Telematics for Education

1
Global Service Trust Fund A Way to Help Bridge
the Global Digital Divide

• Peter Knight, Joseph Pelton,Francis Method, and
  Takeshi Utsumi

2
Overview of Presentation

• Objectives
• Measures Needed to Achieve Objectives
• Background and Rationale
• Finance and Organization
• Next Steps Recommendations of the CITI Working
  Group February 2000
• A New Proposal developed at June 2000
  international conference on Saving Iridium

3
General GSTF Coalition Objectives

• 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

4
Specific GSTF Objectives

• 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.

5
Measures Needed to Achieve GSTF Objectives

• 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.

6
Background and Rationale

• The Internet, with its rapidly expanding and
  improving infrastructure, will be the main
  telecommunication media of tomorrow.
• 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.

7
Background and Rationale II

• 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.
• What is needed is both high quality audio/video
  delivery and high quality interactivity.
• Developing countries need broadband Internet via
  international satellite and fiber-optic cable.

8
African Virtual UniversityAn Example of a
Potential User
9
GSTF Finance and Organization

• A voluntary international e-rate for education
  and health
• Two separate contribution funds or sources
  would be established
• an in-kind bandwidth transmission source
• a financial assistance source
• The Coalition a broad coalition of commercial
  and governmental sources

10
Incentives for Contributors of Underused
Transponders and Dark Fiber

• Money from the money fund will be used to
  purchase more bandwidth from the companies that
  donate free bandwidth.

11
Sources of Funding

• Overseas Development Assistance funds of OECD
  countries
• Cash contributions from the profits of
  international financial institutions such as the
  World Bank and the RDBs
• Cash contributions from foundations and companies
  
• Contributions in kind from companies owning
  underused satellite transponders and/or fiber
  optic cable (marginal cost near zero, builds
  future markets)

12
GSTF Policy Conditionality and Operational Policy

• GSTF allocations only to countries with good
  telecommunications, education, and health
  policies
• A participatory process to define good, with
  ITU, UNESCO, and WHO convening working groups
  including all key stakeholders
• World Bank to convene working group on GSTF
  operations possible use of infoDev legal
  precedent for multidonor grantmaking organization

13
Allocation of GSTF Bandwidth and Cash

• The Funds 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.

14
Working Group RecommendationsNext Steps

• A more polished and developed draft of the
  proposal be put before major international
  conferences in 2000
• An intensive effort be made to enlist the support
  of the leadership of the key international
  institutions
• 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.

15
See the CITI Founding Conference and the GSTF
Proposal

• Objectives, photographs from the conference and
  full proposal
• knight-moore.com/projects/projectsindex.htm

16
A New Proposal

• CITI prepares a proposal to get seed money to
  convene workshops, prepare background materials
• Workshops would be held under the auspices of
  international organizations to establish policy
  conditions for GSTF funding
• But if international organizations dont move,
  CITI could convene, inviting all key stakeholders
  to participate
• Summit Conference in mid-2001, convoked by CITI
  and/or other organizations

17
Clarkeinstitute.com knight-moore.com www.unesco.or
g www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS