Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!spool.mu.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!darwin.ntu.edu.au!b_duke
From: b_duke@darwin.ntu.edu.au (Brian Duke)
Newsgroups: comp.society.development
Subject: Who is on the net?
Message-ID: <1991May23.115550.966@darwin.ntu.edu.au>
Date: 23 May 91 02:25:49 GMT
Lines: 39

Welcome to what I hope will become a significant group. It has been
siiting around in our system with no items, so I thought I would start 
things off.

My backround in these things is that I worked as Professor of Chemistry
at Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria (very far north Nigeria) (nearly 5
years) and the University of Papua New Guinea (4 years). My research
interests are in Computational Chemistry and I worked for a while in a 
Computer Science Department. As a result I am often asked to chair User
Committees etc. In Nigeria, we had no computer in the university when 
I got there. I became acting Director of Computer Services and built 
up a system, employed a full-time Director and, with him, selected a 
mainframe - a VAX - and installed it. It went on air a about a week
before I left the country. Meanwhile I had used a Cyber at the nearest 
university (Ahmado Bello University - 100 miles away). In PNG we were
more developed and had a Prime. In the last year or so (1985-6), IBM PC
came in greater numbers. 

The biggest problems in Nigeria were power supply - terrible, often off 
for hours each day, maintainance - poor training for local reps, and high
prices - the local reps had to have their dash.

Anyway, enough of this stuff. A question to start something going, I hope.

How many sites in real developing countries are on the net. Is this group
going to be another case of the well developed pontificating about the less
developed? Or can they join in? Of course there will be expatriates from 
developing countries working in developed countries. It used to be said 
that there were more Nigerian Computer Scientists in the US than Nigeria. 
They did not want to go home. Is this still the case? Does the net reach
Africa, South America, PNG, Fiji, South East Asia etc? I hear there are 
even difficulties with E-mail to some European countries such as Greece.

Can we have some information in this group to get us going?
-- 
                  Brian Salter-Duke (Brian Duke)
School of Chemistry and Earth Sciences, Northern Territory University
        GPO Box 40146, Casuarina, NT 0811, Australia.
Phone 089-466702   FAX 089-410460    E-mail B_DUKE@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU