E-Learning for Developing Countries is Focus of MIT Workshop
In addition to senior MIT faculty and policy makers from USAID, the
World Bank, corporations and foundations, the following countries
will be represented: Algeria, Armenia, Canada, France, Hong Kong,
Japan, India, Ireland, Iran, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Niger, Pakistan,
Russia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.
Professor Richard Larson, Professor of Electrical Engineering
at MIT and Co-Editor of Internet Forum 2001, created the concept of
LINC to address the needs of the growing youth oriented population
demographic in developing countries and the fact that developing
countries will be left further behind unless their youth receive
quality higher level education.
Speakers, who will address distance learning initiatives in
their respective countries, include Dr. Milad Fares Sebaaly, Provost,
Syrian Virtual University; Dr. Naveed Malik, Rector, Virtual
University of Pakistan and Dr. S. Sohail Naqvi, (Ministry of Science
and Technology, (Pakistan); Dr. Judy Dori, Technion University
(Israel); Dr. El-hadi Khaldi, Rector, Universite de la Formation
Continue (Algeria); Dr. Magdallen Juma, African Virtual University;
Ali Meghdari, senior faculty, Sharif University (Iran); and Yolanda
Martinez de Hernandez, Virtual University (Mexico). Participants will
also hear the latest developments on OpenCourseWare, MIT’s
large-scale, web-based electronic publishing initiative to make MIT
course materials freely available for educators, students, and
individual learners around the world. A full agenda, list of thirty
speakers and their topics and bios are available at
http://ken.mit.edu/linc (go to General Information).
Membership in LINC is open to individuals and institutions
and will be supported financially by membership dues, foundation
support, corporate funding and governmental institutions. Some of
its early activities will include the creation of collaborative
educational web sites, starter R&D projects in developing countries
aimed at new initiatives such as alternative pedagogical models in
e-learning; and the provision of technical assistance in training the
trainers who will serve as initial key e-learning project managers.
The workshop is made possible by a generous grant from the
Lounsbery Foundation.
MIT Contact:
Janet Wasserstein
Associate Director for Foundation Relations
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue Building 4 Room 240
Cambridge MA 02139
Tel: 617-253-4789
EMail: Janetw@mit.edu
