Net gains bridge cultural gap after chance meeting

Mark Opperman was on a horse-riding trip though Sichuan's scenic Jiuzaigou in 1999 when he came across a Tibetan teacher. Opperman, then a computer engineer with Sun Microsystems, asked the teacher if his students had access to the internet. 'Internet?' quipped the teacher. 'We don't even have a telephone.'

This simple conversation planted a seed in his mind. After returning to his home in Palo Alto, California, he started to think of ways to bring this teacher's school into the cyber age. The following year he cashed in Sun shares, and set up the Oumu Foundation (Ou Mu is his Chinese name) and set to work linking students in the US and China through the internet. Lack of the necessary satellite links to rural areas limited him to Beijing.

The link was launched early last year with the help of his friend Kelly Kobza, who taught Chinese history as part of the sixth grade curriculum at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School in Palo Alto and was involved in Stanford University's SPICE - the Stanford Programme on International and Cross-Cultural Education, a project that promotes education on international themes in American schools.

Having worked in Paris, Lausanne, Beijing, Tokyo and London, Opperman was keenly interested in foreign languages and culture. He had a particular interest in China; he taught computer programming at Beijing University in 1985, had studied Chinese and had visited the country several times.

Through SPICE, Opperman learned of the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia, which put him in touch with the National Committee for US China Relations. This led to introductions to the Ministry of Education and several top schools in Beijing. At the same time, he was lining up schools in California. Apple Computer China promised assistance.

The Oumu Foundation donated iMac computers and video and digital cameras to each of the schools so the students could produce their own videos. One of the biggest needs was training, particularly in video technology. 'You can't just dump technology on someone and say good luck,' Opperman said.