NCSA NEWS

U.S.-Russian Networking Efforts Addressed in NCSA Seminar

released December 12, 2000

Greg Cole of the University of Tennessee will visit NCSA on Dec. 18 and present a seminar on the Friends and Partners program, an effort that provides Internet connectivity in Russia and encourages cooperation and exchange between the U.S. and Russia on the Internet and related networking issues.

Cole's talk will address a number of international projects that have grown out of the Friends and Partners program, including MIRnet, an effort to provide a high-performance network between the U.S. and Russia. Funded jointly by the National Science Foundation and the Russian Ministry of Industry, Science and Technology, MIRnet links the two countries' scientific communities and supports data visualization, high volume file transfer, distance learning, and other technologies. Cole will also discuss CIVnet, a program to develop civic networks in six Russian cities: Chelyabinsk, Kazan, Obninsk, Samara, Sergiev Posad, and Voronezh. CIVnet is supported by the Ford Foundation and seeks to help build democratic institutions by improving access to communications and information resources.

The Friends and Partners program began in 1994 as one of the first jointly developed U.S.-Russian Internet services. Today, the F&P Web servers accommodate more than 5 million accesses each month, and its email listservers and other communications services handle more than 1 million transactions each month.

For more information see http://www.friends-partners.org/friends/.

 

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