< Vol.3 >
Get to the world
A New Year's card by electric mail
COARA is not the name of the animal.
It's a name of the local promotion group in Oita prefecture which came
into existence in 1985, May. They do it with personal computer network.
Their purpose is to master the database for promotion of the smaller
enterprises. About 30 members gathered, and most of them were members
of Junior Chamber.
At that time, as the Government relaxed its control on communication,
CAPTEN(Character and Pattern Telephone Access Information Network)
and so on appeared on a large-scale. But " personal computer
communication " didn't have even reliable general ideal or name. We
were in trial and error. However we found the advantage of using the
E-mail and the electric bulletin board, and noticed that we should choose
the communication before the database. So we took a turn. Sooner
Morihiko Hiramatsu, the governor of the Oita Prefecture joined us,
and he sent the New Year's card by E-mail to us. All of us were surprised
to get that. Though the president of USA uses this way lately, it was
almost ten years ago.
There was a big wall of telephone charge.
We begged Mr.Hiramatsu, the governor of Oita to take the post the
honorary president of COARA. His first word is " Invite young women
so that children can feel natural that there is a personal computer
around them from their birth". I've never heard such a joyful and
cheerful word. At the same time I was convinced that we should put
the personal computer communication in good order so that everyone
can use it as a base of community without distinction of age or sex.
Only if we do so we can promote the smaller enterprises. After a while
really lively women had joined us. They were eager to wrestle with the
most advanced social phenomenon with their ability which was beyond
men. They discussed the singleness, the care of child. And sometimes
they discussed the Gulf War with the member of the Diet easily. Their
appearance livened up the COARA, and the men members were given
a lot of courage by them.
The COARA were lively with them, and so a membership of it was
getting bigger. But the more we enjoy the COARA, the bigger the wall
c of telephone harge got to be. The big wall blocked our way.
Information road was born before its time.
At that time ,the Takesita Cabinet allotted "A rural development
project" timely.Oita prefecture would like to use a grant just like her,
and were thinking how to use it. And the information road called
" Toyonokuni Net " was born in the fall of '89. Even if we went
anyplace of Oita prefecture, we can communicate with each other at
the same charge of local call. These days I heard the " Plan of the
Information High Way " of America. Though It was several years
ago in Oita. It didn't became high way ,but rough way nowadays. But
sooner an affiliated network of manufacture which ran around the
Tokyo advanced to local area at terrible speed. We were slow to run the
COARA of 2,000 members, they had had a membership of 500,000. No,
they had had about a membership of 1,000,000 in a moment.
Some Oita people didn't become a member of the COARA ,but a
member of them. We thought that we don't need local network now, and
we can find no other way but to borrow one part of the nationwide
network to talk over Kyushu .
Don't we have to be afraid of Tokyo?
We talked about that if we have to do so, it might go back to a bit lonely
time. However then, the Internet which become a topic today appeared.
On July in 1994, the COARA were connected with the Internet first as
the local network in Japan.
After we were connected with that, a COARA's membership of 2,300
combined with a Internet's membership of 50,000,000 which were in
all of the world. So if I touch a button, I can see the homepage of
Washington or Paris easily. With these places Tokyo also became small
and "One of the world". Don't we have to be afraid of Tokyo? The
appearance of the Internet encouraged us, and many personal
homepages appeared one after another. We had an experience for
ourselves that we could use and enjoy the Internet. So we worked on
the NTT, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and the
Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications to make a regular
communication basis of the information, and agreed with them to
use the Internet as an experiment. We advanced on the purpose that
we will make " The information outlet" which we can use for24hours
as much as we want in the local society.
Two years has passed since then. The personal computer
communication is popular in Tokyo now. In the regular meeting or
electric meeting, we are lively and positively discussing what we should
do next. Now there are about 4,800 members in the COARA, it run
around the Fukuoka and Oita.
written by Tooru Ono, the chief of the NEW COARA secretariat
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