fact
ICT development in our country was one of the first announced priorities
on the agenda of the newly appointed government (a mandate that has
rapidly impacted all sectors of Egyptian Economy)

I am clarifying this delay based on your message referring to our
delivering MIT courses in the Arab Region. We actually have an
affilitaion with MIT-CAES/ASP to deliver three courses:

1.System Dynamics (Prof. Jim Hines)
2.Dynamic Strategic planning (Prof.Richard de Neufville)
3. Logistics Systems (Prof. Yossi Sheffi)

We were supposed to deliver them earlier, based on successfully acquiring
funds to sponsor twenty Arab students (minimum number for running each
course) since the individual cost of each course per participant was
relatively high.....unfortunately, it was not feasible.

We are currently working on the new course scheduling (starting June
2000) based on market demands and hopefully this time it would be accomplished.

I will send you another message in response to your suggestions as soon
as I get replies from RITSEC management.

Best regards,

Dalia
            ****************************************
                      List of Distribution

Dr. Dalia Moawad
Project Coordinator
Regional Information Technology and Software Engineering Center (RITSEC)
PO Box 433 Heliopolis Center 11757
Cairo, Egypt
tel:+20-2-339-1361 (Direct)
    +20-2-339-1300
fax:+20-2-341-2139
mobile:+20-12-221-3623
dmoawad@ritsec2.com.eg
http://www.ritsec.com.eg/learnnet/

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
865-974-6622
Fax: 865-974-9014
gcooper@knoxville-notes.ips.utk.edu
gcooper@utk.edu

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
Or,
Acting Executive Director of CITI
Vice-Chair of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation of the U.S. (ACCFUS)
Arthur C. Clark Institute for Telecommunication and Information (CITI)
4025 40th Street North
Arlington, VA 22207
(703) 536-6985
ecjpelton@aol.com
http://www.informatics.org/clarke/index.html
http://www.informatics.org/clarke/projects.html

Franck BIANCHERI
President
PROMETHEUS-EUROPE
4, rue de Berite
F-75006 PARIS
Tel: +33.1.42.22.88.61
Fax: +33.1.42.84.12.30
fbianch@club-internet.fr
president@prom.org
centre@prom.org
http://www.newropeans.org
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**********************************************************************
* 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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