ANKARA: Turkey Establishes Electronic Connection Between Europe-Cauc

TURKEY ESTABLISHES ELECTRONIC CONNECTION BETWEEN EUROPE-CAUCASUS

WorldBulletin.net
Feb 16 2009
Turkey

Titled "Black Sea Interconnection", the project will connect 45
universities and over 150,000 scholars from Georgia, Azerbaijan and
Armenia with their European counterparts via Turkey.

Turkey will help electronic connection of scholars from Georgia,
Azerbaijan and Armenia with the European Academic Web as of March,
2009.

The "Electronic Silk Road" is being implemented by the Scientific
and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK).

Fiber optic cables from the Caucasus will pass through Turkey and
reach Europe.

Titled "Black Sea Interconnection (BSI)", the project will connect
45 universities and over 150,000 scholars from Georgia, Azerbaijan
and Armenia with their European counterparts via Turkey.

The BSI project intends bridging the digital divide that exists
between the South Caucasus countries and Europe by establishing a
regional research and education network in the South Caucasus and
connecting it to Europe.

The project involves the development of strategies for interconnecting
the existing infrastructures in the region, realization of the
connections and supplying operational support for the established
network. The existence of interconnections between the South Caucasus
countries and connection to Europe with reasonable capacities will
enable introduction of new services to the region and will be an
important step towards the integration of the scientific potential
in the region with Europe.

The project actually began on March 1, 2008 and has a budget of two
million euros.