One of the most fascinating and intriguing stories in the entire annals of science and technology, civilization and progress, in my mind, deals with the trail of discoveries that eventually gave rise to the internet, the so-called information superhighway. The story of this long trail is one that needs to be told and retold, if not for anything, but for the primary lessons that it teaches: the fact that the fruits of science and technology belongs to the entire world, and not to any single individual or group. After all, every idea in science and technology originates, directly or indirectly, in the works of previous workers in the field. Most often than not, these workers come from different national, ethnic and racial backgrounds that make up the mosaic that we call humanity. The story also highlights the promise and the possibilities and the plain old fun that science and science alone can offer.
The beginning of this long trail is traceable to somewhere in Asia, probably China or Korea, where roughly 5340 years ago, the abacus (an instrument used for manipulating numbers) was invented. In 1642 the trail makes its way to France where, a nineteen-year-old French scientist Blaise Pascal invented a mechanical calculator; and three decades later, the trail makes its way to Germany, where the mathematician and philosopher Gottfried von Leibniz improved on Pascal's original design, and came up with the "Stepped Reckoner"
More than a century and half ago, the trail extended to England, where a visionary British mathematician by the name of Charles Babbage beheld the possibility of the computer, the result of which led to the invention of his "Analytical Engine." While still in England, in the mid-1930s, Alan Turin (another British mathematician) extended the trail by proposing the general purpose calculating machine -- now called the Turin machine; and Claude Shannon (another British mathematician), in the late 1930s, while still a graduate student, recognized how to express information in binary form, a way of storing information in computers.
It was not until 1945 that the trail was extended across the Atlantic for the first time, that it reached the United States, when John von Neumann, the Hungarian-born American scientist proposed the paradigm that all digital computers even up till today still follow -- the von Neumann architecture -- the storing of instructions in computer memory to avoid cabling changes. In the United States, the trail has since been transformed into alleyways, by-ways, highways, seaways, skyways, and a million other different permutations that will make even the famous Oregon trail a little child's playground. But since this essay has nothing to do with complexity theory, which I still don't understand, I will rather concentrate only on one of these trails -- the one that made a little turn in the 1960s into a then secret US government sponsored project called ARPANET -- that was solely designed to serve as a communication link between far-flung researchers doing military-related research for the government. This trail, I am told, is the forerunner of the internet, the so-called information superhighway.
Since this trail has now been extended to virtually all corners of the globe, even to our igbo--net (the Igbo village square in cyberspace), to uwa-ndigbo (the Igbo language mailing list), and to the Igbo website; and will soon be firmly established in Igboland and other parts of Africa; it is now imperative for us to construct a permanent Igbo presence on this trail, by creating a virtual research center (hereafter called VRC), on this internet, on this information superhighway, or whatever you choose to call it. This essay, therefore, must address itself to outlining a vision for constructing this permanent Igbo presence in the internet -- the next logical stage of the igbo--net project.
At this time when infrastructures for higher education in Igboland and the entire southern region of Nigeria have been totally destroyed by the military people that have ruled that country for most of her thirty-six years of 'independence;' when university vice-chancellors have been supplanted with military appointees, who wear official gowns over military uniforms; when university administrations have become fiefs for settling individual grievances and sectional interests; when student unions have been transformed into gangs, with the concomitant rise in secret cults and gang warfare on campuses; when universities are shut down for longer periods of time within any given year than they are open; when no new scientific literature has arrived in the libraries since the 1980s; when even textbooks are not available for students and teachers alike; what hope is there for anyone who aspires to pursue the life of the mind? Or for improving the low production of skilled scientists and engineers and academics? What hope is there for research libraries in Igboland? Clearly, the answer lies in building up such libraries by digital means and by establishing virtual research centers, where scholars and researchers at home can access publications from abroad electronically, and where they can also have their own works published electronically.
The first phase of the VRC I am proposing, therefore, will initially consist of three permanent websites configured in a triangular arrangement, as well as igbo--net and uwa-ndigbo mailing lists. The three websites will comprise the present Igbo website, with host server at The University of Texas at Austin (UT), another website, with host server at Southern Illinois University (SIU) at Carbondale, manned by Prof. J.C. McCall, and a third website that will come on-line in the near future, which will be located in a server in one of the universities in Igboland (IL). There will be links connecting all the three websites.
The site at SIU will continue to offer an array of information on research studies and notes on Igbo-related issues. The site at UT will continue to offer an array of information on Ndi-Igbo in diaspora. At this website, particular emphasis will be placed on (1) "On-Line Journal of ideas: Reflections and Analyses" and (2) "Igbo Writers and their Works" (which will offer reviews of works by Igbo writers of fiction and non-fiction). The site at IL will offer an array of information on and by Ndi-Igbo at home. Important discourses and the "Reflections and Analyses" essays, generated on igbo--net mailing list, as well as Igbo language instructional materials, generated on uwa-ndigbo mailing list, will be migrated to the website at UT-Austin.
The second phase of the VRC project will involve the procurement of digitized libraries of scholarly and literary works, scientific and technological information, that are within the public domain, anywhere in the world. In addition to the website in IL, a system will be installed which scholars and researchers at home can use to connect to other digital libraries in the world, like the Library of Congress of the United States, etc.
The final phase of the VRC project will involve the digitization of library and archival materials of various Igbo institutions. These digitized materials must be made accessible to home-based scholars and researchers as well as international scholars doing Igbo-related studies. In this way, we can ensure the bi-directional flow of information to and from Igboland.
Cognizant of the announcement by the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) last year that they will surround the African continent by 1999 with an underwater fiber-optic cable capable of carrying both telephone and data transmissions, and assuming that they actually execute this project, the site at IL will most likely be constructed after the fiber-optic cables make their way to Igboland. But should a reliable telecommunication system be operational in Igboland before 1999, the website at IL will most likely come on-line before that date.
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft Corporation was absolutely right, when he said that telecommunication is clearly one area "where starting out behind [can be] an asset" or rather an advantage, for a place like Igboland can conveniently "avoid the mistakes of the trailblazers." In other words, it is actually possible for Igboland to leap-frog straight into the Information Age, while skipping a great part of the industrial age altogether. Imagine the potential impact that this AT&T project will have when it is completed, and Igboland and similar places get connected to this underwater cable. I will leave that to your imagination.
The more I think about the ramifications of the VRC, the clearer the sign posts become. It will definitely not solve every problem in Igboland. But if it is able to link Igbo scientists with their counterparts at home and abroad, making it possible for them to collaborate more effectively to solve difficult problems like finding cures for diseases that are still not curable in people, in livestock, and in plants, or combating the ecological devastation of the land, or the manufacturing of materials that can improve human living conditions, these by themselves, are sufficient reasons to justify the implementation of this project.
Further, if it is able to link up Igbo scholars, writers, and intellectuals with their counterparts at home and abroad, so that they could pursue their respective interests, that by itself is a good enough reason to justify the implementation of this project. Furthermore, if it is able to link up the common motor parts dealer in Nnewi, or the textile manufacturer in Aba, or the pharmaceutical manufacturer in Onitsha, or the small-scale chemical manufacturer in Port Harcourt, or the book publisher in Enugu, or the farmer-cum- food-processor in Ahoada, with his or her business counterparts at home and abroad, that in itself would transform the quality of life in Igboland. The possibilities are indeed endless.
As we peer into a future when holographic memory devices that are able to hold terabytes of characters -- literally whole libraries -- in less than one cubic volume of space, is no longer a figment of the imagination, but a certainty; and when high speed servers with capacious disk spaces are already a possibility; we will indeed be foolish not to ensure a permanent Igbo presence in the information highway. The Igbo VRC, although not a panacea to all contemporary problems in Igboland, will at least ease the transition of our people to the communication realities of the 21st century.