Sponsor: IBM Latin America
Countries: Antigua and Barbuda,
Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El
Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica,
Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis,
St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad
and Tobago, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela
Program focus: Electronic communications
Timeframe: 1990–1992
Description: IBM provided a $50,000 grant to
enable LASPAU to establish its Network Project in 1990. The project was designed
to encourage computer communications for academic purposes throughout the
Americas with the intention of stimulating greater communications among former
grantees, their colleagues, and faculty in the United States. As a result
of this early program, a number of electronic mailing lists were established,
some of which are still in active use.
More Information
The first initiative of the IBM Network Project
was the implementation of LASPAU-L, LASPAU’s primary
electronic mailing list. This system operated like an electronic
newsletter, enabling subscribers to read and send messages to
the entire mailing list simultaneously. Members could download
information from the list such as a directory of Latin American
distribution lists, a record of Latin American meetings and
conferences, and a guide to exchange programs, scholarships,
and fellowships. LASPAU updated, maintained, and moderated the
lists on a weekly basis. Since the IBM start-up grant, LASPAU
continues to run the mailing list successfully and efficiently
under its own general operation.
The grant was also instrumental to the creation of other mailing
lists designed to cater to the needs of grantees and alumni of
specific LASPAU-run programs. Electronic mailing lists such as
CAMPUS-L (funded by the Fulbright Program for communication between
grantees of the Central American Program of Undergraduate Scholarships)
and FLAN-L, the Fulbright-LASPAU Academic Network (another Fulbright-funded
list for the benefit of Fulbright Program grantees) continue to
benefit Latin American scholars in the United States. ECON-L was
developed for the USAID-funded Economic Policy Development Program
for Honduran economists. In all cases, the electronic mailing
lists permitted grantees to exchange information, undertake research,
and hear about news and events. The project was successful in
creating some of the earliest virtual communities.
|
