Japan & U.K. Projects Supported by IBM
IBM Corp. is involved in several interesting overseas projects, most notable are ones located in the United Kingdom and Japan.
Project Connect involves investigating the best way of connecting U.K. schools to the Internet while achieving maximum educational benefit. The program, involving several partners including IBM (U.K.), Omicron, Lexmark, CISCO and Novell, is being piloted in seven schools including Mundella Community College in Leicester.
IBM is providing hardware, which includes 12 PCs and a wireless LAN allowing four of the PCs to be carted around the school while still connected to the server.
The program has already fostered new ideas, one being the issuing of an "Internet Surfing Licence" to students that successfully pass an Internet "surfing skills test." For more information about Project Connect, contact Anna Russell, IBM (U.K.), 011-44-171-202-3799.
Another noteworthy overseas project IBM is involved with is the Video-On-Demand Project being introduced in Okazaki, Japan.
The project, a collaborative effort between IBM Japan's Education division, the Telecommunications Advancement Organization of Japan (TAOJ) and the City of Okazaki, links 30 schools to high-quality digital video (MPEG1, 3MBps) by 80 concurrent client PCs.
IBM developed a user-friendly interface that features futuristic animation, giving students the sense of piloting a spaceship. Access to the Video-On-Demand system is done via PCs in multimedia or audio/visual rooms. For more information about Project Video-On-Demand, contact Takahiro Hata, IBM Japan, 011-81-33-808-9605.