MARNet MACEDONIAN ACADEMIC & RESEARCH NETWORK

1. MARNet MACEDONIAN ACADEMIC & RESEARCH NETWORK Need of key technological changes Margita Kon-Popovska

2. Need of key technological changes and developments A analysis of the situation of the Western Balkan countries concerning the scientific educational and cultural co-operation provided by experts from UNESCO and Academia Europaea in March 2001 have found among other things, the difficulties for trans-national access to facilities such as research infrastructures, digital libraries, computing facilities, web based distance training and e-learning. These difficulties can be seen on the maps available against the background of the high performance networks in Europe, that shows a lack of sufficient connections, and therefore possibility of wider research, education and training e-services. Margita Kon-Popovska

3. Digital divide http://www.dante.net/geant/geant-access.gif up to 10 Gbps Macedonia aad Balkan countries MARNET 1 Mbps Margita Kon-Popovska

4. The conclusion about the priority of developing a EES high-speed regional electronic network was made by: • The UNESCO/AE/ESF expert conference on reconstruction of the scientific cooperation in South East Europe, Venice 24th/27th March 2001; • Confirmed by the round table of the ministers of science held in the framework of the 31st general conference of UNESCO in Paris, 24th October 2001; • Further confirmed on the ministerial conference in Sofia, 3rd of December 2001; Margita Kon-Popovska

5. quite recently confirmed on the ministerial conference in Bucharest on 5th April 2002, where the necessity of creating a large bandwidth regional network was once more explicitly mentioned in the declaration; • Remphasised and extended with a clear intention towards the sixth framework programme on the "Workshop on Co-operation in Research, Science and Technology with the SEE-Countries within the framework of the SAp" in Bad Honnef 14th/15th March 2002 Margita Kon-Popovska

6. Negative factors concerning developing strategies for ICT in Macedoniae- business, e-government, e-science, e-learning • Low rate (up to 5%) of PC usage among the population, • Low rate of stationary telephone lines (25% of population), • Low rate of mobiles (18% of population) • Telecom monopoly until beginning of 2005, resulting in high prices • Unemployment rate of up to 35%, substantial number of workers being technological surplus manpower or has not received their salaries for last 6 month, • 25% of population having status of poor (under 50 euro/month) • Still not enough developed information systems concerning on-line public services, e-business and similar. • Great brain drain of young especially educated work force Margita Kon-Popovska

7. Challengeable factors • Relevant factors (government, universities, schools, intelligence, parents and the young generation) realized the need of ICT education and accepted the world vision of a Information society. • Obligatory ICT courses on secondary and high levels of education, elective (depending on availability of computer laboratories) on elementary schools level in 7 and 8 grade. • e-Declaration adopted by Macedonian Parliament • e-Macedonia Committee established by President of R Macedonia (2000) as advisory body for developing strategies for the entrance of Macedonia in the Information Society Margita Kon-Popovska

8. MARNET History • Established in 1994 year as a organizational unit of Ss Cyril and Methodious University in Skopje. • Operational work (internet service) started in 1995 by support of ACONet and Open Society Institute of Macedonia. through the 64 Kbps satellite link to Vienna (and EBONE). • E-mail service started earlier in 1992 year through the National and University library, X.25 network through EARN (and Former Yugoslavia Scientific and Technological Information System SINTIJ). Margita Kon-Popovska

9. Academic community served by MARNET is spread in 6 towns, while wider potential community (elementary and middle schools, libraries, heritage and cultural institutions) is in over 32 municipalities and their neighborhood. MARNET Margita Kon-Popovska

10. MARNET actual and potential users Margita Kon-Popovska

11. Ongoing activities and projectsthe need of key technological changes and developments • SEEREN (start 1.Dec. 2002) South East Europe Research Educational Network Financed by Information Societies Technology (IST) ProgrammeContract No IST-2001-38830 • MANI (start 20. Dec. 2002) MARNET Advanced Network Infrastructure Financed by NATO NIG Science programme Margita Kon-Popovska

12. SEEREN Establish the South East Europe infrastructure that will interconnect the NRENs of AL, B-H, BG, MK, YU, GR, HU and RO with International links of 2-34 Mbps. Margita Kon-Popovska

13. Interconnect the regional NRENs to the major Geant PoP’s in this area and thus to the Pan-European research and educational network. Margita Kon-Popovska

14. Serve as a guide for future upgrades so that all regional NRENs will be able to participate in GÉANT(+) andbe part of the European "e-Science" distributed platform. Margita Kon-Popovska

15. Other wider goals • Ease the "digital divide" that still separates most of the SEE countries from the developed world. • Build awareness of IST in SE Europe and non-EU countries provide a platform for cooperation of scientific and educational communities. • Investigate other source of funding. The author is solely responsible for the presented material. It does not nesseseraly represent the opinion of the E Community and the Community is not responsible for any use that might be made of data appearing therein. Margita Kon-Popovska

16. MANI - MARNet Advanced Network Infrastructure Project Co‑Director from NATO country P.J.A. Sanchez/ Dr-Ing. GRNet Project Co‑Director from Partner country M. Kon-Popovska /Prof. Dr MARNET Participant: O. Popov/Prof. Dr, M. Gushev/Prof. Dr, B. Popovski/ Prof. Dr, G. Muratovski/ Mr-Ing. Team members: V. Ajanovski/ Ing, A. Mishev/Mr Ing Budget 207,800 eur Margita Kon-Popovska

17. Academic community in Skopje (80% of MARNET) SKOMAN Margita Kon-Popovska

18. SKOMAN Margita Kon-Popovska