Global Education and Learning Community (GELC)

Education decision makers around the world are struggling to deliver quality education with few resources. Sun Microsystems, building on the effort of many others, launched the Global Education and Learning Community on June 1, 2004, in order to accelerate efforts to provide affordable lifelong learning for all students, no matter where they are.

With the creation of the GELC, Sun Microsystems is calling for Ministries of Education, K-12 and Higher Education institutions, and others responsible for defining national and regional education strategies, to come together as a global education and learning community to promote an open infrastructure based on a common set of open standards.

Sun's vision is that members of the GELC will share resources, leverage best practices, and work on global collaborative education and eLearning projects. Sun Microsystems brings its extensive expertise in the creation, growth, and management of open community processes, acquired in spearheading the Java Community Process and other large-scale global collaborations, to the new GELC community.

• GELC Advisory Board Meeting, September 2004
• GELC Advisory Board Meeting, November 2005
• GELC Data Sheet
• Lifelong Learning Forum 2004
• Lifelong Learning Forum 2005

Member	Title
Scott McNealy	Chairman of the Board of Directors and Founder Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Alessandro Musemuci	Information Technology General Manager Ministry of Education, Italy
Dr. Lyle Oberg	Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation, Alberta, Canada
Prof. Jianping Wu	Professor of Computer Science, Tsinghua University, director of Network Research Center of Tsinghua University and President of China Education and Research Network (CERNET - the largest academic network in China)
Minja Yang	Charge de mission to the UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture & also Director for Special Projects, Culture Sector, UNESCO
Xie Huan Zhong	Director General Department of Science & Technology Ministry of Education, P.R.China

Member	Title
Rob Abel	Chief Executive Officer of IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc.
Alan Bersin	Secretary of Education, California
Ms Jacqueline Cheng	Chief Executive Office Hong Kong Education City
Dr. James F. Davis	Associate Vice Chancellor-Information Technology UCLA
Ian Dolphin	Director E-Strategy & E-Services Integration, University of Hull, UK
Ira Fuchs	Vice President for Research in Information Technology, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
John Gage	Vice President, Chief Researcher & Director of the Science Office, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Elazar Harel	Assistant Vice Chancellor for Administrative Computing and Telecommunications, University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
Mr. Dae-Joon Hwang	President & CEO Korea Education & Research Information Services (KERIS)
Kim Jones	Vice President Global Education and Research, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Michael Keller	University Librarian, Director of Academic Information Resources, Stanford
Dr. M. S. Vijay Kumar	Assistant Provost and Director of Academic Computing
Susan Mann	Chief Executive Officer, Curriculum Corporation
Francesc Noguera	Director of Information Systems, Open University of Catalonia, Spain
Michael A. Pearce	Deputy Chief Information Officer, Information Services Division, University of Southern California
Dr. Rob Rennie	Vice President of Technology, Florida Community College
Dr. John Rosenberg	Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) - Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
Daniel Tan	Director, Center for Educational Development, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Terrence B. Verity	Chief Information Officer, Office of the CIO, Seneca College, Toronto, Canada
Dr. Edward Walker	Chief Executive Officer, IMS, Inc.
Professor Kehong Wang	Professor Computer Science & Technology, Tsinghua University, Bejing, China
Gerry White	Chief Executive Officer of education.au limited

The first step in bringing the GELC to light was Sun's Lifelong Learning Forum, held on March 1, 2004, in Madrid, Spain. The gathering of more than 40 delegates of ministries of education from 25 countries, was a critical opportunity for an open dialogue of the education community's leaders to share visions and viewpoints, discuss the role of technology in education, and begin exploring the potential of the GELC. All participants agreed that lifelong learning is critical to achieving national goals of economic competitiveness and is a process that goes far beyond the formal school education of early years.

For more information or to join the commnunity, visit the GELC web site.