Anniversary Web Book
Keiko Okawa
Director, SOI Asia Project
Professor, Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance
It is a great honor for me to join the cerebration of AI3 10th anniversary and SOI Asia 5th anniversary.
The Internet technology created a new social infrastructure for the human beings. SOI (School on the Internet) working group of WIDE project started its research and experimental activity in 1997 aiming to create a new form of university over the Internet where everyone can learn from anywhere on the earth without restriction by any boarders. Since then, SOI WG has been contributing to the individual learners by providing educational resources and connecting learning space globally on the Internet by getting a great support by individuals, universities and industry. AI3 project has been working to create an Asian wide Internet testbed since 1996 and successfully created the satellite based Internet infrastructure in Asia and a wonderful community among researchers in many countries. Then the UDLR technology was developed in 2001 which enables to provide a higher bandwidth connectivity with lower cost in anywhere in Asia.
SOI WG and AI3 met this point and jointly launched SOI Asia project. Since then, SOI Asia project has been contributing in higher educational activities in Asia by fully utilizing the information and communication technologies.
SOI-Asia and AI3 understand not only the importance of the technology but also the importance of human community and collaboration among people with variety of cultural background. That's why we are strong enough to keep contributing in this area with a lot of universities' support. I am very proud of having an experience to work with such a wonderful people for these 10 years.
I am sure that we will be able to have more fun and make a bigger contribution to the higher education in Asia! Thank you very much.