GOVERNMENT

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC -- The North Carolina Networking Initiative (NCNI), which includes Duke University, NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill and MCNC, along with the 16 campuses of the University of North Carolina and Wake Forest University have received approval from the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID) to sponsor connections for the entire education community of North Carolina to the Abilene research network. Specifically, the approval means that under Internet2's Sponsored Education Group Participants (SEGP) program, the state's elementary, middle, and high schools as well as independent and community colleges, libraries and museums can connect to the Abilene Internet2 backbone network. Sponsored participants will connect to Abilene through the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN) and the NC gigaPop at speeds of up to 2.4 Gigabits per second. Connections became active December 20, 2001. "Participation in the SEGP program is a major step toward enabling the entire education community within North Carolina to work collaboratively on delivery of life-long learning opportunities. This is an important goal for UNC, and state-wide participation in Internet2 advances our capabilities," stated Robyn R. Render, vice president and Chief Information Officer for UNC. The goal of the SEGP program is to bring Internet2 member institutions, primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, libraries, and museums together to collaborate on new technologies for advancing education-networking tools, applications, middleware, and content-and to provide these technologies to innovators, across all educational sectors in the United States, as quickly and as "connectedly" as possible. "The SEGP program allows all of the education community connected to NCREN to take advantage of the Abilene network. Currently, North Carolina schools of all types make use of video conferencing. This will enable collaborative educational programs between North Carolina schools and their peers in other parts of the country," stated Mark Johnson, MCNC Director of Networking & Engineering, NCNI Advanced Technical Staff, and project manager. "In addition, Wake Technical Community College is establishing a program in the use of high performance computing which will be able to use Abilene for access to computing resources outside of NC." The SEGP program began in early 2001 and, as of mid-December 2001, there were eighteen state K-12/K-20 networks participating, including California, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. For more information about Internet2, see: ww.internet2.edu/