1. South Asia NET Group Presented By: Ajantha Atukorale LEARN/Sri Lanka

2. Ajantha Atukorale APAN 2004, Honolulu Background Representatives from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh presented their country’s education and research networks report in the APAN conference 2003 held at Fukuoka, Japan on 21-24 Jan 2003. As an outcome of this conference the three country representatives agreed to formulate a regional network for cooperation in the research and educational activities in this region and extend it to other countries through APAN consortium.

3. Ajantha Atukorale APAN 2004, Honolulu Objective To share education and research repositories /activities among the member countries and the international community Composition Initially Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh would be the members and later other countries in the region shall be invited to join the group. The expected member countries are as follows: Pakistan Pakistan Sri Lanka Sri Lanka Bangladesh Bangladesh India India Nepal Nepal Bhutan Bhutan Maldives Maldives Founding members Dr. Muhammad Hassan Zaidi, Pakistan Dr. Ajantha Atukorale, Sri Lanka Dr. S. M Lutful Kabir, Bangladesh

4. Ajantha Atukorale APAN 2004, Honolulu Activities Hold regional meeting once a year and invite participants from APAN consortium. Each member shall host the meeting on rotation. The members will discuss matters of mutual interest focusing the academic and research activities. First Meeting – In Sri Lanka, July 2003. Second Meeting– In Bangkok, December 2003. Third Meeting– In Honolulu, January 2004.

5. Ajantha Atukorale APAN 2004, Honolulu Connectivity in SA

6. Ajantha Atukorale APAN 2004, Honolulu Current Status Web page Web pagehttp://apan.net/regional/south-group.htm Mailing List Mailing Listsouthasia@apan.net Members (interim committee) Members (interim committee) –LK: Ajantha Athukorala & Nimal Ratnayake /LEARN –IN: Anil Rawat & Deepak SinghNP /ERNET –BD: Hakikur Rahman /SDNBD –NP: Binod Vaidya /Tribhuvan University –APAN Liason: Kilnam Chon/KAIST & Seishi Ninomiya /NARO-NARC Charter formation is in process … Charter formation is in process … –Chairman, Management Committee, Secretariat, Working Groups

7. Ajantha Atukorale APAN 2004, Honolulu Future Planes Establish personal links between academic institutes in the region Establish personal links between academic institutes in the region Submit proposal for intercontinental connectivity Submit proposal for intercontinental connectivity –TEIN2 or like that? Inter-regional link from South Asia Inter-regional link from South Asia link from IN to LK link from IN to LK Have link from IN to JP/KR/SG Have link from IN to JP/KR/SG Possibility of Thai ODA for BD and NP (bandwidth availability from Thai C-band) Possibility of Thai ODA for BD and NP (bandwidth availability from Thai C-band) MY and LK link? MY and LK link? ….. …..

8. Thank you