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Education
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Keeping current in Foreign Service
Videoconferencing technology essential for embassy education
Mar 31, 2005
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by Stephen Perry
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Approximately 7,000 miles from Paris, across Europe, Africa, and a third of the Indian Ocean, three lecturers and two students sat around a small conference table last October watching a 52-inch Sony plasma TV as part of a videoconference to educate academics on the Island of Mauritius about the then upcoming presidential election process in the United States.
The presenter for the digital videoconference (DVC) was an American political scientist teaching in Paris whose lecture originated from the U.S. Embassy there. Douglas Yates, professor at the American Graduate School of International Relations and Diplomacy in Paris, began his presentation by asking the small group of Mauritian participants to introduce themselves individually and to ask any questions they had about the U.S. electoral process.
Understanding the thickly accented English of some Mauritian participants was best accomplished through a combination of the audio feed and lip reading on his own monitor. He then proceeded to inform his international audience on the electoral process, addressing the individuals who asked the questions as he went.
This scenario, with groups as small as the five and ranging up to 25 participants, is repeated regularly at U.S. embassies across the world. While DVCs are particularly useful in isolated countries like Mauritius, where few American specialists on any topic are likely to appear in person, they are also used in a variety of settings at embassies in a number of countries.
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| Participants await a videoconference on Muslims in America at the U.S. Embassy in Port Louis, Mauritius. |
Timely Topics
Marjorie Harrison, public affairs officer at the embassy in Mauritius, said that her goal is to hold one DVC every four to six weeks, or about 10 per year. Sometimes, as was the case with explaining the electoral system, she comes up with a topic she would like to use as an opportunity to foster American goodwill within the country. She requests the topic from the State Department and a speaker will be arranged for a convenient DVC origination point. At other times, the State Department or a large embassy like the one in Paris will offer a topic and Harrison can “opt in” for that particular DVC.
Harrison has scheduled DVCs on young Muslim women in America, trafficking in persons (such as child prostitution), protection of ocean environments, and black history month, among others. All those topics are pertinent to needs in the Mauritian context.
For example, Mauritius has a large population of descendants of former African slaves. Therefore, an American black history month presentation can be very pertinent to the Mauritian society as well. In fact, because the history of the civil rights struggle and its impact on the United States isn’t time sensitive like the U.S. election, Harrison said a videotape of that DVC will be replayed for a new audience.
A topic that might seem automatic in the wake of the recent Indian Ocean tsunami would be disaster preparedness. “The Indian Ocean nations need to get together first,” Harrison noted. “There is a meeting of the Small Island Developing States scheduled in Mauritius soon. After that ... we’ll see.”
Audiences are gathered from a variety of sectors within countries. Sometimes a topic is appropriate for intellectuals who might be able to hear from an eminent U.S. scholar. Other presentations would be for people working in a sector of social service or for students hoping to attend university in the United States. When a topic is appropriate for the general public, such as the lecture on the Muslim woman in America, the audience is comprised of — you guessed it — a few of the many thousands of Muslim women in Mauritius.
What is the benefit for the American taxpayer? It’s fostering goodwill overseas with people who might otherwise view America only as the country occupying Iraq. And the cost? Currently, $200 buys an embassy a one-hour DVC session, not counting the original equipment purchases. The cost pays for the international phone connection and part of an honorarium for speakers if they are from outside the U.S. State Department.
Employing Technology
The DVC is made possible through Polycom’s VSX7000 technology at the embassy in Mauritius. The equipment has been in use for a few months and provides clear audio as well as 30 fps video over ISDN. The camera portion of the VSX7000 unit is positioned on top of the television to maximize eye contact between participants at the two or more locations, and it’s remotely aimed at specific participants during the video linkup.
Dan Norman, former information management specialist at the embassy in Mauritius, said the equipment is compatible for linking with any H.323 compliant conferencing software or dedicated DVC device at the other end of the DVC hookup. Sony is another company that makes compatible DVC products. Both Sony and Polycom devices use the H.264 video compression algorithm for encoding and transmitting the video image, according to Norman.
Audio is picked up on a triangular microphone/speaker unit that can be set on a table in the middle of the conference room. It picks up voices from all directions, both near and across the room. Using ISDN limits the fidelity of the audio to the equivalent of a phone call in Mauritius. That can be mildly problematic when dealing with different dialects of English spoken at each end of the DVC connection, but seeing the speaker helps overcome most of the audio difficulties.
The VSX7000 is more of an all-in-one device than the former Polycom ViewStation that the Mauritian U.S. Embassy recently replaced. The next phase of the DVC project will begin linking the sites via broadband Internet, which will save on the international phone charges incurred through phone line connections. Audiovisual/distribution technician Neddy Chan Pin has been testing the VSX7000 to prepare for future broadband use; the system is designed for IP and ISDN connections, and can even utilize a combination of both simultaneously.
One problem with using DVC technology is that connections between sites in the Third World are often problematic. The DVC system is reliant on the phone or Internet switching capabilities and available bandwidth within each nation. If circuits tend to fail often, as they do in some African nations like Benin, for example, DVCs aren’t dependable as a system of communication. Because of this, many nations have yet to acquire the technology, Harrison said.
Meetings And More
In addition to connecting experts with leaders in distant countries, some embassies use DVC technology to connect with consulates for regular meetings between staff at the various sites. In India, for example, there are three consulates in Chennai, Mumbai, and Calcutta. Former Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill held weekly DVCs between the embassy in New Delhi and staff at the three consular sites, Harrison said.
Connecting between consulates and embassies via DVC enhances the communication within countries between government units that must coordinate their efforts and make unified statements on issues. There is some concern, however, that content exchanged via this method must be kept free of classified information. The security of the DVC connection has made some countries hesitate to use DVCs in this way, Norman said.
DVCs have also facilitated communication between people in multiple countries. Harrison has used it to allow American college students to talk to students who think they would like to study in America. In this setting, the international students can hear the perspective of those in their own age group. Similarly, the DVCs could be used to allow American scholars serving overseas on programs like Fulbright Fellowships to conference with scholars in their field in other nations, Harrison said.
Whether it’s shortening the distance between Paris and Mauritius, between consulates and embassies, or between people that are miles apart in cultural terms, video interaction is becoming an increasingly important tool in the Foreign Service. And digital videoconferencing is proving to be a cost effective tool for many of these purposes.
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