LOS LIBERTADORES: AN ITC GATEWAY / PORTAL FOR IBEROAMERICA

Since its inception in 1990, ISTEC has been a non-profit organization comprised of educational, research, industrial, and multilateral organizations throughout the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula. The Consortium’s mission is to foster scientific, engineering, and technology education, joint international research and development efforts among its members, and to provide a cost-effective vehicle for the application and transfer of technology.

The ISTEC membership decided to implement and execute an updated business and ITC (information technology and communications) model in order to be more efficient, productive, innovative and creative in our mission. The proposed plan is the most important project that stems from the Los Libertadores initiative. Commonly referred to as a Gateway or Portal, it embodies a bold and ambitious program to provide extensive broadband connectivity and services throughout the Region supported by ISTEC, which today includes some 25 countries, over 140 universities, government and industry members in the Ibero-American region.

This ITC Plan will support education, distance learning, research and development, intellectual property development, capital acquisition and project and program incubation. It will also be a major source of revenue generation within the region, and to member universities through the use of the Gateway by non-members, and others throughout the world who wish to access the databases and contacts within the region. It has captured the interest and enthusiasm of industry and large-scale vendors who wish to contribute to the goals and objectives of the consortium. Among these major vendors, who are also members of ISTEC, are Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Nortel Networks, Motorola, SCT, ProQuest, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, EBSCO, IOPP, Khoral Research and others. Since massively improved telecommunication services within the region are a major aspect of the Los Libertadores project and the Gateway, ISTEC has recently signed and MOU with Internet2 to work jointly in raising the awareness level of decision makers in the Region. Part of the plan is to incubate and capitalize future high-tech companies that emanate from or through ISTEC academic members, as well as provide full assistance to successfully bring an idea from the laboratory into the commercial marketplace in a timely and efficient manner. This effort translates into the identification of new opportunities, talent, venture capital, management, technology assessment, IP protection, and marketing.

The ISTEC ITC Plan is congruent to the United Nation’s ECOSOC commitment to play an active role in creating synergetic relations and lead efforts to create an Information Society and reduce the Digital Divide. ISTEC has been present and championed ECOSOC IT efforts since its inception at the meeting in Florianopolis, Brazil. The ITC plan was conceived from the conclusions and recommendations made in the minutes of the Porlamar ECOSOC council (Porlamar, Venezuela, November 2000) and the ISTEC 2000 General Assembly. The Consortium is currently seeking for partners to execute the plan with the following goals:

• Carry out innovative programs in IT for the development of human capital emphasizing the involvement of both public and private institutions that implement training, research, and academic exchanges in science and technology within the region
• To provide the region with a multilingual (English, Spanish, Portuguese, and other), easily accessible, and well-organized web-based system, which allows the offering of electronic services to participating institutions
• Accelerate the technology transfer from industry to academia in an adequate and appropriate manner
• Develop a common agenda under the well-conceived initiatives to develop human resources, exchange information for cooperation, and mobilize alternative resources
• Promote the adoption of a legal framework in science and technology in the region using relevant policy tools, such as economic policy, regulatory standards, procurement, and intellectual property
• Create public-private-international agencies partnerships with cost-sharing policies
• Identify gaps in the innovation and research schemes in order to expand educational and training opportunities
• Promote direct foreign investment as a catalyst for private and public commitments and promote the creation of incentives to attract new companies
• Contribute to the long-term enhancement of engineering and science curricula in the academic institutions by providing them with information and discussion forums about industrial needs in the region
• Provide a forum for discussion of important topics, for example, development of hardware and software industries in Ibero-American countries, nature of corporate support for academic research, ethical guidelines to help support the transfer of technology from academia to industry, and technology commercialization processes, among others
• Provide complete information about R&D projects in the region and continually update information about available sources of funding for these projects

ISTEC has concrete plans with the Organization of American States, Inter-American Development Bank, and UNESCO-Montevideo to work on projects that include the creation of a real-time ITC forum through its Los Libertadores Gateway and a distributed database, distance-learning efforts, and workshops.

The proposed project brings the opportunity to transform the region’s scientific libraries, human resources, and the private and public sectors through recent ISTEC alliances reached with repositories and providers of knowledge such as EBSCO, the Institute of Physics (IOP), and ProQuest. Part of this plan is to provide Ibero-America with unprecedented access to the top scientific and technology databases in the world. No single institution or organization in the US, Europe or Asia has access to the complete range of these valuable sources. In launching this effort, ISTEC will create the largest science and technology information gateway in the world, providing students at all socio-economic levels in the region to have an equal opportunity to access this essential scholarly data.

Another significant achievement is that, with the help of UNESCO-Montevideo, ISTEC has launched a bold hemispheric effort in Electronic Thesis and Dissertations (ETDs), using international and open standards to facilitate the creation, administration, maintenance and dissemination of knowledge.

Our Research and Development Initiative has redefined and improved our working relationships with our industrial members. We have reached innovative agreements to access the latest state-of-the-art technology in a timely fashion as well as the volume purchase of this technology at unprecedented discounts. One example is the latest PCs, hardware and software fully loaded, a 3-year warranty and 3-year technology replacement plan, for an average price of $400 (country dependent). We are closely working with the Government of the Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, regarding the creation of the Ibero-American Center for Advanced Electronics Technology (CEITEC). This center of excellence coordinates and maximizes the Region’s Software, Electronics and Telecommunications industries, and will produce global Ibero-American leaders in microelectronics and nanotechnology. We are in the initial stages of implementing the first Latin American Computational Grid focused on Knowledge Management and Biotechnology/engineering.

These same alliance partners and others are pivotal to our continued efforts to enrich human capital in the region through distance learning, curricula reform, and certification efforts. ISTEC continues to seek new alliances and beneficial opportunities for the Region. An example is the European Union’s ARIADNE project in distance learning, which offers us innovative tools we will make available to Ibero-America for content development, management, administration and dissemination. Another example is the current Action Plan between IEEE and ISTEC for the advancement of engineering and science education and R&D in the Region.

What is the business model? It is a self-sustainable model to bring ITC for economic, social and cultural development. It is the means to bring together the public and private sectors, universities, and multilateral organizations to collaborate in ITC efforts; it is a well-defined, well-supported and complete linkage. The working environment and outlet are the universities by investing in higher education and reaching out to basic education, R&D, innovation and creativity, providing access to capital, incubation and prototyping, e-services, IP protection, sharing of ideas in real-time, knowledge management, among the many services and infrastructure.

Business Model

One-stop ITC Shop for Development: Tools and Services

Can the model be self-sustainable? Since its inception in 1990, one of ISTEC’s objectives was to establish academic networks and databases for Latin America and the Caribbean through Information Technologies and Communications (ITC). The purpose of this infrastructure is to facilitate and enable the universalization of knowledge and education.

This evolution and transformation of ITC and its evident greater integration in all disciplines has been a determinant factor in the decision that the ISTEC model must also be brought up to date with current trends. Furthermore, there is an additional factor: as the ITC market has been broadened in scope, so has the competitiveness of its key players. This has resulted in an ever-decreasing availability of promotional non-reimbursable resources from the private sector. These conditions have forced the Consortium to seek out new financial alternatives.

During its twelve years of existence, the Consortium has reached important benchmarks that include: creation of Centers of Excellence; education and training of qualified personnel; increasing number of participating public and private universities as ISTEC members as well as participating governments; laboratories; automated libraries; associations and operative agreements with International and Regional Multilateral Organizations and National Agencies for International Development; the private sector; financial organizations; technical assistance; and the extension of knowledge for IT development, among other activities. At this time, the established dynamic challenges for ISTEC include a general update of its entrepreneurial, academic, operational, participatory, and competitive capabilities within the scientific and technologic scope.

The greatest challenge is that of producing a successful business model that effectively takes into account the Consortium’s non-profit status. This means that ISTEC must secure financial resources, capital goods, and operative financing in order to provide massive sustainable and competitive knowledge and education to avoid the broadening of the existing “digital divide” in the region.

Another challenge is the creation of strategic alliances that include the participation of public, private, entrepreneurial, technological, financial, academic, governmental, international organizations, as well as community and social entities.

An important factor that gives ISTEC a comparative advantage in the competitive market is the economy of scale that can be achieved through the Consortium. As a result of this, it can undertake equipment and materials acquisitions in bulk. ISTEC will have the capabilities to receive and provide products at cost prices, perceive royalties of intellectual property.

“Knowledge Management” defines an essential operating instrument for ITC and especially for ISTEC. This and other instruments must be broadened, complemented, systematized and projected in a realistic operational fashion. This is due to the fact that the plan must provide ISTEC Members with a flux of financial income and resulting outcomes for this entrepreneurial financial plan for social development.

Market analysis: successive approximation model?

There has been much dialogue ensuing from the need to perform a market study as a pre-investment procedure. A market study in its strict sense is far from the financial possibilities of ISTEC. In order to consider the scope of such a study in the Latin American and Caribbean Region, we would have to include 35 countries with a total population of over 500 million inhabitants. The ISTEC membership includes 140 universities, 141 laboratories, 44 automated libraries and 3 Centers of Excellence. Carrying out a market study in the aforementioned conditions in its strict technical sense would represent a very high cost and time in its execution.

The most advisable and realistic approach is to undertake and perfect a financial (business) plan based on a successive approximation model derived from estimates and real data obtained through our members and allies over ISTEC’s ten years of operation. This successive approximation model provides a basis for assessment for a Regional Market Situation Status at the short, medium and long term. It also provides valuable information to produce operative “marketing” and financial (business) plans also at the short, medium and long terms. This resulted in reasonable yet perfectible quantitative evaluations that allow the Consortium to program future annual action plans and corresponding “cash flows” as instruments of financial management.

It is important to note that an additional aspect that makes ISTEC unique vis-à-vis for profit enterprises is its academic network and negotiating power for economies of scale. These constitute an essential and determinant factor to guarantee and assure its international insertion and market competitiveness.

We believe the ISTEC Model will help in bridging the Digital Divide that afflicts all nations. This divide can be transformed into Digital Opportunities with Information Technology (DD … to … DO IT!).