Talk:Report on Global Education and Research Networks

This is a place holder that i wrote a couple hours ago

wiull come back to it when i wake up

Basic hypothesis - the tools are there for us to solve our problems but that the opportunity to do so may be missed of slap dash implementation

we now have a global set of largely open source collaborative tools running on high-end optical networks that use IP but tend to be circuit-switched. These tools especially over the last five years have been designed to launch a global network of collaborative data intensive fourth-generation science that is available now to accredited researchers in perhaps 50 or 60 different nations on all the world's continents save for Antarctica. Powerful projects ranging from the large a large hadron collider to radio astronomy to researching global warming and microbiology are fueled by these networks and largely dependent on themn.

Exciting and inspirational material that comes with one small problem. Most people are absolutely unaware that these network tools or processes even exist because of the tools' dependence on high bandwidth fiber. Furthermore they are accessible to relatively few people right now. Namely to a community of perhaps 20 million globally in certainly not more than 500 universities.

No one knows the precise number because the networks while growing are changing all the time. This is a largely federated movement not centrally guided or directed. It is a movement that has never been explained before,. I do so in this book because I'm convinced of the extraordinary potential power. Furthermore, when I say 20 million people in perhaps 500 universities this is a potential audience. Right now I would guess that the global level directly involved is more like 20,000 people. The federated users of these tools realize that the justification for their existence depends on outreach to a global community of scientists -- many of whom are only just now learning how to use them in professions where their use is not yet strongly rewarded but where successful first-time users can achieve things that are otherwise impossible.

So as with all new technology we see a painful process of outreach, recognition, training, bridge building to researchers who can benefit by may be unaware or rather poorly informed of the potential gains and losses involved with their decision to devote sufficient time to adopt and embrace the tools. It is definitely happening and I'm convinced that it's definitely go but here is the parallel issue especially for the United States.

Here it was only nine months ago and that NTIA announced as stimulus grants oriented to bringing broadband Internet to more Americans some $1.5 billion involving a nationwide dedicated 100 Gb backbone for what is called the United States unified community anchor institution network that is to connect mostly by Fiber Soma 200,000 so-called community anchor institutions–defined as K-12 schools junior colleges and public libraries public safety organizations hospitals and community arts institutions to a state-of-the-art national network that in concept at least can be the first national public Internet as opposed to commercial that we have ever had.

To those in the know, and there are very few, this is encouraging. It holds out the possibility of a very desirable paradigm shift in the way some of the most key organizations of our society will be able to communicate with each other in the time of hugely rapid change in financial stress. the opportunity here with appropriate education and outreach is to connect schools and libraries and hospitals in such a way that they could enjoy state-of-the-art information flow and participation in everything nearly endeared to the users of the peer to peer foundation list wiki blog. That this could be the circulatory system enabling resilient communities to function on their own when the next economic crisis hits.

But the problem is this $1.5 billion expenditure is a part of the Obama administration's stimulus plan with strict guidelines that every penny must be spent within the next 24 months -- something that makes adequate planning and coordination for an outcome that could be the most useful to our communities strengthen our children's education is a prime target for chopping down to size and doing things the way they've always been done because for a corporatized society that is much easier as it ios the way of least resistance.

I have communicated in the last three months with almost the entire leadership behind this effort and quite a few of them face-to-face in the Internet2 national meeting three weeks ago and I regret to say I see a unique opportunity very likely being wasted because -- for political reasons -- the orders are just get the money spent to build the networks you promise to build and we will figure out later how to pay to operate them.l Once they're built we will think a little bit about how to train potential users about what they're good for. All of it is haphazard and slapdash to a potentially tragic degree.

I have described in detail the global University-based what I call collaborative operating system and three weeks ago at the Internet 2 international meeting I asked as part of separate 30 to 45 min. conversations with three of the key builders three major questions. First I outlined verbally my understanding of the global optical network based and grid computing based ecosystem they have just had finished building to the point where it is usable now as an ecosystem and said to each of the three people do I understand correctly what this is and how it works? All three of them said yes you do. And then I said what you appear to be focused on over the next five years or so is to make it more user-friendly so that your average scientist can use it as easily as he would use Microsoft office e-mail and the web. They agreed and I continued that you are also extending the operation of all of this into a high-speed wireless cloud that will incorporate user mobility as well as all manner of sensor networks. They affirmed that that was also correct. The final question was is there anything were an effort to be made that would prevent the use of this ecosystem of collaborative tools by the hugely larger community of those 200,000 community anchor institutions? They said it would take a concerted effort but with training in the fiber-based infrastructure being built for USUCANthat there was nothing of a technology nature standing in the way.

So there you are -- a huge opportunity that will be lucky to live up to 1% of its potential. Why? Because it's being built in the dark while people are basically asleep -- although if you know where to look it's being built very openly. But the people who can benefit from it may well not because they don't know it exists. Achieving an operational infrastructure based on any kind of common understanding of the potential good that can be offered by this networked collaboration is at this point not very likely. Why? Because it this point the command is just get the damn thing built and will think about what to do with it later.

So what is my solution? undertaking the necessary editing and publication to repurpose my 440 page encyclopedia in the way that it can create the broadest understanding of the potential gains as possible. To market, educate and do outreach that otherwise will not be done. A foundation could be helpful here as well as money from the same or perhaps a different foundation to put together at least one proposal and carry it out to attempt the validation of the ideas and concepts that I have explained in my document "fast thinking a research and education network Renaissance,. "

Perhaps there are other things that need to be done? with this in mind I would like to use this form to submit my work to the collective intelligence of this group and solicit their help in the fine-tuning these ideas and ascertaining what groups of like-minded people with access to some of the necessary money that is otherwise missing so I can gather together a group of people, sharpen and focus the agenda and go out and make sure this opportunity is positively and well fulfilled.