Session R9: Bridging the Digital Divide II

Marshak Lectureship Award: Closing the Digital Divide in Latin America

The new era of the High Energy Physics experiments motivates physicists to build new computing system to take in account of the produced data by LHC experiments (about 10 Petabytes per year). As these Experiments are performed in International Collaborations at world level, ICFA-International Committee for Future Accelerators create the SCIC/Digital Divide --Standing Committee on International Connectivity/Digital Divide to get information about the situation of the network in each country and its connectivity with the world. A report can be get it in the URL https://icfa-scic.web.cern.ch/ICFA-SCIC/. In this talk we intend to update the information about Digital Divide on the Latin America region, showing the possibilities for the near future participate of the LHC collaborations.   

The Virtual Silk Highway -- Connectivity for Central Asia and the Caucasus

This presentation focuses on Internet for research and education communities in the countries along the Great Silk Road, eight republics of the Former Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia) and Afghanistan. When the Internet became a standard science tool in the nineties, connectivity to this area was limited to analog telephone lines. The TAE fiber was installed from Istanbul via Tashkent to Shanghai, but it was based on international ISDN telephone calls at \$10 per minute, unaffordable to communities with salaries of \$300 per month. Satellites offered connectivity on short notice at better prices but funding by the communities was out of the question. Aid programs stepped in, connecting individual institutes across the area to the outside world. ISPs catered to those who could afford it, such as universities selling MBA courses, but Internet for research and education was lacking. In 2001, the NATO Science Programme added to its grants to institutes a multi-year program of providing a shared satellite service for international connectivity to all the countries above. National connectivity and solving the ``last mile problem'' was also funded, provided that a National Research and Education Network (NREN) organization was created in the country. SILK-1 ran 2002-6 for \$3.5m providing 30Mbps west$\rightarrow$east and 6Mbps east$\rightarrow$west. QOS was implemented for video and audio conferencing. Co-funding by NRENs and others was established, but sustainability is still outstanding. Only recently, affordable fiber ($<$\$1k/month for 1 Mbps) is offered in parts of the area, so the RFP of SILK-2 in 2006 was issued in a technology-neutral way. No fiber bids were received, but a cheaper satellite service providing a total of 120/30Mbps for \$3.5m in 2007-8. With fiber initiatives under way, it is hoped that part of SILK-2 can switch to fiber in 2009.   

South African Astronomy in the Internet Era: exploiting the AVO

The combination of SALT, the bid to host SKA and the association with HESS have propelled South Africa into a world-class position with regard to multi-wavelength observational facilities, indicating the scale of their hopes and aspirations post-1994. All of these facilities exploit the geographical advantage that South Africa possesses, combined with substantial international collaborations to share the financial burden, whilst benefitting the infrastructure and development of South African science and industry. However, the effective use of SALT (and which is far more critical for KAT, an SKA technology demonstrator) requires dramatic improvements in both the local and international Internet bandwidth, which lags far behind First World norms (in terms of both the data rates available and their cost). Such connectivity is essential for raw data transfer from telescope to data centre, and then subsequent access by (national and international) users of the processed data. Current capabilities are stretched to the limit by SALT operations alone (which are measured in terms of Gb/night), but completely different solutions will be needed for KAT and SKA (which require ~Gb/s). Potential solutions for both South African and international users of SALT are being developed which exploit the Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (AVO) and Grid concepts and the substantial international investment that is currently ongoing. A collaboration with the UK's AstroGRID is acting as a testbed in which the raw data archive will remain in Cape Town at SAAO, but AstroGRID will act as a front end for setting up data pipelining procedures from which only mostly reduced data need be transferred to the end user. Comparisons with other remote international facilities (e.g the observatories in La Palma, Spain) plus the infrastructure required for KAT will be presented and discussed.   

Moving Pakistan into the Global Community via Networking

The knowledge economies are the key enablers for the creation of jobs, fast economic development, wealth generation and prosperity to masses. Developing countries have started feeling the need to rapidly develop their knowledge base through investments in Information Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure and human resource development as a means for facilitating competitiveness. To meet this challenge, emerging technologies offer excellent opportunities for collaborative efforts across the globe among academia, research institutions and industry to ensure that local economy could reap the benefits of economic prosperity. Government of Pakistan at its highest level recognizes that information and knowledge are the driving forces for the economic growth today and we all witness a new era in communications that would not only revolutionize this sector but undoubtedly lays the foundation for connectivity for our future generations. An efficient, low-cost, broadband and high-speed communication system, employing state-of-the-art technologies across the whole spectrum, is a key pillar of the knowledge society. This paper highlights the major initiatives taken by Pakistan in revolutionizing the Internet access to its people. Case study in establishing international collaborations of Pakistani academia with internationally renowned research centers bring about a practical solution in bridging knowledge divide across developing nations and the key role it can play in human resource development by providing access to dispersed laboratory facilities at minimal cost.