Clinton addresses conference

  The Associated Press Former president Bill
Clinton speaks at an OnLine Learning Conference Monday
night at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

By Robert Salonga and Leo
Wallach
Daily Bruin Staff

Former president Bill Clinton spoke about the relationship
between the information revolution and the attacks of Sept. 11
during a speech at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Monday.

Clinton spoke in front of an audience of about 2,100 as part of
the OnLine Learning Conference held at the center.

“We have to spread the positive benefits of the
information revolution,” Clinton said, referring to the need
to include developing nations as benefactors of technological
advances.

Clinton said he originally intended to address advances in
Internet-education technology that occurred during his
administration. But he felt compelled to speak about the attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

He related terrorism to the technological boom by pointing out
that both were a product of increasing interdependence between
people throughout the world.

“The great question facing people everywhere is whether,
on balance, this increased interdependence will be positive or
negative,” Clinton said.

He said that though interdependence has led to “a more
diverse society” in the United States, it has its
drawbacks.

“The (diversity) makes it easier for terrorists to hide in
the U.S., because there are people from everywhere,” Clinton
said.

He also congratulated the crowd for taking part in the
conference in spite of the attacks.

“You did the right thing to have this meeting,” he
said. “Going forward is consistent with what President Bush
asked us to do.”

In addition, Clinton praised citizens of his
“adopted” state of New York ““ he recently opened
an office in Harlem and his wife Hillary is serving her first term
as senator ““ for their bravery during this time.

“The terrorists gave their lives to kill other people, but
Americans gave their lives to save others,” he said.

Clinton also urged members of the crowd, who were mostly
invested in the information technology industry, to continue to
progress.

Many spectators reacted positively to Clinton’s
message.

“I think he’s absolutely right that our careers are
critical to the direction that our country and the world are
taking,” said Ginny Key, of the Economic Development
Institute at Georgia Tech.

The OnLine Learning Conference was initially launched in 1998 as
a user conference for Click2Learn, one of its primary sponsors, and
has grown dramatically since then.

The prevailing theme of the conference is e-learning between
professional training companies and their contracted corporations,
allowing management consulting via the Internet.

Among the featured characteristics of the conference is its
hands-on approach to presenting e-learning to business executives,
so that they can bring what they’ve learned back to the
office.

“We help with managing how a corporation’s workforce
learns,” said Sara Britton, a spokeswoman for
Click2Learn.

For instance, Britton said, its Aspen learning platform allows a
manager to deliver personalized teaching according to the
employees’ individual skills and knowledge, coordinating it
with the computer device or software that needs to be learned.

Another primary sponsor, Sun Microsystems, said its involvement
in the conference is an opportunity to expand its marketability. It
had one of the largest exhibits in the conference.

“We’re sponsoring this because we want to do it
right and do it big,” said Mark Kulaga, marketing director
for Sun.