Advances in telecommunications and information technology are propelling democracy and education into the 21st Century over the Internet. Voters in Arizona, California and possibly a few other states could be casting their votes on the Internet in the 2000 elections. Colleges and universities are steadily increasing the availability of online courses.

Direct democracy and direct education are inevitable. Voters and college students are becoming better informed. Internet and Intranet style voting and education networks will not only increase direct democracy and direct education, they will ultimately close the digital divide with universal access.

The next generation Internet is beginning in much the same way the existing Internet began. Institutions of education and representative democracy as we know them will soon be obsolete. But we must inform ourselves and make sure that the people steer the next generation of education and democracy in the right direction to make it work for all of us, not just the privileged and powerful few.

The university and corporate technology-driven Internet2 and the Next Generation Internet Initiative (NGI) are developing advanced networking technologies and revolutionary applications that require advanced networking. These capabilities are being demonstrated on testbeds that are 100 to 1,000 times faster (end-to-end) than today's Internet.

The key distinction between the NGI Initiative and Internet2, however, is that the NGI is led by and focuses on the needs of the federal mission agencies, such as the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, NASA, National Institutes of Health and Science and others. However, because of the great overlap between universities and those federal agencies in terms of network infrastructure, there is a great deal of synergy between NGI and Internet2.

In addition, Tele-Immersion (National Tele-Immersion Initiative - NTII) will enable users at geographically distributed sites to collaborate in real time in a shared, simulated environment as if they were in the same physical room. This new paradigm for human-computer interaction is the ultimate synthesis of networking and media technologies. Further, it will accelerate the development of better tools for virtual environment research and educational collaboration, which will be woven in the fabric of many of the Internet2 and Next Generation Internet Initiative applications.

The American people must be an integral part of the next generation Internet with direct democracy and direct education.

For more information about the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, Internet2 and the Next Generation Internet Initiative, visit:
Tele_Immersion and
Internet2

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