La Révolution numérique
CubaLibre
leur venin dans nos journaux, il se passe à Cuba des choses plus
intéressantes que des conférences de presse de dissidents persécutés (au
fait si Fidel est un dictateur qui ne supporte pas la contestation, comment
ces dissidents peuvent faire le lendemain de leur libération anticipée une
conférence de presse internationale sans se faire immédiatement renvoyer en
prison ?). Ce projet d'université du numérique pourrait surement intéresser
beaucoup de personnes suivant les champs des technologies de l'information
ou de l'éducation si les médias obscurantistes ne censuraient pas
systématiquement tout ce qui peut être positif à Cuba. Quand on sait que
même les sites officiels de propagande la mafia cubaine a Miami (les
gusanos) ont repris cette histoire :
(http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y04/dec04/08e10.htm ou
http://www.lanuevacuba.com/nuevacuba/notic-04-12-815.htm), nos journaux ne
scorent vraiment pas haut sur l'échelle de la crédibilité et de
l'information.
Tiré de Corante du 07/12/04 :
(http://www.corante.com/getreal/archives/cubas_other_revolution.php)
(Aller sur le lien pour voir des photos du campus et des étudiants)
Cuba's Other Revolution
Last month, Marc Eisenstadt had the privilege of visiting a hi-tech campus
whose very existence defies belief. Here's his report.
I was in Havana last month to attend TelEduc04, the 3rd International
Symposium on Distance Learning and Lifelong Learning, a key Latin American
e-learning workshop. I've filed a short news report about the conference,
my keynote address, and my 30 seconds of fame on Cuban TV in a KMi Planet
News Story -- here I want to describe a very exciting post-conference visit.
During the opening day of the conference, the TelEduc President and Chair,
Tomás López, said to me, "you would probably be very interested to hear
what is happening at UCI." (pronounced "ooh-see"). "UCI: What's that?" I
asked." "Universidad de las Ciencias Informáticas" said Tomas, "and they
are doing some very interesting things. You should listen to the
presentation tomorrow by the Vice-Rector."
The Vision
I duly attended the presentation by UCI Vice-Rector Rosa Vázquez. In that
talk, she set out the vision of an institution conceived by Cuban President
Fidel Castro in March of 2002. Castro's idea was to bridge the 'digital
divide' in one enormous leap into the future: a hi-tech campus, housing
10,000 students selected from the best and brightest in the country. The
campus would be dedicated to a new university, La Universidad de las
Ciencias Informáticas, and would be lavishly endowed with all the
provisions an up-and-coming student of Information Sciences might require.
A multi-gigabit fiber-optic backbone would ring the campus, bringing
multi-megabit internet and faster intranet capabilities to all buildings
(correction: all rooms in all buildings) - yes, including the custom-built
halls of residence, which would be equipped with air conditioning, plus a
TV and computer in every student suite. Classroom facilities would be
mixture of modular workspace, videoconference suites, and ample
workstations of the latest spec to provide one computer for every student.
Teaching staff would be specially recruited from among the best the country
could offer. All students would be expected to spend a certain proportion
of their time working on production teams developing commercial software,
which in turn would help pay for the operation and bootstrap a Cuban
software industry that could, at the very least, serve all of Latin America.
Sound interesting? The plan gets even bolder: conceived in March 2002,
approval would be sought immediately, and construction would begin by May
2002, with the first student intake by September 2002! [NOTE: my original
posting said "construction ... by September 2002 ... student intake by May
2003", but I have updated the preceding sentence in light of the comment by
Alina Ruiz below.] Guess what: the vast bulk of the dedicated campus has
already been built, and the annual intake of 2000 students is in full
swing, aiming for a steady-state of 10,000. Fully 6000 are on campus right
now. Half of the students are women, and 250 professors are on hand, living
on campus with them.
I sat dumb-struck as I heard the concept and the numbers from the
presenter. This was a colossal plan, on a scale that would challenge most
countries in the developed world. That it was so bold was staggering enough
- but this was topped by the realization that it had already been built. I
am pretty tuned in to the e-learning and distance learning grapevines, and
had even been to Havana previously for TelEduc03 with the same organizers,
yet I had never heard of UCI. I thought I surely must be dreaming. "Tomas,
I'd really love to see this place, and meet some of the people involved -
would that be possible?"
The Visit
Tomas knows everyone in Cuban higher education, particularly in the
high-tech area, including the Rector of UCI, Melchor Gil, who kindly
arranged for me to visit on my final day in Cuba. I had already interacted
with several UCI staff during TelEduc04: the translators who assisted me
with two presentations, Liliana Casar and Olga Lydia Martinez, were in fact
lecturers at UCI, specialising in the teaching of English, which I
discovered is a required subject for all UCI students. This requirement is
a smart move, and I don't say that as a native speaker of English: I say it
because a Brazilian guy at last year's TelEduc told me that his students,
who speak Portuguese and English, had a big advantage over Cuban students
who speak Spanish and either nothing else or perhaps Russian, because
getting all the relevant documentation, instruction manuals, FAQs,
discussion threads, RSS feeds, and other sources of late-breaking high-tech
info on many topics is overwhelmingly facilitated by a knowledge of the
English language. UCI is now addressing this gap, big-time.
So off we went in a minivan. The driver took us about 1 hour north of
Havana, on the route towards Piñar del Rio, into open countryside and
farmland. In the distance I could see some sculptures, and these turned out
to be works of art stationed around the entrance to UCI. The driver turned
in, and we were treated to some of the sculptures you see in the
accompanying pictures. This began a theme that was echoed throughout the
day: for students to be well-rounded, they needed to be immersed in art,
music, and culture. Culture was more than just a passive presence on the
campus: students were expected and encouraged to be active in the pursuit
of the arts.
[]
One of the many dramatic works of art gracing the long entrance road to the
UCI campus
Art was everywhere. I met the proud director of one of the halls of
residence, who boasted about UCI students winning national music and dance
awards as a result of their extra-curricular activities. Original art,
typically in the form of large murals, filled the exterior walls of the
halls of residence. The very first room I was taken to was not a computer
lab, but an on-campus art gallery.
[]
Halls of residence. Note the air conditioners visible outside each room.
Bulldozers and cranes were everywhere. Roads were being paved, buildings
being constructed, right before my eyes. It was like one of these scenes
from The X-Files, where yesterday there was no 10,000-student campus, and
today there is - hard work on a colossal scale, but hey, why not? Five
separate 'faculties' are already in existence, in effect modular
sub-campuses, and more are under construction right now - 24 hours a day,
as far as I can tell.
I was speechless for a large part of my visit. "This is like visiting
Jurassic Park" I muttered to myself. "You mean because you think we're
dinosaurs?" joked Beatriz Aragón, UCI Director of International
Cooperation. "On the contrary," I replied, "it's because this place is like
something from a science fiction story: no one will believe me when I tell
them about it!"
The Effort
Everyone knows about Cuba's economic difficulties. "How on earth did they
fund this enormous University?" I asked myself, my hosts, even my driver.
The answer came back with a resounding "It's the most important thing
happening in this country: we can afford it." Clearly every possible
resource has been marshalled to make this happen, and fast. Saying "no
expense was spared" would be misleading, because the place is not
ostentatious, nor dripping with wealth. It's nice - very nice. It's
functional - very functional. It's pleasant, and it's a buzzing beehive of
activity. My driver said that his wife also worked there, and that he was
extremely proud of this institution. The sense of both pride and sacrifice
was palpable. UCI was, in my opinion, clearly designed to supersede other
sources of income in the long term. And it was already working, even in the
short term. The poster in the entrance hall of one of the halls of
residence summed up the philosophy: "We are connected to the future; we are
connected to the revolution."
[]
UCI is connected to the future; and also to the revolution
This means never losing sight of the important cultural and societal roots
of this University, and developing technologies that will, in the words of
Vice-Rector Rosa Vázquez "Help transform education and society, and bring
quality higher education to all of Cuba." In a word: bootstrapping.
Educating the best and the brightest, deploying their skills to bring in
more resources (e.g. by acting as an outsourcing operation for all of Latin
America), and leveraging their newly-gained skills to help spread this
model throughout Cuba.
We had a lovely lunch with the Rector, Melchor Gil, who discussed the
bootstrapping model with me. Every student had to work on a project to help
round out their education, and in a typical case this would be a project
that would also result in a software product which would create a revenue
stream for the University. Moreover, despite the University being only 2
years old, there was already enough money coming in to help pay back a
significant amount of the initial expenditure. Thus, things looked very
rosy for the future of UCI.
The Talent
I met Juan Fung, a Chinese Cuban who showed me his group of students
developing multimedia training software. A few students looked like they
were there 'just' doing their homework, while others had that 'extra aura'
that all of the readers of this column will recognize: the gleam in the
eye, the talent, the inquisitiveness. (I had seen this also during a brief
visit to InfoMed earlier in the day, home of the Latin American medical
information network. A very small team, very switched on - people like
Roger Vargas who runs a Latin American Linux group, and the group that runs
the nerve center of medical informatics for an entire continent on a very
modest budget and with only a handful of staff.)
Juan and his students showed me a training package that was in effect an
emulator of CorelDraw, since they had to reproduce most of the
functionality of the original in order to let students experiment and
navigate around the interface within the training package. It was a nice
and highly-polished piece of work, particularly for undergraduates in their
first or second year of study. Another group was working on a driving
simulator, for none other than the Guatemalan government, which had decided
to outsource the development of this software suite to UCI. The particular
multimedia lab I was in (one of untold dozens of such labs around the
campus) had a car that was rigged up to a large screen... so I was able to
sit in the car and take a virtual driving test, in a faithfully-rendered
Guatemala City - not bad!
[]
Marc drives through downtown Guatemala City, in a simulator implemented by
UCI students.
This was pretty neat stuff. Yet, being a researcher at heart, my instinct
was that UCI could be a lot more than just a 'software factory' to handle
the outsourcing of Latin American software projects. Where were the
next-generation leaders going to come from? If they got this right, surely
the Cubans could become a dominant force in Latin American software within
a handful of years, no? Why not have a PhD program too? "Be patient" was
the essence of the replies I got. "UCI is only two years old... let us walk
before we run!"
Stay tuned, everybody. Cuba is coming.
--
www.centre-ernesto-che-guevara.org/
www.confidentiel.net
PL
"CubaLibre" <sierra...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
news:31tctdF...@individual.net...
> Contrairement à ce que veulent nous faire croire les vipères qui crachent
> leur venin dans nos journaux, il se passe à Cuba des choses plus
> intéressantes que des conférences de presse de dissidents persécutés (au
> fait si Fidel est un dictateur qui ne supporte pas la contestation,
> comment
> ces dissidents peuvent faire le lendemain de leur libération anticipée une
> conférence de presse internationale sans se faire immédiatement renvoyer
> en
> prison ?). Ce projet d'université du numérique pourrait surement
> intéresser
> beaucoup de personnes suivant les champs des technologies de l'information
> ou de l'éducation si les médias obscurantistes ne censuraient pas
> systématiquement tout ce qui peut être positif à Cuba. Quand on sait que
> même les sites officiels de propagande la mafia cubaine a Miami (les
> gusanos) ont repris cette histoire :
>
> (http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y04/dec04/08e10.htm ou
> http://www.lanuevacuba.com/nuevacuba/notic-04-12-815.htm), nos journaux ne
> scorent vraiment pas haut sur l'échelle de la crédibilité et de
> l'information.
Mas Toto, c'est toi qui à toujours dit que ces sources n'ataient pas
fiables?
Mais ce n'était que des mensonges dogmatiques, non?
C'était plutôt le contenu des messages sui ne te plaisait pas.
Mais merci de montrer à tout le monde que tu n'esy qu'un hypocrite et que en
réalité même toi sait que Cubanet est un très bonne source d'information sur
Cuba.
PL
CubaLibre
> "CubaLibre" <sierra...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
>> (http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y04/dec04/08e10.htm ou
>> http://www.lanuevacuba.com/nuevacuba/notic-04-12-815.htm), nos journaux ne
> Mas Toto, c'est toi qui à toujours dit que ces sources n'ataient pas fiables?
> Mais ce n'était que des mensonges dogmatiques, non?
Et la, tu crois qu'ils peuvent faire autrement pour une fois, que de dire la vérité ?
Même toi, pourriture fasciste, tu ne peux pas affirmer le contraire.
> Mais merci de montrer à tout le monde que tu n'esy qu'un hypocrite et que en réalité même toi sait que Cubanet est un très bonne
> source d'information sur Cuba.
Cubanet est financé par la CIA, c'est donc de la merde,
néanmoins, au risque qu'ils te déplaisent pour une fois, crois tu vraiment
qu'ils se laisseraient aller à dire que la planete Mars n'existe pas ?
T'es vraiment une rigolote Petite Lope.
Sinon, sur le projet, t'as un commentaire a t'as juste fait du bla bla habituel ?
PL
> "PL" <pl.n...@pandora.be> a écrit dans le message de news:
> Sdfud.16263$mR5.8...@phobos.telenet-ops.be...
>> "CubaLibre" <sierra...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
>
>>> (http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y04/dec04/08e10.htm ou
>>> http://www.lanuevacuba.com/nuevacuba/notic-04-12-815.htm), nos journaux
>>> ne
>
>> Mas Toto, c'est toi qui à toujours dit que ces sources n'ataient pas
>> fiables?
>> Mais ce n'était que des mensonges dogmatiques, non?
>
> Et la, tu crois qu'ils peuvent faire autrement pour une fois, que de dire
> la vérité ?
Mon cher Toto.
S'ils étaient tellement "menteur" comme tu disait ils n'en auraient pas
parlé.
Tu ne savais rien de ce projet avant.
Pauvre idiot.
PL
CubaLibre
> "CubaLibre" <sierra...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
> Mon cher Toto.
> S'ils étaient tellement "menteur" comme tu disait ils n'en auraient pas parlé.
Mais si, ils sont bien obligé de faire croire a une once de semblant
de crédibilité.
> Tu ne savais rien de ce projet avant.
Bien sur que si crétin.
> Pauvre idiot.
Et sur le fond, toujours aucun commentaires ?
PL
> "PL" <pl.n...@pandora.be> a écrit dans le message de news:
> lVfud.16316$931.8...@phobos.telenet-ops.be...
>> "CubaLibre" <sierra...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
>
>> Mon cher Toto.
>> S'ils étaient tellement "menteur" comme tu disait ils n'en auraient pas
>> parlé.
>
Non, Toto. Ils ne sont pas obligés.
Ne pas en parler aurait eu aucun effet.
Ils ont choise d'en parler comme part intégral de leur information.
Mais merci d'avoir montré de nouveau quel hypocrite tu es.
PL
CubaLibre
> "CubaLibre" <sierra...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
>> Mais si, ils sont bien obligé (snip)
Sur le fond du projet, toujours aucun commentaires ?
PL
On verra quand et comment il sera terminé tou à fait, non?
Tout progès réel est bien.
Mais tu dois admettre que tes déclarations sur Cubanet ont été exposés comme
des meonsonges, no?
PL
CubaLibre
> "CubaLibre" <sierra...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
> On verra quand et comment il sera terminé tou à fait, non?
> Tout progès réel est bien.
Mais tu trouves ça bien ou pas ?
> Mais tu dois admettre que tes déclarations sur Cubanet ont été exposés comme des meonsonges, no?
Certainement pas, d'ailleurs voila un autre article
de Cubanet ou ils reconnaissent que le projet Varela est une
connerie :
http://www.cubanet.org/french/y02/feb02/27f1.htm
C'est ridicule, comme toi petit rat.
PL
> "PL" <pl.n...@pandora.be> a écrit dans le message de news:
> nphud.16390$1u1.6...@phobos.telenet-ops.be...
>> "CubaLibre" <sierra...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
>
>> On verra quand et comment il sera terminé tou à fait, non?
>> Tout progès réel est bien.
>
> Mais tu trouves ça bien ou pas ?
J'ai dit: tout progès réel est bien
>> Mais tu dois admettre que tes déclarations sur Cubanet ont été exposés
>> comme des meonsonges, no?
>
> Certainement pas (snip)
alors tu reste aussi hypocrite qu'avant je vois.
PL
CubaLibre
> "CubaLibre" <sierra...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
>> Mais tu trouves ça bien ou pas ?
> J'ai dit: tout progès réel est bien
Merci de nous confirmer qu'il s'agit d'une excellente initiative gouvernementale :
The Vision
The Visit
[]
[]
The Effort
[]
The Talent
[]
> alors tu reste aussi hypocrite qu'avant je vois.
Rappel comment Nestor Baguer enfumait Cubanet
PL
> "PL" <pl.n...@pandora.be> a écrit dans le message de news:
> vxhud.16400$cw5.6...@phobos.telenet-ops.be...
>> "CubaLibre" <sierra...@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
>
>>> Mais tu trouves ça bien ou pas ?
>
>> J'ai dit: tout progès réel est bien
>
> Merci de nous confirmer qu'il s'agit d'une excellente initiative
> gouvernementale :
Mais entre temps il me parait un peu idiot de mettre des "elefants blancs"
en route quand autant d'écoles (de base et escidaires) manquent de tout,
non?
PL