The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has completed its first LINC international conference away from its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to underline the belief that education may be the ultimate high-impact beneficiary of the Internet.

LINC is MIT's Learning International Networks Consortium, a community of educational and technology leaders focused on helping emerging areas of the world leverage ICT to deliver quality education to under-served communities.

Technology-enabled learning and e-learning were featured.  E-Learning uses the Internet and satellites to deliver education to distant locations.Technology-enabled education includes e-learning and much more, as new computer-based technologies can dramatically transform the learning environments available to our students.

If used creatively, technology can improve learning for students in ways previously unimagined.

The LINC 2007 Conference was bi-located in Jordan (on the Dead Sea) and in the UAE (Dubai). Queen Rania of Jordan, esteemed patron of LINC-Jordan, participated in the Opening Ceremonies in Jordan. 

Over 500 participants from over 40 different countries attended these opening ceremonies.  On October 31, 2007, the LINC 2007 conference moved to Dubai for an executive session attended by patron of Dubai LINC and chairman of the Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone Authority Shaikh Maktoum bin Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

“The MIT LINC project represents a simple idea:  using distance and e-learning to help countries increase access to a quality university education.  To make this simple idea a reality takes technology for delivery, good content for courses, and effective pedagogy for instruction.  But more than that, it takes imagination, cooperation, and hard work,” minister of higher education and scientific research said Shaikh Nahyan Bin Moubarak Al Nahyan during his opening address in Dubai.

In attendance in Jordan were over 150 Jordanian professors and approximately 100 Jordanian high school teachers of math and science, the teachers’ participation sponsored by MIT.

Internationally-known speakers presented state-of-the-art use of technology to deliver compelling learning environments to school children, university students and life-long learners, with major case studies from Jordan, Mexico, Pakistan, Kenya, Egypt, Botswana, Algeria, the UAE and the US.  Best practices were shared and new collaborations established.

The 18 keynote speakers<