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Stanford University, SLAC, NIIT and the Digital Divide

Prepared by Les Cottrell, SLAC

for the NIIT , March 18, 2005

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Stanford University• Location

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Some facts• Founded in 1890’s by Governor Leland

Stanford & wife Jane – in memory of son Leland Stanford Jr.– Apocryphal story of foundation

• Movies invented at Stanford

• 1600 freshman entrants/year (12% acceptance), 7:1 student:faculty, students from 53 countries

• 169K living Stanford alumni

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Some alumni• Sports: Tiger Woods, John McEnroe

• Sally Ride Astronaut

• Vint Cerf “father of Internet”

• Industry:– Hewlett & Packard, Steve Ballmer CEO Microsoft,

Scott McNealy Sun …

• Ex-presidents: Ehud Barak Israel, Alejandro Toledo Peru

• US Politics: Condoleeza Rice, George Schultz, President Hoover

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Some Startups• Founded Silicon Valley (turned orchards into

companies): – Start by providing land and encouragement

(investment) for companies started by Stanford alumni, such as HP & Varian

– More recently: Sun (Stanford University Network), Cisco, Yahoo, Google

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Excellence• 17 Nobel prizewinners• Stanford Hospital• Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) – my

home:– National Lab operated by Stanford University funded by US

Department of Energy– Roughly 1400 staff, + contractors & outside users => 3000,

~ 2000 on site at a given time– Fundamental research in:

• Experimental particle physics• Theoretical physics• Accelerator research• Synchrotron Light research

– Has faculty to pursue above research and awards degrees, 3 Nobel prizewinners

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Work with NIIT• Co-supervision of students, build research

capacity, publish etc., for example:– Quantify the Digital Divide:

• Develop a measurement infrastructure to provide information on the extent of the Digital Divide:

– Within Pakistan, between Pak & other regions

• Improve understanding, provide planning information, expectations, identify needs

• Provide and deploy tools in Pakistan

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World ViewS.E. Europe, Russia: catching upLatin Am., Mid East, China: keeping upIndia, Africa: falling behind

C. Asia, Russia, S.E. Europe, L. America, M. East, China: 4-5 yrs behind

India, Africa: 7 yrs behind

Important for policy makers

Many institutes in developing world have less performance than a household in N. America or Europe

Qua

lity

in K

Byt

es/s

Internet performance from US to Europe & India Sub-continent

Factor 10 improvement in 6 years

Europe India

7 years behind Keeping up

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Compare with TAI• UN Technology Achievement Index (TAI)

Note how bad Africa is