What the Internet Has Given Us:
Information – Exchange – Opportunities

8 September, 1999

I first used e-mail in 1993 during my first semester in graduate school to conduct my dissertation research. It’s hard to believe that six years later it would be such an integral part of both my personal and professional life. In 1996, I began my work for Project Harmony on the Internet School Linkage Program. With this program, it can be said that Project Harmony entered a new era. No longer were the exchange programs we conduct limited to those who could travel abroad. Soon dozens of teachers and students from schools across the NIS and US were engaging in online educational adventures. Although only several schools could physically travel to visit their partners, all of them could take part in virtual exchanges that offered exposure to new ideas, fresh perspectives and a world of information about which they had previously not known. The distance between our countries had grown smaller.

Three years since the dawn of this new era, Project Harmony has broadened its perspective, raised its expectations, expanded its work in this sphere. What began as a school-based Internet program in fifteen schools has now paved the way for a comprehensive Internet training and development initiative that spans all four corners of Russia, from Pskov to Vladivostok, from Petrozavodsk to Chelyabinsk to Samara and more than thirty five sites in between. The Internet Access and Training Program reaches an extremely diverse audience including researchers, NGO leaders, professionals and specialists in fields such as business, ecology, public administration and legal reform, as well as students and educators and alumni of US government-funded programs of all types.

There are some that would say that IATP is not an exchange program, but instead a development program or a training program. I say it’s all three. IATP is a development program in that it fosters the development of Internet infrastructure and access for a wide range of non-commercial users. It is a training program in that it provides training for these users and groups on how to apply information technology in their professional lives. These seminars, workshops and conferences aim to make the Internet relevant by developing the concrete skills and knowledge which enables people to leverage this new technology for professional development.

Finally, to the degree to which the Internet facilitates the free and open exchange of information and ideas, it is an exchange program. Project Harmony’s Internet-focused programs – IATP, the Samara RII Internet Program, the Internet School Linkage Program, Children’s Rights and the Internet Project, as well as the various Internet components of other programs such as the Community Connections Program, Law Enforcement Exchange Programs and the Domestic Violence Community Partnership Program – all aim to support the use of this technology in a way that enhances our ability to exchange information with one another. In doing so we exchange, or share, a bit of ourselves.

Why does the US government fund such programs you may ask? The answer is simple: the Internet is a tool for democracy-building. It is founded on the very basic principle of freedom of speech. Democracies only function when the citizens have the information to make informed decisions and the resources necessary to develop their personal and professional lives through the exchange of ideas and information. The Internet bridges the distance between people, between cultures and between countries, making it easier for us to learn from one another and share our skills and experiences to improve our collective future. The power of this new technology, however, is only as strong and as positive as we make it. Programs like IATP ensure that tools such as e-mail and the Internet are used in a positive way that improves peoples lives, however that may be accomplished – by sustaining relationships established with friends and colleagues abroad, by providing access to resources that enable people to work more effectively, to offer new perspectives on information and knowledge that we already possess.