<<November 25, 2007>>

<<November 25, 2007>>
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Jaroslaw K. Ponder <Jaroslaw.Ponder@itu.int>

Wendy Ramage Hawkins <wendy.hawkins@intel.com>

Mr. Adedoyin Ademilola <aademilola@iwtgc.com>

Mr. Robert D.Woog <rwoog@iwtge.com>

Alfred Sallia Fawundu <Alfred.s.fawundu@undp.org>

Dr. Thomas Mensah <gaaerosp55@aol.com>

Dear Jaroslaw:

(1) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT I) in response to my following list distribution;

(11/02/07) Visits to the University of Tampere and the Tallinn University from 11/6th to 15th/2007
http://preview.tinyurl.com/39vczw

Your msg contains very interesting information about the conference on “Connect Africa Summit” which was held in Kigali, Rwanda on 29-30 October, 2007.

(2) I went through most of its web site <http://www.itu.int/itu-d/connect/africa/2007> with great interest.

Dear E-Colleagues:

I strongly suggest that you do the same.

(3) ATTACHMENT II is one of the presentations made at the summit for your reference.

** Bridging Africa's digital divide **
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/technology/7071289.stm >

As Mr. Craig Barrett, the Chairman of ITEL, urges, we have a lot of things to do and hence very exciting, indeed!! In a sense, our GUS activities with global e-learning and e-healthcare/telemedicine are to bring the return to the huge investments made by those infrastructure telecom industries. Strangely, many of them often ignore or forget the provisions of such configurations — as we have witnessed with many examples during the burst of the so-called dot-com bloom a decade ago.

Dear Wendy:
It has been sometime since we made our talks at the United Nations in Manhattan in the fall of 2004 and meet again at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia in November of 2005. Your chairman’s talk is impressive. When we meet next time, I would like to describe our progress since then.

(4) I also thank you for your providing me with the newest topology of optical fiber submarine cables around the continent of Africa <Optical Fiber Network in Africa_v10 copy.pdf><http://preview.tinyurl.com/2botu5> -- I am very delighted to know that Africans are vigorously working on the deployment of optical fiber network around the African continent as well as in the land-locked countries;

(5) If I may say, I think that this diagram does not include MaiN OnE, which is to deploy a new broadband submarine fiber optic cable system along the west coast of Africa to increase capacity and lower costs for international and intra-Africa voice, data and internet communications primarily in countries on the West Coast <http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/CDS/gq/generic/search/display.asp?ProjectID=63&Quest=84&lang=en> -- as you see, I found this in your web site.

Dear Mr. Ademilola and Mr. Woog:

(6) It has been some time since we met in June of last year.

My sincere congratulations for your Infinity-1 being included in the diagram. Hope your fund raising would be successful and will commence your service soon to the countries of the western Africa.

Dear Alfred and Tom:

(7) Tom once said to me that African need more competitions in telecom field, to bring drastic cost reduction.

As you see above, this situation is coming of reality.

How is your fund raising effort for reviving the debunked AT&T’s Africa-One optical fiber network circling the African continent to bring further competition in this field?

Dear Tom:

I presume that you would not have any trouble for the fund raising, since you are the inventor of the technology of the speed extrusion of optical fiber, which enabled the emergence of broadband Internet2 movement around the world, which technology you invented while you were at the Corning Glass up in the New York State.

Dear Alfred:

When I gave you a copy of our following book, I greatly appreciated to hear of your pledge that you would devote your best effort for the fund raising to create GUS/Sierra Leone in your home town of Freetown when you would go back about a year ago;

Global Peace Through The Global University System
Tapio Varis - Takeshi Utsumi - William Klemm (Eds.)
University of Tampere, Finland 2003
ISBN 951-44-5695-5
The entire contents of this book can be retrieved at;
http://tinyurl.com/kofpf

In the bottom line of this page, you can find the following;
“Interview with Takeshi Utsumi” by Parker Rossman
http://tinyurl.com/fnxxt

I look forward to receiving your msg soon.

Keep in touch.

Best, Tak

ATTACHMENT I

From: <jaroslaw.ponder@itu.int>
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 16:26:18 +0100
To: <utsumi@columbia.edu>
Conversation: Connect Africa Summit : New Goals for Africa
Subject: Connect Africa Summit : New Goals for Africa

Dear Tak,

Thank you very much for keeping posted on the recent developments at GUS. I wanted to inform you that the ITU has just finalized the Connect Africa Summit (www.itu.int/itu-d/connect/africa/2007 <http://www.itu.int/itu-d/connect/africa/2007> ) that brought very good results in terms of the mobilization of the resources for the development of the infrastructure as well as development of the Information Society in Africa.

The Summit has also agreed to the five new goals that once achieved should facilitate achievement of the MDGs by 2015.

I am heartily inviting you to visiting the Summit page as it was possible to get quite a lot of new content there. Including the background papers. It became a real goldmine of information.

Moreover please find enclosed our new map on fiber networks in Africa. That is very informative and demonstrates the scale of existing problem and challenge at the same time.

With best regards,

Jaroslaw

ATTACHMENT II

BBC News, November 1, 2007

Bridging Africa's digital divide

Intel's chairman Craig Barrett is in Africa to talk about initiatives designed to end the digital divide. He tells BBC News of the challenges the continent faces as it attempts to reap the benefits of the technological revolution.

We have a saying in our company: PCs aren't magic, teachers are magic.

When we go into schools and focus on education and technology - our primary focus is on training the teachers how to effectively use the technology. So far we've help train between four and a half and five million teachers around the world.

It's not just bringing the technology to the classroom.

If you train teachers effectively in how to use the technology and how to use it in the classroom to make it more interesting more exciting, to teach young people how to solve problems.

If technology can help do that, that's great. But if I were given the choice of being able to train and certify teachers as opposed to just bringing in technology to the classroom, I would pick training.

Let's get heavily qualified teachers into the classroom. That will do more than any piece of hardware or software or connection to the internet.

In Africa it is not a choice between clean water and broadband. You can do more than one thing at a time

It's wonderful to have connection to internet, to have access to world's body of education.

But the teachers are the real magic in the classroom.

I'm only sorry we are not able to do more as an individual company. I would like to run our teacher training in every country. I would like to be involved in computer labs in every school.

Finite resources

But there is a finite amount of energy and resources we can put into these activities. There is so much that could be done.

I certainly hope that Africa will not just reach the Millennium Development Goals for access to technology but comprehensively beat them.

But it's not an issue of technology. It's not an issue of what solution do you bring.

If Africa leadership can agree on a common set of priorities I believe they can move very rapidly

It's an issue of getting people aligned, different agendas and priorities on the same page. Getting all the African countries aligned saying, 'Yes, we need these infrastructures in place'. Saying yes to getting a submarine cable in place to getting broadband infrastructure that crosses national boundaries.

We're just starting to see the internet take off. But the lack of broadband capability is a real retarding force on the internet in Africa.

There is a hierarchy of issues. First you need to have international access - so that submarine cables, fibre - going from the African coast to the US, Europe and other countries.

The next step is going from those submarine cables to terrestrial cables to the major cities.

Beyond that you have to worry about connecting villages and individuals once you've got the fibres to the big cities.

Relatively slow

The challenges are a lack of submarine cables, there's no overarching strategy to have a fibre network throughout Africa. It's more a regional or country by country issue and that's been relatively slow.

If you look at what broadband or ITC in general can bring they are better education, better health care, economic development and a more transparent governance model.

Those are the four things you want in any country independent of the state of their local economy.

In Africa it is not a choice between clean water and broadband. You can do more than one thing at a time.

You don't want to give a society clean water but then say you can't have access to knowledge, education or economic development.

If you do that, you are sentencing the next generation to living in poverty.

This is a man made limitation in Africa. It's not a technology limitation that Africa faces.

If African leadership can agree on a common set of priorities I believe they can move very rapidly.

Governments can either facilitate or hold it back. I hope they move forward and work in concert to roll out the technology as widely as possible.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/7071289.stm

Published: 2007/11/01 11:47:38 GMT

© BBC MMVII

List of Distribution

Jaroslaw K. Ponder
Policy Analysist
Strategy and Policy Unit (SPU)
International Telecommunication Union
Place des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 20
Switzerland
Tel: 00 41 22 730 60 65
Fax: +41-22-730-6453
Jaroslaw.Ponder@itu.int
http://www.itu.int

Wendy Ramage Hawkins
Intel Innovation in Education
Strategic Education Initiatives
Intel Corporation
AG6‑601
5200 N.E. Elam Young Parkway
Hilisboro, OR 97124‑6497
(503) 456‑1519
Fax (503) 456‑1539
wendy.hawkins@intel.com
www.intel.com

Mr. Adedoyin Ademilola
Chairman and CEO
West Africa Fibre Optic Project
Infinity Worldwide Telecommunications Group of Companies (IWTGC)
305 Madison Avenue  Suite 449
New York, New York 10165
+1 212 807 5549
Fax: 1-212-957-1912
aademilola@iwtgc.com
http://www.iwtgc.com/

Mr. Robert D.Woog
Managing Director and COO
West Africa Fibre Optic Project
Infinity Worldwide Telecommunications Group of Companies (IWTGC)
305 Madison Avenue  Suite 449
New York, New York 10165
+1 212 807 5549
Fax: 1-212-957-1912
rwoog@iwtge.com
http://www.iwtgc.com/

Alfred Sallia Fawundu
Officer in Charge
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Rm 2466 24th Flr
DC1 Building
1 UN Plaza (1st and 44th Str.)
New York, NY
212-906 5951/5921 office
Cel: 646-226-6223
Tel: 212-906-5921 (Assistant at UNDP Africa Bureau, NY)
asfawundu@gmail.com
Alfred.s.fawundu@undp.org
www.undp.org.ng
http://about.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=21535060

Dr. Thomas Mensah
gaaerosp55@aol.com

*******************************************************************************
* 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 and V.P. for Technology and Coordination of                         *
*   Global University System (GUS)                                            *
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-5913, U.S.A.                        *
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Email: utsumi@columbia.edu                               *
* http://www.itu.int/wsis/goldenbook/search/display.asp?Quest=8032562&lang=en *
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/                                     *
* Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676                                                   *
*******************************************************************************