1. Name of principal investigator.
Vadim N. Frolov

2. Title of proposal.
Voronezh Civic Network

3. Report period (time period covered by report).
July - September 2000

4. Names and institutions of collaborators, if any (US and/or Russia). Show the names of every person or organization, who take part in project or intend to participate or finance the project additionally.

• Voronezh State Technical University
• Regional Center of New Information Technology
• Regional Foundation "Mass Media Defense Center", Central Black Soil Region of Russia
• Voronezh Regional Juvenile Library
• Voronezh Regional Educational Advising Center
• Voronezh State Television/Radio Company
• Municipal Information Center on Educational Management
• Regional Clinical Treatment-Diagnostic Center
• Magazine "Podiom" , state cultural institution
• Radio company "Russian Radio"
• City Philosophy Club
• Russian Christian Democratic Party
• Regional Juvenile School of Adaptive Special Physical Education of Invalids
• Public union "Sodruzhestvo"
• "Intellectual Property Protection Society"
• Regional Association of Boards of Regional Public Self-governance
• North-Don Cossack Union.

Establishment and development of Voronezh Civic Network

6. Accomplishments during report period :

a. meetings and communications pertaining to output (with full address):

• Michail Chaykovskiy. - vice president of Voronezh municipal institution "Intellectual Property Protection Society", Komissarzhevkoi Str., 7 - 305
• Aleksey Koshelev - deputy director of the Voronezh Regional Educational Advising Center, Kukolkina Str., 3 - 203
• Sergey Synorov - correspondent of the Voronezh State Television/Radio Company, ë. Marxa, Str., 114
• Nina Kubaneva - the chairman of the public union "Sodruzhestvo"
• Victor Stepnyak - the chairman of the Regional Association of Boards of Regional Public Self-governance"
• Degtayrev á. - North-Don Cossack Union.
• Mirgorodskay ç. - director of the information center of the Department on Education of the administration of Ramon' town, Town of Ramon', Shkoljnaya Str.,1
• Gulaynskay ô. - Methodist, teacher of the Youth Center, Ploshad' Detei,1
• Tamara Begidova - the director of Juvenile School of Adaptive Physical Education of invalids, Plehanovskaya Str., 18

The project officers carried out the following activities in order to ensure the project's development:

• Daily project management activitie
• Providing the stable operation of PAPs and organizations, connected to the civic network
• The project officers, rendered technical help and regular consultations to the project participants and organizations, connected to the civic network, on administration and maintenance of their centers.
• Great amount of work was carried out on expanding our contacts with various organizations and individuals, interested in the project.
• Six radio programs, describing activities of the project, have been prepared by the project officers together with the editorial officers of the Voronezh State TV and Radio Company.
• Three public access points (PAPs) were opened at the following organizations:
• 1. Voronezh Regional Educational Advising Center
• 2. Mass Media Defense Foundation Center
• 3. Secondary School 85
• Technical maintenance and administration of the Central Public Access Point and the entire set of services based on it, including the sub-project "Web - workshop", full-time advisory service, and Internet - class with ten workstations connected to the Internet.
• Continuation of work on formation and support of the server " Voronezh Civic Network " (http://vcn.vorstu.ac.ru). The following sections were updated regularly: "Regional News", "Regional Media Publications", "News of Public Life ", "The Bulletin Board". The new page "It is interesting" was added to the section "Regional news".

The new section "Bodies of Authority and Management" was formed and consists of the following parts: "Administration of the City", "Administration of Voronezh region", "Projects and Initiatives", "Prosecutor's office of the Voronezh area" (http://vcn.vorstu.ac.ru/prokurat/index.htm). The part "Projects and Initiatives" is weekly updated and added to.
In the section "Civic Quadrant", new pages about the North-Don Cossack district were placed.
The new interactive section - "Invitation to conversation " opened the interactive discussions on most crucial problems of our city and region, and most interesting aspects of the city life.
Three new personal pages were designed and published, and old ones were maintained and updated.
• As a result of a large number of preparatory activities carried out by the project officers, computer park of the Internet-class of Main PAP facility was upgraded. Seven IBM 486 computers were replaced with seven Pentium III/Celeron 433 computers.
• With the purpose of extending of our international contacts and public discussions, project officers have taken part in the seminar (July 19 - 23) with participation of the delegation of Christian youth from the city of Kemnitz (Germany). The perspectives of interaction between youth organizations of Germany and our city were discussed with information support of our network.

• Formation and management of the civic network technical infrastructure;
• Establishment of interaction with organizations interested in the project;
• Arrangement of a number of well-functioning public access points;
• Formation and further development of the Voronezh Civic Network;
• The following tasks have been practically completed: extension of access of Voronezh citizens to resources of global network; granting to Voronezh non-profit organizations an opportunity to publish materials; providing assistance to local communities in design of their own web publications; information support to existing and newly-formed non-profit organizations in their activities.
• Due to support of our project by the Ministry of Culture of Russian Federation, three computers were given to the the Civnet's PAP, housed by the Voronezh Juvenile Library.
• The problem of computer upgrade in the Internet - class of the Main PAP facility has been resolved.
• Organization of the training courses for the VCN users.
• Establishment of cooperation with officers of non-electronic means of mass media on a regular basis;

• Absence of technical means necessary to connect Civnet's public access points to the Main Public Access Point (OCTAL CABLE KIT).
• Absence of necessary technical equipment prevents many public institutions from opening PAPs on their own basis.

• Seventy eight persons have received training in "Main Internet services" during the report period. Training sessions were carried out in accordance with the schedule. We did two training cycles for two groups of approximately 23-28 persons every month.
• The additional training session for a group, consisting of 10 children, from Regional Juvenile School of Adaptive Special Physical Education of the Invalids was organized.
• On the basis of the Main PAP facility, we organized classes for the school students of 7-11 grades. The total number of students in all groups is 40. The classes will be conducted during the whole academic year. Subjects of classes are "Fundamentals of vector graphics", "Corel Draw, "Fundamentals of image graphics", "Adobe Photoshop", "Fundamentals of HTML".

• The seminar with the delegation of Christian youth from the city of Kemnitz (Germany):
45 -men; 60- women
• Scheduled training:
July - 12 men; 18 women;
August - 8 men; 17 women;
September - 10 men; 13 women
• The additional training session for children invalids:
8- boys; 2- girls
• Classes for school students:
15 -boys: 25 -girls

• Continuation of cooperation with mass media for the purpose of establishing new contacts and maintaining the already established contacts with various public institutions, organizations and individuals, interested in the project.
• Arrangement of seminars, conferences, discussions, and meetings communicating the project activities to the public.
• Providing support to the civic network technical infrastructure.
• Opening of new public access points.
• Administration and maintenance of the Main PAP facility.
• Regular collection of the information for updating resources on the Voronezh Civic Network. Administration of the web-server "Voronezh Civic Network" (information update and technical maintenance).
• Providing consultations and methodological support to local communities on networking. Arrangement of training sessions.
• Arrangement and direction of interactive discussions on most crucial problems of our city and region, and most interesting aspects of the city life on the server "Voronezh Civic Network".
• Providing consultations and support in installation and adjustment of equipment required for leased line networking of two PAPs (Voronezh Regional Juvenile Library, Voronezh Regional Educational Advising Center)
• Attracting new grants for VCN further development.