Preface
Thanks to the excellent help of Marjolijn
Sondorp, who stayed in Albania at that time
to give organisation and management training
to (environmental) NGO's, it was possible
to visit the most important contacts on the
first working day of the visit to Albania.
With Ms. Sondorp as 'tour guide', she and I
walked from the University, via the UNDP and
the REC office, to the Soros Media Training
Centre and had talks with their
representatives.
First, we visited the University of Tirana, Faculty of Science, Department of Informatics and Mathematics (INIMA). Mr. Gudar Beqiraj, director of the institute, welcomed us very heartily, and we exchanged information with him and two software experts of the department.
A short summary of the meeting follows:
INIMA has a dedicated underground cable network, funded by the UNDP in 1985. It connects about 50 points, amongst them are ministries, fac- ulties, institutions and the national bank. The server of that sy stem 'died' in 1991 and the network has never been revived due to lack of money. INIMA is greatly interested in reinstating the network, and they have been speaking to representatives of UNDP, EC, SOROS Foundation and others, but these meetings have not (y et) resulted in any funding for the net- work. INIMA has a dial-up link with the EARN/Bitnet Network via Rome (Italy ). This link is currently the only one between Albania and the internet. It is con- sidered as far to expensive to use on a regular basis. There have been different projects, most of them with Italian nodes, some of them with Greek nodes, but all of them have stopped because of lack of money.
(For elaborate information see appendix I, 'Networking, Draft 1.0, 10 Dec 1994', by N. Frasheri)
UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (UNDP)
At the UNDP office, we were introduced to Mr. Peter Schumann. He explained that their office has a 64kb satellite link with the main office in New York. They make connections with New York (via Holland) a couple of times each day for a very short period of time, to exchange the necessary information. It is clear that the satellite link has a major overcapacity, and Mr. Schumann told us that this capacity might be used to develop internet connectivity for NGO's and institutions in Albania that fit the guidelines of the UNDP. One idea is to link up with the SOROS Media Train- ing Centre (MTC), so the MTC can operate as a BBS. This BBS would be mainly aimed at journalists and reporters and enhance the press ser- vices that the MTC already offers. Another idea is to try to revive the underground cable network, and give connectivity to INIMA.
Needed for these projects is a person who can do the extra administra- tion that is involved in connecting INIMA and MTC. This job can be partly funded by UNDP, as Mr. Schumann told us, on condition that the applicant has to be an Albanian citizen. Problems of technical nature can be perfectly solved by the locally available computer service company personnel, of which Mr. Agim Cami is the person most likely to be occupied with these problems. During a talk with Mr. Cami it turned out that different experiments already had been carried out, amongst others a link between the Waffle/DOS/Pegasus Mail sy stem and the UNDP 'Higgins' X.25 software. Unfortunately, Mr. Cami was too busy to proceed with these experiments at the time of my visit.
REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CENTRE (REC)
In the afternoon, we visited the local office of the REC, and met Ms. Blerta Maliqi. She told us that their office has decided to block the possibility to make outgoing international phone calls, because of the (realistic) danger of misuse and piracy of their phone line. It is of course still possible to receive international faxes and phonecalls, so I recommended to ask the REC headquarters to make a direct dial-up connection from Budapest to Tirana once a day , which should be much cheaper than faxing, and would provide the local REC office with news and e-mail services. However, the REC only plans to connect the local office to the internet in 1996.
SOROS MEDIA TRAINING CENTRE (MTC)
The last visit of that sunny monday was to the SOROS Media Training Centre (MTC), where we were received by Mariane Sullivan (USA) and Klod Gjinopulli (Albania). The MTC uses direct dial-up to the nearest Compu- serve node (Italy or Greece) to do their necessary electronic mail. Ms. Sullivan and Mr. Gjinopoli helped us by calling some people that are interested in e-mail, to a meeting on tuesday evening. Ms. Sullivan also gave us permission to use the MTC as a meeting room. Ms. Stacy Sullivan (a former employ ee of SOROS in Albania) has put out a questionnaire to NGO's and institutions (a needs assessment) last year, but unfortunately we could not retrieve the report of the outcome. Mr. Moo Hataj, (see appendix II, 'Search for sponsors to build up electronic mail-systems in Albania', 5 April 1994, by Moo Hataj) has written a pro- ject proposal on the idea of creating a BBS in the MTC. This idea is still attractive, if carried out in cooperation with UNDP (the original idea assumes a dial-up link to Germany).
At the SOROS office, Ms. Sullivan introduced us to a listserver called 'albnet-l@info.irex.org'. This listserver is dealing with people that are interested in internet connectivity in Albania. If you have electronic mail, it should be possible to write a message to this list, with in the subject line 'subscribe firstname lastname'. Y ou will then be automatically updated on events concerning the networking situation in Albania. Y ou can also obtain the information by gopher, to do so, type 'gopher info.irex.org' at any UNIX prompt.
INVOLVEMENT OF WOMEN
At the REC office, we discussed the chances of women participating actively in the developments of this moment. As expected, a special attempt should be made to spot, involve, educate and stimulate women to break through a number of traditional barriers regarding computers and participation in usually male-dominated areas of development. The NEWW (Network of East-West Women) is conducting a project in this field. Ms. Victoria Vrana will will visit Albania in March 1995. (see appendix IV: 'Statement of purpose'.)
PHONE LINES
At the UNDP office, Mr. Cami explained which technical difficulties can be expected using the UNDP satellite link to establish internet connectivity . One of the worst problems is, of course, the quality of the phone lines in Albania. This makes even in-city connections very difficult, let alone calls from other towns or the country side. Since this situation will not rapidly change, the idea of extending the underground cable network regains attraction, but the problems with this plan are the huge costs and the limited flexibility of the net.
On Tuesday, November 8th, the first meeting of ALBNET (later the Internet Interest Group) took place. After I left, Ms. Sondorp called for two more meetings, and after Ms. Sondorp left, Ms. Hambley took over the organisation of these meetings. The meetings brought and bring together a variety of people that have interest in either simple e-mail connectivity or full internet access. The group tries to keep working on both levels. Minutes of the meetings of this group can be found in appendix V.
Unfortunately, the minutes were never translated into the Albanian language, and not all participants received even the English version.
The demonstration scheduled for Wednesday November 9th, at the SOROS media centre, attracted 10 to 15 people. Unfortunately, it was impossible to reach Mr. Cami to ask him to attend the demonstration. After the demonstration, we had a short meeting, which mainly was used to set an agenda for the meeting of the 24th of November.
SATURN SOFTWARE ASSOCIATION
After the demonstration, I was interviewed by the Saturn Software Associ- ation. The main interest of this y oung computer science students lays in the exchange of computer programs and 3D animations, for which they need high capacity data lines.
INFORMAL MEETING WITH MEMBERS OF Y NGO's
At eight o'clock on Wednesday November 9th, an informal meeting took place in the residence of Ms. Sondorp. Present were a number of y oung ecologists, of whom most of them have international contacts with A SEED, EYFA and other European Y outh Movements. Their main concerns are - lack of information on environmental issues - lack of reliable communication - lack of money - problems to obtain visa for European Countries.
Ms. Sondorp was there to train these y oung people in organizing local action groups, and it was agreed that electronic mail could enhance contacts between the groups in different cities of Albania. Much more important, however, is contact with groups outside Albania. Only very few youth organisations have the possibility to have access to a computer.
EPILOGUE
At this moment, Diana Hambley is leading a
small group of interested people towards the
formation of a cheap and reliable e-mail
host. The ZaMir Trans- national Net (ZTN,
coordination by Erich Bachmann) is
currently interested to provide this group
with the necessary technical assistance.
ALBANIA ALBNET attn: Diane Hambley USAID Small Business Centers Univeristy of Tirana, Faculty of Econ. and Business ph: +355-42-24.772 ph: +355-42-42.551 eml: capippitt@usaid.gov Regional Environmental Center attn: Blerta Maliqi Rr. L. Gurakuqi P. 25/1 Sh. 4/25 Tirana Student Environmental Club 'Perla' c/o Alken Myftiu Rr. Kongresi i Lushnjes P.46, Sh.1, Ap.7 Tirana ph.: +355-42-22.893 NETHERLANDS SNORE attn. Ace Suares Rijksstraatweg 37-46 6574 AC UBBERGEN ph.: +31-80-603.917 fax: +31-20-665.77.43 eml: snore@snore.org www: http://www.snore.org Milieukontakt Oost-Europa attn. Marjolijn Sondorp P.O. Box 18185 1001 ZB Amsterdam ph.: +31-20-639.27.16 fax: +31-20-639.13.79 eml: mkontakt@antenna.nl eml: mlijn@antenna.nl A SEED Europe attn. Paul de Clerck P.O. Box 92066 1090 AB Amsterdam +31-20-6650166 +31-20-6682236 eml: aseedeur@antenna.nl EYFA attn. Loek Hilgersom P.O. Box 94115 1090 GC Amsterdam ph.: +31-20-665.77.43 fax: +31-20-665.77.43 eml: eyfa@antenna.nl OTHER COUNTRIES AG Albanien, Mailbox project attn: M. Hataj u. J. Heretsch Grosse Klausstr. 11 06108 Halle/Saale, Germany ph.: +49-345-20.28.133 fax: +49-345-20.26.700 eml: j.heretsch@mp-halle.cl.sub.de eml: m.hatay@gtc24.gtc.net Erick Bachman, Germany eml: e.bachman@bionic.zer.de Network East-West Women, USA eml: neww@igc.apc.org Listserver concerning e-mail in Albania: albnet-L@info.irex.org