MEDIA ADVISORY:
SFSU business professor talks about efforts to rebuild Iraq

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACTS
Christina Holmes
SFSU Office of Public Affairs
(415) 405-3803
(415) 338-1665
pubcom@sfsu.edu

Press Release published by the Office of Public Affairs

 

WHO:
Gary Selnow, a professor of information systems and business analysis, founded WiRED International in 1997, a San Francisco-based nonprofit agency committed to bringing the power of the Internet and technology to third-world countries as a way to rebuild infrastructure and overcome isolation through access to worldwide knowledge.

Most recently, WiRED established four community health centers in Baghdad's teaching hospitals. The centers are equipped with networked computer stations and supply doctors and researchers with information technology that in turn provides the Iraqi people with the latest developments in human medicine. The centers offer comprehensive medical electronic libraries on CD-ROMS compiled from universities, government sources, pharmaceutical companies and non-governmental organizations. In time the centers will add Internet access when the appropriate infrastructure is locally available.

"These first-of-a-kind centers will give Iraqi physicians the information they need to catch up with medical developments after more than a decade of isolation," says Selnow, who teaches communication courses in the University's College of Business.

WiRED, a partner of the Marian Wright Edelman Institute and San Francisco State University, opened computer technology centers in Bosnian schools and orphanages, established 25 Community Health Centers in small villages in Kenya that deliver reliable HIV prevention and AIDS treatment information and launched a Health Information Center in Nicaragua to support a nonprofit clinic that produces prosthetic devices for victims of land mines.

BACKGROUND:
Selnow's talk is part of an ongoing program, "The United States and the World in the 21st Century," open to the public as a lecture series. The weekly classes are designed to help students and the public better understand the U.S.'s policies and use of military intervention in the increasingly complex environment post-Sept. 11 and post-Iraq war.

WHEN:
7 to 9 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 9, 2003.

WHERE:
Humanities Auditorium, Room 133 of the Humanities Building, San Francisco State University, corner of Holloway and 19th avenues, San Francisco.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: (415) 405-2402 or visit http://bss.sfsu.edu/bss

1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132  415/338-1111
Last modified April 20, 2007, by the Office of Public Affairs