Michael Minges Blog

Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens

2008-02-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

Hillwood is the estate left by the millionairess Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress to the cereal fortune. She collected an abudance of art, particularly Russian. Items include icons, Fabergé eggs and ceramics. My favorites include the paintings, particularly the one on the right. The art is displayed in their original setting in her house making it an intimate place to see the collection. The estate overlooks Rock Creek Park, away from the tourists of downtown DC. Worth a visit!

Portrait of Countess Samoilova, Karl Briullov (1832-1834)

Ansel Adams exhibition at the Corcoran

2008-01-03T00:34:00.000-08:00

"In Glacier National Park" By Ansel Adams, Montana, 1941. National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the National Park Service
Saw the Ansel Adams exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in DC which was running concurrently with the Annie Leibovitz exhibition. An overdose of mega photography! In this age of disposable, digital, daily images, it is refreshing to see really good photos taken by people with a special perspective and with the final result nicely printed and displayed. Adam's nature photographs are Zen-like--they draw you in and make you think philosophically. There was a thread running through the Adams photos--I have a painting of a flower by a woman named Ellen Hathaway that reminds me of Georgia O'Keefe. I mentioned this to Marion who gave us book on O'Keefe for Christmas. Now just a few days later, it turns out that Georgia O'Keefe was a friend of Adams and there are a couple of enigmatic photos of her in the exhibit as well as some photos of her paintings.
The Leibovitz exhibit is bold, big, bright and brash. What is fascinating is the juxtaposition of her personal family photos with celebrities.
An interesting photo is one Leibovitz took of Adams for a Rolling Stone magazine article back in 1976 that she had printed when she found out her show would be next to his. It is in the hallway between the two exhibits and unfortunately missed by most people.

MDG Photo

2007-12-14T14:37:00.000-08:00

Was browsing through a UN publication entitled "The Millennium Development Goals Report" when I found a picture I took on page 33. It's a scene from Phnom Penh, Cambodia taken back in July 2001.

Spice Tour in Zanzibar

2007-11-14T00:19:00.000-08:00

Tequila!

2006-07-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

This shot was taken at the entrance to Andrés Carne de Res, a wild and wacky restaurant/night club about half an hour from Bogota, Colombia. Cowboy meets psychedelia, rock meets reggaeton, everybody has a good time. Truly a unique place.

Me & Meg

2004-10-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

This was taken by Vanessa on Saturday afternoon October 2nd at Harrods in London. I was in town for a conference at the London Business School. While browsing around the giant department store, I saw that the author of The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot, autographing her new book. You can read Meg's version of the day on her blog at: http://www.megcabot.com/blog/blogger.html

Korea in Translation: Lost in the Asian Cyber World

2004-09-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

Hanaro Telecom stand, ITU Telecom Asia
Like the character Bill Murray plays in the film “Lost in Translation”, I feel a bit disoriented visiting the ITU Telecom Asia show in Busan, Republic of Korea. First of all, I am not even sure what the city is called. Some people call it Busan, others Pusan. Even my hotel seems inconsistent. The sign outside says Busan Lotte Hotel whereas the stationary in the desk calls it the Hotel Lotte Pusan.
The show is at the Busan Exposition Centre (BEXCO), anywhere from 20 minutes to one hour from the hotel depending on the traffic. Even though it is supposed to be regional, a lot of the stands have information only in Korean and a lot of the staff only speak Korean. Some of the wares seem strange—mobile phones with cartoon characters that act as your agent or a phone that recognizes your finger prints, allowing you assign different people to call to each finger—just imagine who you could assign the middle ones to. Talking about cartoon characters, one of the most popular stands was that of Hanaro Telecom—a Korean broadband operator. There was a constant line of people waiting to have their picture taken with what I think was some kind of chipmunk and a penguin; I obliged of course. At the SK Telecom stand, break dancers and rap singers attracted a constant crowd. Combined with a massive case of jet lag after a 14 hour daylight flight from Washington DC, I feel lost in all of this.

This place is rife with contradictions. Korea is the world’s broadband leader yet large parts of it remain inoperative to Westerners or even anyone non-Korean. I’ve had loads of difficulties printing documents from PCs that display only Han (the Korean alphabet). I’ve waded through Korean Power Point relying on memory to navigate menus. I end up with printouts that have elements displaced—background shows up on one slide and the foreground on another. My hotel room is the first I’ve had with a PC but the system to access the Internet is unfathomable and I had to call for help to establish a Wi-Fi connection.
I guess this is how people must feel that have had to use computers and the Internet in English for so many years. But the more I think about it, this is one reason why the Republic of Korea is so far ahead in information and communication technology. It has successfully adapted information technology to its environment so that understanding English is no longer a barrier. This is a lesson more countries need to learn if they are to successfully join the digital world.
ITU Telecom Asia, 7-11 September, Busan-Republic of Korea

Broadband as Commodity

2002-12-02T20:02:00.000-08:00

This shot was taken in front of the Wanchai Computer Center—a big shopping mall devoted to selling computers and accessories. Taken with natural light, the blur emphasizes the frenetic buzz of the hawkers pushing broadband services. These street vendors could just as easily been selling apples or oranges, emphasizing the point to which broadband has become a commodity in Hong Kong. The right sign shows the various flavors available from one operator—1.5Mbps, 3Mbps or 6Mbps...almost two years later, I was only getting around 491 kbps down & 131 kbps up in the USA and paying US$ 30 a month; higher speeds were not available for a residential connection. At the time this photo was taken, a 1.5 Mbps plan was HK$ 156 (US$ 20) per month. See "Broadband as Commodity: Hong Kong, China Case Study" and the presentation at the ITU Promoting Broadband Workshop.

"At current trends, virtually all of Hong Kong’s internet subscriptions will be broadband by the year 2005. Hong Kong’s broadband internet access pricing has recently become among the cheapest in the region. It is unlikely that there is this degree of broadband competition anywhere else in the world.”
South China Morning Post, 14 July 2003

From Mechanics to Web Designers: Sunrin Internet High School

2002-05-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

Web site: www.sunrint.hs.kr
Photos: http://community.webshots.com/album/39366201tduiRv

Located down a narrow street in a quiet section of central Seoul, the Sunrin Internet High School is identified by a large gray stone marker. The stone harks back to traditional Korea, with its elegant characters written in the country’s Hangul alphabet. But what is going on in the school is definitely the future. Although all of Korea’s primary and secondary schools have computers and Internet connections (the latter accomplished in December 2000), Sunrin is different in that the high school has been designated as Seoul’s only Internet high school (two years ago) and only one of two in the country.

Sunrin has traditionally been noted for its quality of its instruction (as well as its baseball team). It has around 1’000 students and 80 teachers. School hours are 8:30 – 3:30 pm but some students are so hooked they stay until 10 pm. Sunrin is a senior high school, roughly equivalent to grades 10-12 in a western school with students aged 16-18. Like at all Korean schools, the students wear uniforms that vary by age and sex.

There are over 600 PCs and 16 PC Labs, many with the latest equipment. Most PCs are Samsung brand, manufactured by Korea’s largest electronics company. The school has two E1 (2.048 Mbps) lines for Internet access paid by the government; much faster than the normal 256 kbps for schools the government provides.

It is still too early to tell what kinds of jobs the students will get since the first batch has not yet graduated. There is job training through cooperation with industry and some students are already doing business on the side. It was noted that the Internet allows a student’s web site, if well done, to be indistinguishable from those of large companies.

Before learning focused on text but now includes images and sounds. Movement, sound, and design are important at the school since they form part of the new digital content. Sunrin is also big on music and there is a lab with equipment for experimenting with digital sounds. The advantage is that you do not have to have the actual instrument, allowing many more students to participate in learning music. Students make their own music, including adding soundtracks to videos they have created. Content development is also taught. For example students study Japanese Manga cartoons for insight into graphical design.

There are plans to create a cyber library. It is expected that in the future students will not need to bring text books since digital version will be available on the school web site. Other schools could also download the textbook authored by Sunrin teachers, a pretty prolific lot that have already written 15.

Sunrin, a traditional vocational school, was selected as an Internet school because of the enthusiasm of the principal and teachers. According to the principal, a traditional vocational school is useless in today’s increasingly information-driven society. Information Technology (IT) is not entirely new at Sunrin, which introduced an Apple Macintosh in 1979 and incorporated computers into the curriculum in 1982.

Teachers are taught IT skills at a private academy funded by the Ministry of Information and Communication. All teachers have their own PC and Internet access.

Computer training is divided into four departments: Internet Information Communication, Web-Managing, Electronic Commerce and Multi-Media Design. Classes range from Unix to learning Web design. Students also take four hours of English a week. In addition, there are extra non-IT courses to compensate for too much exposure to computers.

An interesting example of the multimedia approach is a math class that uses an electronic chalkboard to teach students how to program Eratosthenes Sieve, an algorithm for identifying prime numbers. Thus students learn math and computer programming as well as some English, killing three birds at once.

A Women-operated Telecentre in Cape Verde

2002-04-01T15:17:00.000-08:00

From the outside, the Telecentro Comuntario de Assomada does not look like an Internet café. It is a nondescript ochre colored building that looks like it could be a storage shed or somebody’s house. Paper posters advertising the telecentre keep on getting blown away in the steady wind so the staff is thinking about a more permanent neon sign. The telecentre is located in the town of Santa Catarina, the second largest on the island of Sao Tiago, Cape Verde with a population of 42’000. A US$ 50’000 project of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU, www.itu.int) and Cabo Verde Telecom (CVT, www.nave.cv), the incumbent telephone company, the telecentre opened in May 2001. CVT is providing 50 per cent discount on telecommunication and Internet access during the first year. The telecentre has a 64 kbps ISDN connection to the Internet.

Members of the some 3’000 strong Women’s Association of Santa Catarina, operate the telecentre. Two people staff it during working hours, 8 am – 10 pm daily except Sundays. The only male involved in the operations is the guard. Services available include recharge of mobile prepaid cards, purchase of telephone calling cards, public phone calls, Internet access, PC applications, photocopying, printing, and fax. Drinks and light snacks are also available. The price of Internet access is 150 Cape Verde Escudos per hour (US$ 1.25), less expensive than at the other two Internet cafes in town.

Clients of the five PC telecentre include students and professors from a nearby school as well as residents of the local community. There are around 60 users per day each using it on average of half hour. There is an extra table for people to wait, as the telecentre tends to get crowded during peak times.

PC and Internet access training for women is in the pipeline. There is also a plan to introduce an e-commerce component to sell handicrafts made by local women. This would include digitizing the products and displaying them on a web site.

Desert, goats and an IT Park in Oman

2001-06-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

The Sultanate of Oman, with a land area of just over 300'000 square kilometers, is the third largest country on the Arabian Peninsula. Over 80 per cent of Oman's territory is desert but it contains large reserves of oil and natural gas. Oil-related activities account for almost 40 per cent of the country's GDP and have contributed strongly to economic development. Nonetheless, over half of Oman's population is still involved in agricultural activities. This becomes apparent once outside the more developed part of the country centered around the capital, Muscat. About an hour away from the capital, goats seem to outnumber people.

Over 80 per cent of Oman's territory is desert.

Oman's population is engaged in agricultural activities.

One of Oman's some 700'000 goats. In rural areas, goats seem to outnumber people. More than half of

Until the recent rise, stagnation in oil prices had led to a fall in per capita income, pointing out the danger of over reliance on a single commodity. The government is thus keen to diversify the economy. Its Oman 2020 vision calls for increasing the role of other sectors. It is hoped that, by 2020, the contribution of crude oil to GDP will be less than ten per cent.

A step in that direction has been the creation of economic zones-called Industrial Estates-that clusters primarily manufacturing companies together. Six Industrial Estates have been created that offer some 200 companies a comprehensive package of incentives such as tax breaks and subsidized rentals. In addition, transport and communications infrastructure and facilities such as schools and shops are also provided in the Industrial Estates. The Public Establishment for Industrial Estates (PEIE, http://www.peie.com/) is the government-owned agency that manages Industrial Estates.

Recognizing the growing role of Information Technology (IT) in both manufacturing as well as an industry in its own right, the government has plans to create an IT Park designed along the model of the Industrial Estates. Indeed, PEIE has taken the lead role in drawing up the plans for the IT Park, based on a United Nations for Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) study. The design of the IT Park has been completed and ground breaking is scheduled for September 2001. It will be ready for tenants by July 2002.

The IT Park is to be located three kilometers from Rusayl (location of the largest Industrial Estate containing the biggest conglomeration of companies in Oman) and only ten minutes from Seeb International Airport. Covering some 300'000 square meters, the IT Park is divided into three parts: offices for software companies; a training center including an IT college (to be built by the private sector); and services such as shopping, a food court, health club, etc.

Oman's location-just across the Arabian Sea from India, next door to the other Gulf States, and close to the Horn of Africa-plays an important role. One objective of PEIE is to attract companies who want a gateway to East Africa, the Gulf Cooperation Council and Yemen. It is hoped that the brand recognition of Omani products-for example the most famous milk powder in Sudan comes from Oman-and a reputation for quality will help software exports. Another plus is language; most Omanis speak both Arabic and English. The large number of expatriates and closeness to Iran and India also means that significant portions of Oman's inhabitants are also familiar with Farsi and Hindi.

The Sultanate's closeness to India is evident from the large number of Indian workers. India's success in developing its own software industry has had an influence on Oman's IT Park and Omani officials have visited Indian software parks and obtained ideas. In fact, a team of Bangalore-based Indian architects designed the sleek, glassy, 3-story multi-domed IT Park.

Developing the needed human resource skills for the IT Park will be crucial to its success. One factor that should help is that the IT Park is just 1.5 kilometers from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) <http://www.squ.edu.om/>, Oman's only public institute of higher education. SQU offers degrees in Information Systems and Information Engineering. To ensure a steady supply of programmers, an Omani-Indian company plans to establish a university-the Middle East College of Information Technology-in the heart of the IT Park. This private-sector initiative will offer Omanis and other Gulf students a bachelor's degree. Plans are to open in September 2002 with an intake of 500 students.

Headquarters of Oman Telecommunication Company. OmanTel will be responsible for providing the communications infrastructure of the IT Park

The IT Park will have state-of-the-art communication infrastructure most of which will be provided by the state-owned telecom company, OmanTel. Fiber optic cable will extend up to the IT Park (the availability of fiber will be no problem since the only fiber optic cable plant in the Middle East is located at Rusayl). The IT Park will have its own 1'000 line telephone exchange. It is planned to provide 155 Mbps of bandwidth to the desktop over the IT Park's Local Area Network. Just in case, there will be a powerful uninterruptible power supply.

Oman first connected to the Internet in January 1997 with an initial one Mbps link. As of May 2001, international connectivity stood at almost 30 Mbps. There are 33'000 Internet subscribers or almost 100'000 users in the country (just over 4% of the population). One barrier is the shortage of PCs in homes. Although over half of Omani homes have a telephone line, less than 10% have a PC. OmanTel is launching a program to facilitate the purchase of home PCs. Other goals include raising the level of Internet access in schools and providing broadband local access.

Incentives for companies locating at the IT Park will be similar to those for the Industrial Estates. These include tax holidays, exemptions on import duties, subsidized rent, visa facilitation for expatriates, clearances and 100 per cent foreign investment. In addition, some special inducements for the IT Park include an initial lowering of the cap for Omani employees (normally 35%, reduced to 10% for the IT Park) and discounts on network access. Nonetheless it is hoped that the IT Park will create employment for IT skilled Omani nationals as well as serve as an incubator for Omani dot.com start-ups. Tele-working is another possibility as there is a large number of highly educated Omani women who are potential employees but who would prefer to work from home.

A major goal of the IT Park is to develop software for export. This includes customizing applications for the regional market and Arabizing software. There are already some precedents in this area. For example, Medicom <http://www.medicomsoft.com/>, an Indian-Oman medical software company, has exported its hospital management system to South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and India. There is also expected to be a lot of work developing local applications. For example, there is an Omani e-government committee chaired by the Minister of National Economy, which is expected to propose a number of projects. Another area is education where the Ministry of Education has proposed the development of a student database.

Multimedia Malaysia

2000-11-01T14:56:00.000-08:00

Kuala Lumpur, November 2000
Can a multi-ethnic, South East developing nation of 22 million leapfrog to a Knowledge Society?
It seems that practically anything in Malaysia to do with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) uses the word multimedia. For example, the ICT policy-maker is the Ministry of Energy, Communications and Multimedia; the Communications and Multimedia Commission (CMC) refers to the industry regulator; the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) is the country’s answer to Silicon Valley; and the Multimedia University is the nation’s ICT institute of higher education. This could easily be construed as over-hype, particularly as many governments are paying lip service to the Internet age but rarely back their public proclamations up with concrete actions. However something appears to be going on in Malaysia in its embrace of ICT as a lever to lift it to developed country status by the year 2020 (its so-called Vision 2020).

The Internet market is growing thanks to cheap tariffs, the introduction of broadband access, growing liberalization, rising awareness and a strong government commitment to ICT for development. The Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems (MIMOS) <www.mimos.com.my>, launched the nation’s first Internet Service Provider (ISP) — Jaring www.jaring.my — to provide Internet access to Malaysian users. TMnet, the ISP of incumbent telephone operator, Telekom Malaysia, was the second, launching service in November 1996. Four other telecom infrastructure companies were licensed ISPs by early 2000. In July 2000, CMC introduced a new Internet licensing scheme with four types of licenses: Internet Access Service Provider (an ISP), Network Service Provider (provider of Internet infrastructure and bandwidth), Network Facilities Provider and End-Users Services. Four companies are Network Service Providers (Jaring, TMnet, Time Dot Com and Maxis Net) meaning they supply bandwidth for IASPs including themselves. ISPs (or IASPs in Malaysia) require a license from CMC that costs RM 2’500 a year.

TMNet is the largest ISP. It claimed around 700’000 subscribers in August 2000 for what it estimates to be between 65-70 per cent of the market.[1] This puts the size of the Internet subscriber market at just over one million. Figures on the estimated number of users diverge widely. One report predicts the number of Internet subscribers will be 1.5 million and the number of users 7.5 million by end 2000.[2] Yet the same report quotes a government official as stating that six per cent of Malaysians used the Internet in May 2000, or around 1.4 million people. A more realistic figure is probably somewhere between these two figures; perhaps 2.5 million users at June 2000, or just over one in ten Malaysians.

The nation has an ambitious project to create a Malaysian “Silicon Valley”. Launched in 1996, the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) will stretch south from the largest city, Kuala Lumpur (KL), all the way to the new Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). The MSC is arising from a 15 kilometers long by 50 kilometers wide strip of land carved from a former palm tree plantation.[3] KLIA, completed in 1998, is futuristic, glass-enclosed and surrounded by rain-forest—maybe the world’s first eco-airport. So far only one phase has been completed. There are plans for two more terminals as demand rises. In fitting with its location at the tip of the MSC, the airport is so computerized that supposedly sales and inventory levels of all the shops it contains can be calculated within a day.

In addition to the airport, other landmarks include the Petronas Twin Towers (the world’s tallest twin towers) in southern KL, and the ‘intelligent cities’ of Putrajaya — the seat of the new federal government hosting government ministries and the Prime Minister’s residence — and Cyberjaya — the main town of the MSC.

The vision for the MSC is to create an oasis for Information Technology companies that will make Malaysia a multimedia hub and propel it into the hi-tech age. The government is providing a range of incentives to attract companies to the MSC. Over 350 companies had achieved the coveted MSC status.[4] Some 100 international companies including well-known heavyweights as Alcatel, Cable & Wireless, Ericsson, Fujitsu, IBM, Intel, Lotus, Lucent, Nokia, NTT, Oracle, Siemens and Sun have committed to the scheme. However few have yet to build their facility partly because of the sharp downturn in the Malaysian economy from the Asian financial crisis and partly because the underlying infrastructure — roads, fiber optic cable, etc. — is still being installed. One that has, is Japan’s NTT. Its MSC facility is NTT’s largest overseas Research and Development centre outside Silicon Valley.

Telekom Malaysia is hard at work installing the MSC communications infrastructure. The Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) backbone has a 40 Gbps switch capacity. A variety of broadband customer access technologies will be offered including Fibre-to-the-Home, ADSL and high-speed wireless. Rapid national and international connectivity is assured through a 622 Mbps link to Telekom Malaysia’s domestic backbone and over 300 Mbps to the Internet backbone. Telekom Malaysia will guarantee quality of service, offer globally competitive tariffs and provide various complementary services such as web hosting.

Located at the center of the MSC in Cyberjaya, the Multimedia University (MMU) is the first of its kind in the world. Focusing exclusively on a high-tech curriculum, the campus was built in 19 months and accepted its first students in 1997. There is also a sister campus in the city of Melaka. The two units already have some 9’000 students with a planned enrolment of 12’000 by 2002. There is a strong international flavor with students from 31 countries and faculty representing 23 nations. Students can enroll for undergraduate degrees in traditional subjects such as Electronics, Information Technology, Software Development, Data Communications and Engineering as well as more esoteric areas such as Entrepreneurship, Digital Media and Digital Art. And, in keeping with Malaysian fondness for the word, there is a Bachelors Degree in Multimedia. It is envisioned that MMU will play the same role that Stanford University does for Silicon Valley: a breeding ground for high-tech research and a steady supply of skilled techies for MSC businesses.

What sets the MSC apart from similar schemes in other countries is its planning and scale. While other nations can boast of high-tech agglomerations such as Silicon Valley in the USA or Bangalore in Southern India, these grew piece mill, without much initial government support. In contrast, the MSC is the brainchild of the Malaysian government — which is offering numerous incentives for companies to settle there — and is underpinned by a three phase plan spanning some twenty years. And while many other governments are developing so-called technology parks, they pale in comparison to the size and scope of MSC.

MSC is the creation of a first-world environment in a developing country. In many ways, Malaysia is probably one of the few countries where this could happen. It is a unique developing nation with an unusual set of circumstances. Malaysia’s per capita income of some US$ 3’000 straddles it somewhere between the first and third. It is not quite as rich as Asian tigers such as Singapore, Hongkong, South Korea or Taiwan but neither is it as poor as other South East Asian developing nations such as Indonesia, Thailand or the Philippines. Nor is the government as cash-strapped as a typical developing country. And unlike advanced developed countries, where governments seemed to be ailing from sclerosis, the Malaysian government retains the lead role in driving economic development.

Table 1: Between first and third worlds

Economy	Population (m)	GDP per capita US$	Telephone lines per 100 inhabitants	Mobile subscribers per 100 inhabitants	Internet users per 100 inhabitants
Hongkong SAR	7	24’612	57.6	63.6	32.7
Singapore	4	21’413	48.2	41.9	45.1
Taiwan-China	22	12’387	54.5	52.2	28.9
Korea (Rep.)	47	6’829	43.8	50.0	33.9
Malaysia	22	3’333	20.3	13.7	11.5
Thailand	61	1’859	8.6	3.8	1.6
Philippines	75	898	3.9	3.7	0.8
China	1’267	768	8.6	3.4	1.3
Indonesia	209	605	2.9	1.1	0.5
India	998	435	2.7	0.2	0.4

Note: GDP is for 1998, all other data refers to 1999.
Source: ITU.

There are a number of programs to assist budding dot coms. These include R&D grants, incubation, training and venture capital financing. One hope is that world-renowned high tech companies will rub shoulders with Malaysia companies. This will help sharpen the skills of so-called Malaysian “technopreneurs”. Success should breed more success: as the number of companies grows, others will feel they cannot afford to be left out. It is hoped that international companies will establish their Asian headquarters at MSC, one reason for the closeness of the airport. In order to attract them, there will be wide-open spaces, efficient transportation options, and environmentally-friendly, high-tech housing — in short, first world living. As if that is not enough, there will also be a Disney-like theme park in the new e-Village. This planned content creation oasis will be where Hollywood meets Silicon Valley with the development of films, television and radio programming, interactive software and online publishing.

It is too early to tell whether the MSC will be a revolutionary success or a colossal failure. Right now it is a huge construction site with mountains of dirt, hundreds of trucks, partially erected buildings and mazes of superhighway interchanges. The gut instinct is that there is something special going on here. The strong government leadership and dynamism of the Malaysian population suggest that this is going to work. Even at this early stage, the dedication and enthusiasm surrounding the project are infectious and leave many, particularly those from developing countries, in awe. After all, for someone from Nigeria or Trinidad, Silicon Valley seems irrelevant; a developed country phenomenon they just can’t relate to. But to see a fellow developing country build a high tech hub out of a tropical jungle, that sinks in. Indeed one emphasis of the MSC is to be a test-bed for appropriate, low-cost communications technologies suitable for developing countries.

[1] It states that Internet subscribers grew by 9 per cent a month in the first half of 2000 and that Internet access revenues increased by 40 per cent in the same period. See Telekom Malaysia. “Telekom Malaysia Announces Half Year Results 2000”. Press Release. 29 August 2000. <www.telekom.com.my/news/290800.htm>

[2] “Baby Steps For Our Net Generation.” Jaring Internet Magazine. May 2000. <www.magazine.jaring.my/2000/editor-may.html>

[3] Malaysia is the world’s largest exporter of Palm Oil. In 1999 it produced 10.6 million tonnes of the product; export value was RM 19.5 billion. Source: Department of Statistics. “Key Statistics-Malaysia.” <www.statistics.gov.my/English/keystats.html>

[4] MSC status is conferred by the Multimedia Development Corporation, established to oversee the development of MSC. MSC-Status allows companies to benefit from a number of government initiatives including unrestricted employment of local and foreign workers, exception from foreign investment limits, 10 year tax holiday and no import duties.

Bolivia

2000-05-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

La Paz
I stayed in the Casa Grande Apart Hotel. It is sort of a cross between an apartment and a hotel. It was very nice. Recently built and very clean. Very modern looking and built in a sort of triangular shape. My room was a suite with a kitchen, sitting room, dining room table and separate bedroom. There was cable TV and great plug receptacles that accept any kind of plug (no need for adapters!). There was also a pretty good restaurant attached to the hotel. I paid US$ 75 per night, a real bargain. One thing to note is that it is not in the center of town but in more of a residential part. However it is quick to get to the center. Also, there was a lively section walking distance to the hotel with a number of restaurants. I never seem to get to the web site shown on their business card.

The food in La Paz is pretty good. Remember eating a lot of steak (both beef and llama) and washing it down with not bad Bolivian red wine. A couple of restaurants I ate at were Vienna and Chez Lacoste.

Lake Titicaca
I went there one Sunday. Left La Paz in late morning. Took about an hour to get there. Had lunch (some lake fish, not bad) and then took a boat to a little island (around ½ hour) where there were some reed boats. Back to La Paz in early evening. The tour group I used was Daygui Tours.