RAIN Network
Organization Profile 2003-2007
RAIN is a non-profit 501c3 educational program of Visible Light, Inc., an educational communications corporation based in Santa Barbara, California. Founded in 1991 RAIN was one of the first public Internet access programs in the world. In keeping with its pioneer spirit and vision, RAIN is now forging Public Internet Broadcasting. Over 32 million visitors come to the RAIN web site each year, a testament of the need for, and value of, Public Internet Broadcasting.
Since 1990, RAIN has worked on Federally and State funded projects for the USDA, US Dept. of Education/California Education Dept., Dept. of Commerce/NOAA, National Science Foundation, and Defense Department in the fields of Distance Learning, Telemedicine, Electronic Commerce, and Family Strengthening. Current growths include adding GIS community development services.
RAIN's Camp Internet program was awarded a Smithsonian Innovation
Network
Medal of Honor, and has received two AOL Rural Community Capacity Building
Leadership Awards.
RAIN's Public Internet Broadcasting service is an excellent distance learning medium suitable for formal and informal education, health education, and economic development project support. Using state-of-the-art video and audio streaming, RAIN's programs link learners in the United States and around the world to expert scientists, historians, doctors, educators, business owners, and entrepreneurs who serve as online mentors and role models for learners of all ages.
The PIB programs broadcast by RAIN are designed to provide in-depth content and a live human component that leverages online technology to take viewers to locations they would otherwise not have access to - into the board room of a leading technology developer, to conferences with ground breaking medical practitioners, inside a museum collection vault to see rare artifacts, undersea to swim with exotic fish, off to remote islands where time stands still, even into prehistoric painted cave sites. These remote broadcasts - some live others prerecorded - will open new communication and learning opportunities for RAIN's viewers, and demonstrate optimal applications for the National Information Infrastructure, global Internet, and World Wide Web technologies.
Projects currently in development / delivery are :
1) RAIN has been awarded four USDA Rural Utilities Service Distance
Learning
and Telemedicine grants which are now introducing new online multi-media
educational
and health environments into 15 specific rural communities in seven
California coastal counties, and then using those programs as models for other rural and urban sites. The program features the Camp Internet online learning expedition program delivered via the Internet to classrooms, libraries and family rooms, and a public / practitioner Community Wellness Telemedicine component. Sites are in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties, and each is building a Community Technology Council and Youth Tech Corp to create a long-term sustainability.
2) RAIN has been awarded support to develop and deliver the Camp Internet
distance education program to 96 classrooms as a Technology Literacy Project
funded through US and Calif. Dept. of Education, with additional classroom
scholarships funded by the Federal Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.
This 4 year project features GIS and remote / wireless components to
facilitate educational broadcasting. Classroom Programs featured are
Explore the California Channel Islands
Explore the California Backcountry
Explore the Ancient Southwest
All three special study units cover science, social studies, history, art
and literature along with special studies in mappng, GIS and classroom
based web design.
3) RAIN's Director, Timothy Tyndall, is an invited presenter of
research papers and poster sessions
for the National Research Council CODATA ,
the International Telecommunications Society Conference in Stockholm, June 98,
the International Internet Society Conference in Geneva, July 98, the
Dept. of Interior 5th Annual California Islands Symposium, Santa Barbara,
May 99,
the California Dept. of Education, San Diego, Jan 99, at
National Rural Telecommunications Conference Aspen Institute, Oct 97,
Oct 99, Oct 2000,
the Canadian Library Assoc. Get Smart Conference, Montreal, Mar 99,
the National Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education Web
Net,Oct 99,
the International Telecommunications Society in Florence, Italy, March 2000
the International Internet Society Kyoto, Japan, July 2000, Ed-Net March
2001, Los Angeles.
Past Accomplishments
1) RAIN assists developing countries in creating model public access programs - the existing project is in Belize - it is BRAIN - the Belizean Regional Alliance for Information Networking. RAIN has applied to USAID for one in Ghana that will be GRAIN, with an emphasis on electronic commerce for women's and regional products to promote self sufficiency. RAIN has received support from the National Science Foundation for work in developing countries, and presented a paper to Universidad Estatal a Distancia in San Jose, Costa Rica in 1993.
2) RAIN has been selected as a regional education and technology development agency for the opening of a new Electronic Commerce Resource Center (ECRC) following a competitive briefing at the Pentagon. The Center will assist regional small and medium sized manufactures and disadvantaged small businesses in Southern California to participate in government contracting using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to streamline, lower the cost, and increase the efficiency of contracting with the government. The program is sponsored by the Defense Logistics Agency.
3) RAIN was a technology partner in a USDA CYFAR Children Youth and Families at Risk project called Neighborhood GreenNet in Santa Barbara, teaching low income youth and families to use the Internet as a family strengthening and small business development tool.
Infrastructure
In its own host region of Santa Barbara, California, RAIN operates from a headquarters in the downtown cultural district of Santa Barbara. The Center offers regular training programs and free walk-in access to the public. RAIN has expanded its local dial access services to reach more individuals and families interested in participating in the new distance learning and telemedicine programs. A new 56k / v.90 digital dial up system is in place, aDSL has been added, and all new y2K compliant equipment upgrades were accomplished in the fall of 1999. The major focus of the Network 2000-2002 is delivering training and connectivity to underserved rural and at-risk urban populations, to classrooms and libraries, and to telemedicine sites.
To learn more about RAIN and its Public Internet Broadcasting programs, please see www.rain.org, or call 1-800-889-2823.
We invite you to support Public Internet Broadcasting -
Technology that Works for People !
1129 State A6 & A7, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, 1-800-889-2823,
http://www.rain.org
1129 State, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, 1-800-889-2823, http://www.rain.org
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