W hat was the Ancient Library of Alexandria? * The most famous among all ancient and medieval...

W hat was the Ancient Library of Alexandria? *The most famous among all ancient and medieval libraries*Largest library in all antiquity*Largest research institution well known by scholars from all over the Mediterranean.

Even after its disappearance since 1600 years ago, it continues to survive in the memory of all scholars to this day.

The ancient Library of Alexandria in 300 BC captured much of the world’s science by

collecting over 700,000 papyrus

scrolls giving birth to

the first university.

Ptolemy I Soter (c. 367/6-283/2 B.C.)

Library of Alexandria Today

“So that is the setting for the new Library of Alexandria. A library for up to eight million books, three museums,

five research institutes, several exhibition galleries, a planetarium and a conference center that can

accommodate some 3000 seats. The beautiful new building, with its distinctive granite wall covered by the

letters of all the world's alphabets, is today a recognizable landmark of the new Alexandria.”

Ismail SerageldinLibrarian of Alexandria

Supercourse model

Teacher in Alexandria

Teacher in Tanzania

Teacher in Cairo

Teacher in Paris

Teacher in Pittsburgh

Teacher in Moscow

Target: everybody

Goal: To increase global health equity by developing a cost-effective means to provide access to quality health, prevention and science information world wide.

From Papyrus to PowerPoint: Steps of the great Evolution

200 BC Papyrus

1500 AD Paper and Printed Books

1995 Electronic Books

October 16, 2002 PowerPoint

What is Supercourse today?

• The largest library of PowerPoint lectures on prevention

• One of the largest networks of researchers, scientists and healthcare workers from all over the world

• The best known e-prevention initiative in the world

What are we capturing now and what do we want to capture in the

future?

Science Prevention

Why are we concerned about prevention?

In th is c e n tu r y , l i f e e x p e c ta n c y h a s im p ro v e d in b o th d e v e lo p e d a n d d e v e lo p in g c o u n tr ie s to a n e x te n t th a t h a s n e v e r b e e n e x p e r ie n c e d in h u m a n h is to r y .

0

5

10

15

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M edic al tr eatment

Public he alth

T h e W o r ld B a n k 1 9 9 3

Lif

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pect

ancy

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ent (

year

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9389 Faculty134 UN member

Countries

Global Participants

Nobel Prize winner

Father of the Internet

Former Head CDC

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Our dream is the marriage between the Library of Alexandria and the Supercourse Project to spread the knowledge of science

worldwide

Supercourse and P2P systems

In Supercourse, we are developing a system where the users will be able to exchange PowerPoint files as with Napster

Central Server file exchange Model in the Library of Alexandria

Central Server in Alexandria containing

PPT lectures

Cairo Mecca

New York MoscowSystem that allows scientists to borrow and to

donate PPT lectures

Supercourse in Alexandria and the Ancient Library: What do they have in

common?

Ancient Library-700,000 papyrus scrolls (125,000 books)

Library of Alexandria Supercourse-Potentially 5 million PowerPoint lectures on Science