In hopes of fueling economic growth, an Internet research center was christened on March 30 at Northwestern University campuses in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois as well as an IBM facility in Schaumburg, Illinois. The International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) was formed when Northwestern University joined forces with corporate partners IBM, Cisco Systems Inc. and Ameritech Corp. in a mission to develop futuristic software applications for the Internet.
"ICAIR is the first of its kind, an advanced center for the development of prototypes of advanced, twenty-first century applications," said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, general manager of IBM's Internet division. "This is very much a real-world laboratory, enabling us to show customers how they can leverage high speed networks to radically transform their businesses."
Funding of research and development (R&D) projects has declined over the last thirty years. Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill) reports that R&D, as a percentage of gross domestic product, has dropped by half since the 1960's. And, according to Durbin, 80% of today's stock market value is derived from the technology that was developed during that era. Many believe there is a need for intensive, long-term efforts to stimulate future growth within the technology sector. iCAIR's goal is to stimulate that type of growth for future decades.
iCAIR plans to develop software applications for video conferencing, telemedicine, video-based learning and other media-based communications. The center's underlying goal is a faster, healthier future Internet.
"The Internet of ten years from now will not be anything like the Internet of today," said Stephen Wolff, executive director of Cisco's Internet initiatives division. "There will be no such thing as logging on to the Internet - you will always be on the Internet, it will be part of the woodwork. If this is true, we need to think about how to build such a network."
