PROCEEDINGS - Industries of the Future - West Virginia - West ...

Industries of the Future — West Virginia
information superhighway to allow voice data and video to flow more quickly and freely across the
network. West Virginia 2001 follows on the heels of the World School Program, a joint venture over
the last several years between Bell Atlantic and the schools of West Virginia. As a result of this
cooperative approach, we have more schools in our state now linked to the Internet than any other
state in the nation. We're trying and moving as rapidly as we can to make that a 100% linkage with the
Internet, ahead of any other state.
We have, as you know, under Governor Caperton and the legislature’s leadership over the last
eight years, placed computers in grades K-12. In the future, when a student graduates from high school
in this state, that student will have had thirteen years experience in the use of the computer and using a
computer to learn new things, discover the excitement of new knowledge, and to apply it in whatever
problem-solving that person needs to do.
The new ATM network will provide us with the state-of-the-art distance learning connections
in the state that will tie everything together and provide us with an electronic proximity that we've never
had before. As a result of that kind of proximity, we become one people—one West Virginia. We are
all at the same table on an equal basis, and the state can do things that it never could do before because
it will think more as one state. The mountains that so long separated us into isolated regions are no
longer of such significance. Inter-city competition and county lines will disappear in their significance
because the network crosses all of these boundaries and brings us together in one cohesive unit.
The same distance learning network that makes possible the linkage of every school in the state,
every library, every college and university, also provides us a real asset for health care delivery. We
are the second most rural state in the nation, and we have the highest average age population. This
means that health care becomes an ever more challenging problem for us. How do we have a health
care system that is accessible and affordable to people who live in remote areas of the state? MDTV is
not something that's going to come in the future, it's already here. As this network is perfected, we'll be
able to link together all of our medical schools and major medical centers, such as the one where we
meet at this moment, with rural hospitals, community clinics, and home health care networks across the
state.
Next week, Dr. Sam Tully and I are going to Idaho to participate in a ceremony that has real
meaning to the future of our state. Next week we will make public a product, which originated in the
United States Department of Justice and the technology for which was developed in Idaho. Lockheed
Martin took the concept to its Idaho laboratory and has developed a "road spike" for the apprehension
of run-away criminals who are a threat to life and safety on the highway.
When a police officer is alerted by radio contact of an escaping car coming down the highway,
he throws the device across the highway. It reaches across two lanes, and turns up the road spike as
the fleeing car approaches. These are hollow steel spikes that puncture the tire of the runaway car,
causing the tires to go flat. No one’s life is threatened because the officer controls it with a remote
control. After the escape car passes, the road spikes are turned down and the following cars are not
threatened in any way.
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