Brazil
Alexandre Rivas
Funda ão Universidade do Amazonas
Manaus, AM, Brazil
Alexandre Rivas is the director of the Center for Environmental Sciences at the Federal University of Amazonas (FUA). He coordinated the Nucleus for Public Finance and Environmental Policies at Fundacao Getulio Vargas/ISAE in Manaus. He coordinated the Workshop on Distance Education and Telemedicine in May/June of 2000. In 1998 he also organized an international teleconference about new technologies for e-learning broadcasted from Manaus and supported by Fundacao Rede Amazonica and Fundacao Getulio Vargas. In 1992, he coordinated in Brazil an educational bilateral project between FUA and the University of Tennessee. He was FUA's representative during his stay in the USA. The main realization during this time was a seminar at the University of Tennessee with the president of the Brazilian Amazonian Surveillance Project and Raytheon's representative to explore the possibility of joint projects in environmental conservation and e-learning.
He graduated in 1988 from the Federal University Ceara. He worked for one year and half in the Federal Agency for Development of the Sao Francisco River Valley in Minas Gerais, Brazil. During this time he also worked as an independent consultant for the government of Minas Gerais. In 1990 he entered the Federal University of Amazonas as an auxiliary professor. In May of 1997, he received a Master of Arts in Economics from the University of Tennessee. In May 1998, he received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Economics from the University of Tennessee.
Dr. Jackson Colares da Silva
Coordinator of CampusNet Amazonia
Campus Universitario
Centro de Ciencias do Ambiente
Manaus - AM - Brazil
CampusNet Amazonia is coordinated by Prof. Jackson Colares. Prof. Colares is finishing his Ph.D. in Education at the Universitat de les Illes Baleares, Spain and his field of specialization is development of learning environments in telematics network. Prof. Colares is the Director of the infrastructure Division at the Center for Environmental Sciences (CCA). He also has many publications in his field and is the director of the Info via Multimedia North Info via: Telematics Network of the Virtual Campuses of Federal Universities of the Brazilian Northern Region for the Development of Programs in Distance Health and Education. As a result of his effort and leadership, all seven universities in Amazonia have constantly looked for his technical support and consulting. He has also been responsible for the establishment and strength of the relationship with key private companies willing to participate of this project.
Dr. Vicente de Paulo Queiroz Nogueira
Secretaria de Educa ão e Qualidade do Ensino do Amazonas
Amazonas State Secretary of Education
Av. Perimetral D, 1934 - Conj. 31 de Março
Dr. Nogueira is currently the state secretary of education. He received his Ph.D. from Michigan Institute of Technology in 1978.
From 1985 through 1989 he was the Pro-rector for research and post-graduation at Federal University of Aamazonas. From 1989 to 1992 he was the director for the Center of Environmental Sciences at the same university. Between 1997 and 2000 he was the president of the Amazonas State Institute of Environmental Protection.
Mario Costa
Funda ão Rede Amazonica
Manaus, AM, Brazil
Mr. Costa is a Brazilian from Codajas, a municipality in the State of Amazonas. He is the director from Rede Amazonica Foudation since 1992. From 1986 to 1992 he was the manager for training and development of human resources at SONORA, a photo/film industry. He is a member from the Bahai International Community, and since 1987 he is the president of the Association for Cohesive Development of Amazonia, a philanthropic society.
Mr. Costa has vast experience in organizing and promoting events for TV. He organized the I, II, III, IV, V and VI seminar on Journalism in Amazonia, the I, II and III seminar on Propaganda and Marketing in Amazonia, the I on the International Conference on New Technologies for Distance Learning.
Dr. Nelson Abrahim Fraiji
Director
Hemocentro do Amazonas - HEMOAM
Amazonas State Blood Center
The Amazonas State Blood Center is the largest one in South America. Dr. Fraiji is a medical doctor and a former rector of the Federal University of Amazonas.
Canada
David Levy Ph.D.
Program Director,
English as a Second Language,
Centre for Continuing Education,
McGill University,
Montreal, Canada.
Dr.Levy was born and educated in Montreal. He received his B.A. from McGill University, his M.A. from the Universite de Montreal, and his Ph.D. from McGill University.
Dr.Levy's career includes work as a curriculum specialist for the Government of Canada, a radio broadcaster, a journalist, a language instructor, and a lecturer in the literature of the Caribbean, media sociology, and cinema. Dr.Levy is a recognized authority on the early history of the cinema as well as the creator of the enormously successful, EVERYDAY ENGLISH, a radio series that taught basic English to some 20 million Chinese listeners.
At McGill, Dr.Levy developed from scratch the university's Special Intensive English program.
European Union
Marco Antonio Dias
Vice President, Global University System
Consultant of United Nations University
Former Director, Division of Higher Education of UNESCO
FRANCE
Marco Antonio Rodrigues Dias, Brazilian, was born in Rio de Janeiro on December 17, 1938. He is a retired teacher, consultant of the University of the United Nations, former-director of the Division of Higher Education of UNESCO (October of 1981 to February of 1999). He was the principal coordinator of the World Conference about Superior Education (Paris, October of 1998). He launched and was the general coordinator of the program for international cooperation UNITWIN/Catedras UNESCO and the representative of UNESCO in the Council of the University of United Nations headquartered in Tokyo. He received his Bachelor degree in Law from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1964). Dr. Dias also received a diploma of third cycle from University of Paris (1968).
In the sixties Dr. Dias was journalist (Belo Horizonte and Sao Paulo). He was the editor of several newspapers and director of the " Folha de Minas " and of the " Radio Jornal de Minas." In 1963, he was parliamentarian advisory of Ministry of Education (Minister Paulo of Tarso Santos, Joao Goulart's government). In the seventies, he was the head of the Department of Communication and the outreach dean and vice-rector of the University of Brasilia. After retiring, he has been invited for conferences, to participate in international meetings and to advise in international cooperation projects in Spain, France, United States, Senegal, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Finland. He is a member of several councils (example: School of America of the Interamerican Academical Organization in Canada and Fundacao Andifes in Brazil). He is author of dozens of articles and chapters of books published in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese in several countries of the world. He is also the author of the book "The Fact and the Version of the Fact " published by the Catholic University of Minas Gerais in 1993.
Tapio Varis
University of Tampere
Tampere, Finland
Tapio Varis, Ph.D., is currently Professor and Chair of Media Culture and Communication Education at the University of Tampere, Finland (Journalism and Mass Communication and Department of Teacher Education), Consultant on new learning technologies for the Finnish Ministry of Education, Member of European Union's PROMETEUS Steering Committee and adviser to several international organizations. In 1996-97 he was UNESCO Chair of Communication Studies at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain. He has also been a faculty member of the European Peace University, Communication and Media Scholar at the University of Helsinki and the University of Art and Design in Helsinki.
He is a former Rector of the University for Peace in Costa Rica, and Professor of Media Studies in the University of Lapland, Finland. He has published approximately 200 scientific contributions - the latest being Media of the Knowledge Age, published by Helsinki University Press 1995 (in Finnish). He is listed in Who's Who in the World (1984 & 1995) and Men of Achievement (1986 &1995).
USA
G. Robert (Bob) Converse
Project Director/Principal Investigator
National Science Foundation
Advanced Technology Education Project
Maui Community College
310 Ka'a Humanu Ave.
Kahului, Hawaii 96732
USA
G. Robert Converse has been a community college administrator and resource developer for over 25 years. He has written and administered over ten million dollars in funded projects. He has over twenty years experience as an academic administrator in Pacific Rim Education having served as Academic Dean at American Samoa Community College and as Learning Center Director and Special Assistant to the Academic Dean at Maui Community College. He has also served as a student services administrator at Penn State’s Pennsylvania College of Technology. He is currently a member of the Advisory Board for the State of Hawaii DOE-NSF Project.
His experience with Pacific Rim Education includes high technology and telecourse program development for diverse populations including Pacific Islanders in American Samoa and the large population of Native Hawaiians, Oriental and Filipino students at Maui Community College.
Mr. Converse is currently active in the implementation of e-learning delivery of English, Computer Engineering Technology and Electronics Engineering Technology Programs via interactive television and the world wide web. Components of the ECET Program that have been adopted internationally include the NIDA workstation interactive CU-SeeMe laboratory and the QuizCenter web-based test center. Converse has been a presenter at seven national conferences in the past three years including three by the League for Innovation and one international conference. He is the author and developer of the Bootstraps developmental education program for minority students.
He will actively participate in the construction of the pilot project proposal for the establishment of the global broadband wireless/satellite Internet to extend Access Grid from the US to Amazon – see APPENDIX VIII-8. During the proposed workshop, he will also make a presentation on Hawaii's SkyBridge System (a microwave network among Hawaiian islands) which may be applicable to many locations in the Amazon region.
John M. Eger
Executive Director
International Center for Communications
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA
JOHN M. EGER, Lionel Van Deerlin Endowed Professor of Communications and Public Policy at San Diego State University, and Executive Director of SDSUÕs International Center for Communications, is also President and CEO of the California Institute for Smart Communities.
Earlier, Professor Eger headed CBS Broadcast International which he established, and was Senior Vice President of the CBS Broadcast Group responsible for CBS International, CBS Cable, CBS Interconnects (a cable advertising service), EXTRAVISION (the networks teletext service), and development of all other new business enterprises worldwide. During this period, he introduced the concept of commercial television to the People's Republic of China and developed new marketing strategies involving the barter of advertiser-sponsored programming. He was also responsible for the development of the prize-winning home video documentary series "World War II with Walter Chronkite"; the inauguration of live and tape-delayed programming on domestic and international aircraft; and satellite delivery of "The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather" to Paris and Tokyo.
From 1973-1976, Professor Eger was Advisor to Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and Director of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP). He served on the Presidential Initiative on Privacy, the Cabinet Committee on Cable Television, and the Ad-hoc Committee on Regulatory Forum. During this time, Professor Eger helped spearhead the restructuring of AmericaÕs telecommunications industry, particularly the divestiture of AT&T, and launched the first in a series of extended bilateral and multilateral discussions on international communications trade matters. He also initiated the development of an Asian Basin secretariat on telecommunications, which resulted in the formation of a private sector, ÒPacific Telecommunications Council,Ó which he helped found in Honolulu in 1977.
From 1970-1973 Professor Eger was Legal Advisor to the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and special attorney and advisor to the general counsel of the FCC, involved in the historic specialized common carrier and interconnection proceedings which were instrumental in introducing competition in the telecommunications industry in the early 1970s.
More recently Professor Eger served as Chairman of California Governor Pete WilsonÕs first Commission on Information Technology; Chairman of San Diego Mayor Susan GoldingÕs
ÒCity of the FutureÓ Commission; President of the SDSU International Communications Council, and Founding Director of the Japan-U.S. Telecommunications Research Institute.
Professor Eger recently published the Smart Communities Guidebook, and Implementation Guide for community leaders and city officials and edited the City of the Future Report for San Diego City Mayor Susan Golding. He is also author or editor of over a hundred other publications, including books, book chapters, monographs, journal articles and op-eds on the subjects of international telecommunications, public policy, and economic development.
Early in his career, before a serving as a trial lawyer in Chicago representing the University of Chicago Hospital and Clinics, he held various management and sales positions with the Bell System. Following his graduation from the Bell System Communications School in Cooperstown, New York, he served as Director of Information Systems and was responsible for automating many parts of Illinois Bell directory operations. He also served as an information systems specialist to the largest national telecommunications users with headquarters in the state of Illinois.
He is a member of the Foreign Policy Association; the Ambassador's Roundtable and the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. He is also a member of the International Advertising Association, the Illinois, Washington D.C., American, and International Bar Associations.
Professor Eger until recently he served as Chairman of the Board of the San Diego Data Processing Corporation, as Chairman of Mayor Susan GoldingÕs City of the Future Advisory Committee, on Governor Pete WilsonÕs Special Advisory Panel on Technology, Policy and Procurement, and the GovernorÕs Council on Information Technology. He is also President of the San Diego-Baja Communications Council, a BI-national association of senior executives from every sector of the communications, entertainment and information industry.
Professor Eger is a past Chairman of "Opt-in-America," a public policy organization concerned with America's leadership in the information age; Chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee on 1992, the date set for economic unification of Western Europe; trustee of the International Institute of Communications, London; advisor to the Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; on the editorial board of the international quarterly, Information Society: and a member of the San Diego Dialogue at UCSD.
He also served on the board of Educom, the association for information technology in higher education; the Corporate Affairs Committee of the Japan Society and the Finance Committee of the Institute for East West Security Studies.
He is a frequent lecturer on the subjects of international communications, emerging trends in media and marketing, and more recently, revitalizing communities through the use of telecommunications. He is also a frequent contributor to trade and industry journals and general interest publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Washington Journalism Review. He is the author of "Emerging Restrictions on Transborder Data Flows: Privacy protection or Non-Tariff Trade Barriers," Georgetown Journal of Law and Policy in International Business (1978); "The Global Phenomenon of Tele-Informatics," Cornell International Law Journal (Summer, 1981); "Global Television: An Executive Overview," Columbia Journal of World Business (Fall, 1987); and of the seminal study: ÒCities of the Future: The Role of Telecommunications and Information Technology.Ó
Recently Professor Eger received the highest award from the Japanese Minister of Posts and Telecommunications for his leadership in building a strong Pacific alliance for telecommunications. He was also recently named as Advisor to the Government of the Netherlands Kenniswijk Broadband Communications Initiative, and named as a Fullbright Senior Specialist on communications and economic development.
Joshua S. Jacobs
LASPAU:
Academic and Professional Programs for the Americas,
affiliated with Harvard University Cambridge, MA USA
Cambridge, MA
Dr. Jacobs is Development Officer for Technology Initiatives at LASPAU, where he leads the organization’s distance learning and professional development programs. These programs are directed at Latin American and Caribbean professionals in the areas of education, civil society, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and corporations. He has also served as Manager for General Education at KaplanCollege.com, an online university serving working adults, where he developed the content and pedagogy for the university’s general education programs.
Dr. Jacobs received his A.B. from Amherst College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Rutgers University, where he was a member of the English faculty.
David A. Johnson
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN
Dr. Johnson, AICP, is Professor Emeritus of Planning at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and has been at UTK for 16 years. He is also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Previously he taught in and directed planning departments at Syracuse University and Ball State University. Prof. Johnson received bachelors and masters degrees in architecture and city planning from Yale University and a Ph.D. in regional planning from Cornell University. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in India, Thailand, and the Soviet Union, and is a past President of the Fulbright Association of the United States. He has directed educational projects in Amazonas, Brazil and Coimbra, Portugal.
Professor Johnson also has served as a professional planner on the staffs of the Washington National Capital Planning Commission and the Regional Plan Association of New York. His published writings have focused on planning theory and history and most recently have examined planning activities of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the development of the New York Metropolitan Region. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Planning Association and is the author of Planning the Great Metropolis, Chapman & Hall, 1996. Dr. Johnson is active in international e-learning and is a Special Advisor of the Global University System. He was a member of the planning design team for Tennessee's Bicentennial Mall at the State Capitol in Nashville, dedicated in June 1996.
D.K. Sachdev
President
Spacetel Consultancy
Adjunct Professor, George Mason University
Vienna, Va 22182
D.K. Sachdev is Founder and President of SpaceTel Consultancy, Vienna, Virginia. This company provides business strategy and engineering support for satellite and wireless systems for broadband, telecommunications and broadcasting services. Mr. Sachdev is also Adjunct Professor at the George Mason University, Virginia and teaches graduate courses in System Engineering for Telecommunication Systems and Program Management. Mr. Sachdev is co-founder of Nirvano Technologies, McLean, Virginia, a new company planning to provide wireless networks with advanced technology sensor systems for medical surveillance and other applications.
From 1996 through 2000, as Senior Vice President, Engineering & Operations at WorldSpace, Washington, DC, Mr. Sachdev had the responsibility for the engineering, deployment and operations of the first worldwide digital radio system consisting of three satellites, broadcast and business networks. While at WorldSpace, Mr. Sachdev also contributed to the evolution of the XM Radio system and led the development of its system architecture and initial stages of the engineering development of this system.
For almost two decades ending in 1996, Mr. Sachdev was at the center of the expansion of the INTELSAT’s global telecommunication network. After establishing the in-house technology development team in the early 80s, Mr. Sachdev led a team for the development, procurement and deployment of 16 new satellites (INTELSAT VIIs and VIIIs), today forming the backbone of INTELSAT’s and New Skies networks. Matching this effort in the space segment, were several equally impressive efforts for INTELSAT’s international terrestrial network
Prior to crossing the oceans in 1978, Mr. Sachdev held several senior positions in the Indian Telecommunications Service and the associated industry. Mr. Sachdev was a member of the founder team of the Telecommunication Research Center at New Delhi. He led the development of microwave systems in India. He created during the early 1970’s one of the largest design and development organizations in electronics and telecommunications at ITI, Bangalore. For his leadership in creating this large and dynamic team, Mr. Sachdev was awarded the prestigious Vikram Sarabhai Award in 1976.
Mr. Sachdev completed all his education at premier institutions in India with highest honors.
H. Dean Sutphin
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY USA
Dr. Sutphin is Associate Dean and Director of Academic Programs in College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University and has been at the university since 1982. He envisioned and developed the Global Seminar - a multi-disciplinary, international distance education curriculum focused on the Environment and Sustainable Food Systems. The course is the U.S. 2000-01 national award-wining course for the American Distance Education Consortium. The course links nine international institutions in Sweden, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Honduras, Australia, India, and the U.S. using videoconferencing and internet technologies. Twenty new institutions were added in 2000-1 including high schools, community colleges, high schools and colleges of technology.
His activities on electronic infrastructure development, visioning, and implementation of distance learning are focused in four areas. First, he leads electronic infrastructure development activities at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell which includes 25 departments and sections. Second, he serves as a member of several distance learning boards. Third, he received an American Distance Education honorable mention for "barrier buster" award. Fourth, he chaired a National Town Meeting for Distance Learning, a two- hour satellite program for 60+ universities, in 2000.
He currently serves as President of the Academic Program Section, National Assoc. of State Universities and Land-grant Colleges, and developed a Northeast Strategic Plan for Academic Programs to share instructional activities across 12 states. It was adopted by the academic deans of land grant colleges in each state, leading to several distance learning initiatives.
He has a number of paper publications in the distance learning field. He received his Ph.D. in Agricultural Education/Educational Administration/Curriculum Development from Ohio State University in 1981, after M.S. and B.S. Degrees in Agricultural Education from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1975 and 1972, respectively.
Takeshi Utsumi
GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association, U.S.A.
Global University System (GUS)
New York, NY
Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., is Chairman of the GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the USA (GLOSAS/USA).
He is the 1994 Laureate of Lord Perry Award for the Excellence in Distance Education. His public service has included political work for the deregulation of global telecommunications and the use of e-mail through ARPANET, Telenet and the Internet; working to extend American university courses to the Third World; the conduct of innovative distance teaching trials with "Global Lecture Hall(GLH)" multipoint-to multipoint multimedia interactive videoconferences using hybrid technologies; and lectures, consultation and research in process control, management science, systems science and engineering at the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, M.I.T. and many universities, governmental agencies and large firms in Japan and other countries.
Highlights among his more than 150 related scientific papers and books are presentations at the Summer Computer Simulation Conferences (which he created and named) and the Society for Computer Simulation International. He is a member of various scientific and professional groups, including the Chemists Club (New York, NY); Columbia University Seminar on Computers, Man and Society (New York, NY); Fulbright Association (Washington, D.C.); International Center for Integrative Studies (ICIS) (New York, NY); and the Society of Satellite Professionals International (Washington, D.C.).
He received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Polytechnic University in New York and his M.S.in Ch.E. from Montana State University, after studying at the University of Nebraska under a Fulbright scholarship. His professional experience in simulation and optimization of petrochemical and refinery processes was gained at Mitsubishi Research Institute, Tokyo; Stone & Webster Engineering Corp., Boston; Mobil Oil Corporation and Shell Chemical Company, New York; and Asahi Chemical Industry, Inc., Tokyo.