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Yuichiro Anzai
President of Keio University

On behalf of Keio University, I would like to express my sincere congratulations to AI3 Project and SOI Asia Project for their 10th and 5th anniversaries.

Both projects were established under the initiatives and leadership of our Vice President, Prof. Jun Murai. The projects would not have achieved much without the cooperation, hard work, and dedications of all members of AI3 and SOI Asia projects and many supporting organizations to foster leading researchers and engineers in the Internet field and building a platform for distance learning over satellite Internet in Asia. I believe both projects have been very successful in fulfilling their missions for human resource developments in the region, and I would like to congratulate all the members of these projects.

Within the framework of AI3 and SOI Asia projects, Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus has served as a hub station for the satellite Internet links connecting universities in Asia. In addition to the originally planned collaborations, we extended our support to the construction of a satellite ground station in 2005 at Syiah Kuala University in the tsunami stricken city of Banda Aceh to connect the university to AI3 and SOI Asia network. We are very pleased to see that the students of Syiah Kuala University have been able to continue their studies by receiving lectures via satellite Internet after most of the faculty members have ceased because of the tsunami disaster.

Keio University is the oldest private university in Japan. As we are approaching the 150th anniversary in 2008, we are preparing to celebrate it with a series of exciting initiatives. One of them is international collaboration which is a part of the Keio's core values upheld by Yukichi Fukuzawa, the founder of Keio University.

In line with the spirit of the founder, I am very pleased that through AI3 and SOI Asia projects, Keio University is signing Memorandum of Understandings this year with many new partners in Asia, starting with the MoU signing with Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia in March 2006. We hope these MoUs will promote further collaborations among us and our new partner institutions in Asia.

Finally, I would like to wish AI3 and SOI Asia projects continued success and even more remarkable achievements in the years to come.