Establishing
Global University System in Ethiopia (GUS/Ethiopia)
Takeshi
Utsumi Global University System1
43-23 Colden Street
Flushing, NY 11355-3998 U.S.A.
E-mail: utsumi@columbia.edu
Tesfaye
Teshome Debub University2
P. O. Box 5
Awassa, Ethiopia
E-mail: teteshcome@yahoo.com
Berhanu
Beyene University of Hamburg3
Vogt-Koelln-Str. 30, 22527
Hamburg, Germany
Email: beyene@informatik.uni-hamburg.de
The Global University
System (GUS) is a worldwide initiative to establish broadband
Internet infrastructure for enhancing e-learning and e-healthcare
across national and cultural boundaries for global peace.
The philosophy of GUS is based on the belief that global
peace and prosperity would only be sustainable through
education. The prime objective is to achieve “education
and healthcare FOR ALL,” anywhere, anytime and at
any pace.
To attain its goal, the GUS will create a worldwide consortium
with partnerships of educational and healthcare institutions
and NGOs, particularly benefiting those in remote/rural
areas of developing countries for the eradication of poverty
and isolation. Learners in those countries will be able
to take their courses, via advanced broadband Internet,
from member institutions around the world to receive a
GUS degree. Both the learning (students or lifelong learners)
and teaching (professors) societies of partner institutions
will also form a global forum for exchange of ideas and
information and for conducting collaborative research
and development with the emerging global GRID computer
network technology. Thus, the higher education institutions
will close the digital divide, act as the knowledge center
of their community and lead their development.
With this in mind, concerned and far-sighted professionals
from different corners are now working hard to establish
GUS in Ethiopia, so that the Ethiopian learning society
could benefit not only from the Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs), but also from the global knowledge
by creating global system for collaboration.
This short paper gives highlight on the GUS in general
and the establishment of GUS/Ethiopia in particular. The
framework of the global broadband wireless and satellite
Internet Virtual Private Network (VPN) will also be discussed.
Furthermore, a short overview on the roadmap to the GUS/Ethiopia
establishment and the stakeholders to create the local
consortium will be underlined.
Multimedia
Communication and Wireless Networking Technology for
E-Learning in
Developing Countries
E.
Staikoulias and B. Beyene University of Hamburg, Germany
The exponential world-wide growth
in the field of telecommunication technology for the last
two decades could be evaluated from two points of view:
namely the end users pull and technology push. Among the
end users count the tele-learning society, whose demand
for the telecommunication products propels producers.
The explosion in the production of multimedia-information
or data of different types and representations, such as
text, graphics or pictures, streaming audio and video
— and the requirement of high speed, high quality,
and massive transmissions are also pressurising factors
to the innovation. With that, it has now reached the wireless
broadband multimedia communications stage, which is assumed
to be the fourth generation in this thread.
The per capita consumption the products
of telecommunication industry in the developing countries
has been asserted to be not only the lowest but the distribution
is also highly skewed to urban centres or few metropolitans.
On of the main reasons underlined is the high cost of
the cellular networking. To worsen the situation the demand
for and the information or data to be transmitted through
exceeds by far the capacity of the cellular system installed.
The wireless communication technology
opened new opportunities as well as challenges. However
it is promises be vital means of communication fitting
the capacity many, if not all, developing countries for
the foreseeable time. The multimedia communication, by
its virtue of representing variety of knowledge, serves
learners more in natural and perceptible manner fostering
innovation equally.
The paper gives a birds-eye view
on the multimedia digital information on the one hand
and the wireless networking technology, which is carrier
to these products on the other hand. Though, being too
broad the theme, the binding factor both is highlighted
on feasibility of the technology, its appropriateness
of to ICT-Supported distance and open learning in developing
countries. In a nutshell the authors try to outlines specification
of the technology under study and thereby underline the
need to be cautious in the choice of education technology
in developing countries to promote ICT-supported education.
Strategies
for use of Information and Communication Technologies
(ICT) in Educational Institutions
K
M Baharul Islam Chairman (in the rank of
a Minister of State)
Technology Promotion Council, Govt of Assam (India)
Email: islamb@un.org
Computer has steadily emerged as
a tool for efficient teaching and educational purposes
and a larger convergence of all technologies and applications
related to communication has increased the potential role
of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in
education. However the main problem facing the issue of
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Education
is not the scarcity of ICT infrastructure in our educational
institutions, rather gross underutilization of the available
ICT facilities by educators and students alike.
The challenge for the ICT interventions
in Education is to make ICT facilities available to the
average students in our institutions, particularly in
higher education and more so in remote locations where
major libraries (concentrated mostly in the metropolis)
are not accessible to researchers. The teaching-learning
and research facilities can be enhanced through just and
equitable use of ICT in these institutions. In the emerging
information society even the most remote and marginalized
group has a great potential to compete in the global market
if it has access to the information gateway. The core
activity should be knowledge and information networking,
sharing and exchanges focusing on a few priority areas
such as creating:
· a network of internet-based
information and knowledge resources and services;
· a web of virtual libraries and knowledge exchanges
relevant to local development issues.
· a “gateway of gateways” for information
sources on special educational concerns for which any
institution has a national/regional mandate and on which
it provides advanced taught and research programmes;
· a platform and hub for the exchange of knowledge
and information among researchers and educational policy
makers.
Against this backdrop, the present
paper advocates that in view of the challenge of ICT to
the traditional ways of teaching, learning and research
methodologies, it is now overdue to look into the status
of ICT usage in our educational institutions and develop
a strategy for more effective and equitable use of ICT
across all the streams. This paper is, therefore, a limited
attempt to present an overview of the present ICT usage
scenario in education and put forward some suggestions
to overcome the problem.
The advance of telecommunications
technology is speeding up the rate of globalization. Countries
like Ethiopia, which are lacking the infrastructure, are
still being left behind to catch up with the current state
of globalization in the world economy. Poor farmers in
developing countries do not have the information necessary
to compete locally, regionally and globally. Hence information
has become one of the competitive advantages in the globalized
economy. In previous times, countries had to pass through
challenging and demanding technological stages of development.
However, the development of technologies like wireless
technology has produced opportunities to jump the stages
of technological development. This research paper is initiated
with the objective of investigating the challenges and
prospects of wireless telecommunication technologies in
Ethiopia.
The study followed an exploratory
survey approach where it consulted relevant documents
and some preliminary observations. The study is mainly
analyzed through descriptive means, and tried to draw
lessons from countries that have advanced experiences
in the field. The results of the study indicated that
wireless telecommunication technology has both challenges
and prospects in Ethiopia. The requirements of the technology
for high economies of population density, low level of
purchasing power of the population and low level of skilled
manpower in the country are viewed to be the challenges
for expanding the infrastructure. On the other hand, given
the rugged and mountainous terrain of the country, relatively
lower cost of investment, wireless technology provides
a good deal of opportunities to expand the infrastructure
in a relatively short period of time.
Systematic
Acquisition of Products and Services for Information Technology
Woldeloul
Kassa, and Dawit Birhanu Cisco Systems Inc.
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose CA. 95134, USA
Technology purchases are highly risky,
since products and services may not actualize as advertised
or expected. There may be interoperability issues, or
the products, services and designs may be out of date
or may not comply with required standards. This paper
discusses issues and concerns that should be addressed
before and during the process of acquiring technology
products and services from vendors, service providers
and integrators. It presents general guidelines that can
be used as a starting point to build on and to adapt to
any particular need. The paper also provides best practices
on the acquisition processes, including analysis and design,
identification of possible design consultants, integrators,
service providers and/or vendors, generation of request
for proposal evaluations, pilot deployment, evaluation,
phased deployment and verification.
Survey
of Current Efforts and Potentials in Application of Telemedicine
in Ethiopia
Fikreyohannes
Lemma, Solomon Atnafu ,and
S. Kinde Kassegne MS degree candidate, Department
of Computer Science,
Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Henri
Samueli Assistant Professor, Department
of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University,
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Visiting Scientist, Henri Samueli School of Engineering,
University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697.
External Faculty, Dept of CS, Addis Ababa University
The health care system of Ethiopia
is characterized by low level of health care coverage
across the country. According to the latest Health and
Health related indicator published by the Ministry of
Health (MoH), the health care system can only provide
basic services to 61% of the population. Physician to
population ratio is one of the lowest in the world, with
1 physician/health officer serving 25,958 people. Since
most of the physicians are stationed in the urban areas
the above ratio shows a large variation across the regions,
which goes to as low as 1 to 72,764 in some rural areas.
Delivering proper health care to the rural areas, where
more than 80% of the population is living, has been a
challenging task. Telemedicine – delivery of health
services through the use of ICT – that has met wide
success in alleviating such problems in other developing
countries is considered a potential solution and forms
the focus of this study.
To study the past and current effort
on the application of telemedicine in Ethiopia, a survey
of government, public and private hospitals was conducted.
The survey included stakeholders of the health care system
of the country through interviews and questionnaires.
The study was conducted as part of an ongoing research
entitled: “design of architecture and implementation
issues for a terrestrial and VSAT-based national telemedicine
network”. The result of the survey indicated that
there have been few attempts to introduce telemedicine
in Ethiopia. These efforts were found to be effective
in creating awareness on the benefits of telemedicine;
but with a limited scope.
The study also investigates interests
of the growing number of private hospitals that may have
sufficient funds to implement telemedicine systems and
identifies the specific area of telemedicine the private
hospitals would be interested. The attitudes of medical
professionals towards the use of ICT, in particular the
use of telemedicine system was also surveyed and presented
in this paper.
The study also will identify specific
tele-health and telemedicine areas that are very relevant
for Ethiopia. Two considerations are possible here. For
the national network for the public and government hospitals,
the health issues of relevance and immediate importance
include prevention, education and treatment for the major
killer diseases in the country such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS,
child-delivery related, etc. For the growing number of
private hospitals and clinics that may have sufficient
funds and clients willing to pay, the national.
The
Application of Emerging ICT in Livestock Marketing in
Rural Areas of Eastern Africa
Abdi
Jama, Jerry Stuth, and Robert Kaitho, , Texas A & M University,
Department of Rangeland Ecology and Management,
College Station, Texas 77843-2126, USA
Abdirahman
Ali International Livestock
Research Institute, Shola Area, P.O. Box 5689
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Gatarwa
Kariuki International Livestock
Research Institute, Old Naivasha Road, P. O. Box
30709
Nairobi, Kenya
The need for a commitment to the
development of rural communications has been widely recognized
for Eastern Africa. The Livestock Information Network
and Knowledge System of the Global Livestock Collaborative
Research Support Program (LINKS/GLCRSP) project responds
to this need by developing an information system for livestock
marketing. This is accomplished by focusing on the design
and deployment of new communication and information technology
to provide livestock price/volume and related information
on forage conditions, disease, conflict and water supply
in selected markets in the pastoral regions of Eastern
Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia). Texas A&M University,
the lead institution, is working to move information using
a combination of Internet, SMS cell phones and WorldSpace
Satellite Radios to remote regions of East Africa in collaboration
with national institutions in the project host countries.
The SMS cell phone based market data
collection and dissemination system is currently deployed
in Kenya where cell phone coverage has reached significant
parts of the pastoral areas with a hub located in Nairobi
and will be extended to other countries in the region
as the cell phone capacity and coverage expands in the
region.
Mr.
David López Janáriz, Dr Bartolomé
Serra Cifreand
Mr. Gabriel Fuster Martínez Universitat de les Illes
Balears Illes Balears d’Innovaciò i
Tecnologia ,SPAIN
The project involves the implementation
of a prototype to test the use of mobiles phones by medical
emergency teams, to obtain, on the spot, life-saving information
on the patient they are treating.
ICT Entrepreneurship
in Developing Countries and Poverty Alleviation
Adewale
Adeniyi-Kie Expert in Information Technology
Amhara Regional Education Bureau
Bahir Dar, Amhara Region
E-Mail: adeniyikie@yahoo.com
Globalization has been argued in
various quarters as the bane for development of the developing
countries in the world if implemented accordingly. But
it needs to be mentioned that the concept of Globalization
in spite of its possible shortcomings, tends to say to
the countries of the world, “We are all equal based
on your contributions to the system of the global….”
These contributions are the bane through which developing
nations of the world can also become developed if and
when they play their role properly instead of tagging
along with the rest “developed nations” and
this development of the developing nations can find a
place in Information Technology due to the fact that Information
is the bedrock of every society and ways and methods of
harnessing these information are the basis for information
Communication Technology. A developing country of significant
that have benefited in IT is India, and the performance
of India's information and communication technology (ICT)
sectors was widely seen as epitomizing the opportunity
that the information revolution and globalization offered
low-income developing countries. The reasons India has
benefited are considered in this paper.
According to a study undertaken by
McKinsey for NASSCOM, India has the potential of raising
export revenues from software and IT-enabled services
from its 1999-00 level of $4 billion to $50 billion in
2008. This was expected to take the size of the industry
from $3.3 billion in 1998 to $87 billion in 2008, and
employment in the software industry from its 1997-98 level
of 180,000 to 2.2 million in 2008.
Underlying such optimistic projections
is a certain perspective on the prospects for diffusion
of ICT from the developed to the developing countries.
The argument went that since these activities, especially
hardware and software development, are areas which are
among the most dynamic in the global economy and in which
there are ostensibly fewer technological barriers to successful
entry on the part of small firms in general and small
firms from developing countries in particular, the evidence
of a rapid expansion in the contribution of these sectors
to output, employment and exports in developing countries
is seen as the basis for a redistribution, at the margin,
of the benefits of world development to the less developed
countries. That is, recent developments in the ICT sector
are considered revolutionary because they point to the
hitherto unrealized prospect of rapid technology diffusion
that could reshape the international economic order in
a more egalitarian direction.
Optimized
Design of a Wireless Infrastructure for ICT enabled Education
in
Developing Country
Shikhar
Kr. Sarma Debub University, Ethiopia
Email- tuman82@postmark.net
Developing countries have got a lot
of restrictions in carrying the ICT to the most possible
end point of the society. This is basically due to the
weak economy, increasing nature of the population, technological
dependency on others, and prevalence of comparatively
lesser advanced infrastructure. In this paper, a scheme
has been presented to effectively plan and implement an
ICT enabled educational infrastructure, keeping in view
the different significant parameters corresponding to
developing countries. The present study covers the analysis
of a hypothetical spanning of servers, endpoints, heterogeneous
traffics to be served, and also assignments of different
quality of services and priority queues. The parameters
that might have direct or indirect effect for establishing
the system and keeping it up have been defined. The simulated
model is supposed to serve as the prototype of a network
infrastructure for ICT enabled services in a comparatively
lesser technologically advanced situation and to act as
the best fitted design for delivering optimum services.
