BILLIONAIRE financier George Soros, who has donated millions to the struggling economies of Eastern Europe, is spending $5 million to set up a new foundation to connect Eastern Europe and Russia to the Internet. The foundation will start by laying fibre-optic cable across Moscow to link libraries, hospitals and scientific institutes.
Jurgen Hess, spokesman for the Soros Foundation in New York, says the Internet Foundation should be up and running in a few weeks, with funding from governments, other foundations and the telecommunications industry in addition to Soros鈥檚 $5 million. The Internet Foundation aims to build the infrastructure that will allow all of Russia and Eastern Europe to log on to the Net, 鈥渇rom laying the cable to training users鈥�. At the moment access to the Net is hampered by poor telephone lines rather than by the availability of computers.
The Soros Foundation has been spending $10 million a year for the past few years, laying cable and expanding e-mail systems in Eastern Europe. Last year Soros started a smaller programme in Russia, laying fibre-optic cable between scientific institutes in southern Moscow and providing a link with St Petersburg.
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The first Internet Foundation project will spend $1.5 million to extend this 鈥渂ackbone鈥� to civic institutions in the rest of Moscow, says Hess.