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During a one week visit to the Philippines, Mathy Vanbuel assisted the Local Government Academy (LGA) of the Philippines in their process of evolution towards the implementation of learning, knowledge brokering/connection, knowledge exchange, and innovation technologies in their capacity building strategy. The visit consisted of a three day intensive training workshop on e-moderation, content conversion and videoconferencing, which took place at the LGA Training Centre in Los Banos. A visit to the LGA Resource Centre in Region 7 in Cebu concluded this week.

The 25th Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology taking place in Amsterdam from 28 June - 1 July 2009 included a series of live surgery sessions, sponsored by Storz and realised by a team from ATiT.

These sessions featured four operations, broadcast live by satellite from the Heilig Hart Hospital in Leuven to the conference site in Amsterdam. Satellite uplink services were provided by Headline, the Brussels based SNG specialists.

The operations were related to laparoscopic myomectomy, endometriosis, operative hysteroscopy and transvaginal laparoscopy. Between 500 and 600 participants attending the conference site could interact with the surgeons during operations and in this way were able to follow the very latest reproductive surgical operational practices and procedures.

Peter has recently completed an interesting course on man-machine-interaction at K.U.Leuven. Spanning over 7 evenings, it provided both a theoretical and practical framework to support the different steps in designing and assessing usable man-machine interfaces. Usability has rightfully become an important aspect of application and web design nowadays and we also see that our clients are becoming more aware of this and are increasingly expecting a better, more satisfying, user experience.

On Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 October 2008, ATiT provided the video production services for a successful training session of the European Academy for Gynaecological Surgery (EAGS). Endoscopic as well as other camera images were transmitted via IP videoconferencing as well as terrestrial microwave links between the operation theatres of the Hospitals of Zuid Oost Limburg (Genk) and Heilig Hart (Leuven) and the EAGS Auditorium in Leuven (Belgium). An additional connection transmitted the same programme for part of the day to the ESGE Live Demonstration Workshop 2008 in the Military Medical Academy in Sofia (Bulgaria).

ATiT are currently supporting the GDLN Secretariat at the World Bank Institute in Washington to determine the services offered by GDLN Affiliates all over the world. This research will contribute to the new web site being launched shortly for GDLN.  The website will feature GDLN impact stories and will help potential and current clients locate all GDLN Affiliates around the world and will display, for the first time in GDLN history, the different services offered by each and every affiliate.

We have spent most of February surrounded by workmen, yellow trucks and recently even an impressive red crane, but by the end of February we will have a new roof and a fine new storage area for equipment, files and servers. Bad news for the significant numbers of birds nesting in the chimney though who have recently had to seek new housing.

Mathy Vanbuel and Sally Reynolds contributed to the recently published EuroPACE publication, "European Networking and Learning for the Future. The EuroPACE Approach". This book collects articles from different authors involved in the development of the EuroPACE network and positions EuroPACE in the landscape of international networked e-learning. The articles give an overview of the history of the EuroPACE network and the changes that took place in the field of technology enhanced education and training over the past 20 years. For further information about this book including how to order it, visit the EuroPACE web site.

The Citizen E project is coming to an end and to mark the occasion a competition was held to identify and reward those schools carrying out the best projects in the eyes of the independent panel of judges appointed by the Citizen E partnership. To find out who the winners are, check the Citizen E website. Citizen E is a school twinning project partially funded by the EC

Sally Reynolds attended the EC Bridge conference in Beijing in March and also met several people active in the Chinese eLearning sector in preparation for the focus that this year's Online Educa Berlin will have on China.

SchoolCast is a new initiative led by ATiT Ireland with partners in Ireland and Austria and supported by ESA. Its objective is to plan, design, and pilot a schools' content delivery system, for more information. visit the SchoolCast site