Welcome to Utah. On behalf of Western Governors University and the National Governors' Association's Center for Best Practices, we are delighted to have you here. May I offer heartfelt appreciation to our corporate sponsors who have made this possible, and to all of you who have traveled here to make this a very productive couple of days.

This morning I was thumbing through Time magazine and found a clip that defines quite well the difficulty of the challenges we face. Just two lines tucked away in the front section of the magazine where you find the cartoons and letters to the editor. This particular section is called "Numbers." The first number cited was 93 the percentage of sixth graders who can explain what a modem does. The second number was 23, and that was the percentage of Fortune 1000 executives who could explain what a modem does.

I'm not too far ahead of that curve myself. A couple months ago, my family and I were in California on vacation. I bought a new modem there and decided to put it into my computer. Big mistake. I got the computer disassembled, parts all over the table. Couldn't get it to work. So I called the computer store's number to get some technical assistance. It was after 6 p.m., so the phone rang and rang. But I was desperate and I let it ring on. Finally, there was an answer. "Hello," I said. "I am so glad you answered. I've got my computer taken apart. I've got the board out." I'm telling this guy where I've got it positioned. And he said, "Mister, I'm the janitor here, and when I told you hello, I told you all I know."

I felt a little like the fellow from the technical support operation at one of our telecommunications companies here who told me about people who call in with questions. He said one caller wanted to know if the paper cup holder on his computer was covered under the warranty. The technician said, "What do you mean the paper cup holder?" The man said, "You know, the thing you push, the button on the front, it slides out and you put your cup in it."

These are 20th century problems, soon to be 21st century problems. The 20th century and the Industrial Age are on the wane. The transition to the Information Age is before us. It is one of the most challenging experiences in human history. But it is also the brink of unparalleled opportunity in the way that we can and ultimately will deliver education.

Higher education will soon be a global market. In the few years we have between then and now, the window is wide open for a nation, a group, any collaboration of private or public, individual and collective, to design and remake the education delivery system that will reshape the world.

Leadership could come from anywhere. It could come from a nation like Malaysia, which does not have the size and resources to become a traditional learning center, yet is positioning itself in virtual learning to become a major force. Possibly it could come from China, where government officials say the key to the well-being of their people, from the biggest cities to the smallest villages, is education. Most logically, the leadership should come from us.

But the race is on, and the outcome is going to change not just higher education, but people around the globe. This is a chance not only to export knowledge, but to lift societies. It is opportunity from a humanitarian standpoint. I remember very clearly last July standing in a marketplace in China, talking to a young soldier 16 years old. He wanted to study at the university but could not. He was experienced in distance learning. I asked him how it was that he was taking classes. He said it was OK but that he would rather be going to the university because the education he was getting was not high quality.

This is an opportunity for us to literally bring the highest quality education to that soldier. Or to the ambassador from West Africa who told me of his people's hunger to learn, and thereby expand and improve themselves, as the country democratizes. Or the middle-aged worker who is now having to retool himself. Or the single parent on welfare struggling mightily for a better life.

Education is a springboard to freedom and prosperity. It is the neutralizer of poverty, the equalizer of circumstance. It is the way up and the way out. Technology will pave the way for more people than has ever been possible before. People who until now did not have the access, the time, the money, the opportunity. Because of technology, higher education will no longer have barriers. Boundaries are disappearing daily.

Look at the growth occurring in the information technology sector. The U.S. Department of Commerce says Internet traffic is doubling every 100 days. That's a 700 percent annual increase. The number of Internet users has gone from three million in 1993 to more than 100 million last year. It took television 13 years to do that. It took the Internet just four.

Look at bandwidth. When the first transcontinental telegraph was sent, it went across that wire at about five bits per second. Today we are routinely streaming bits of data at 200 and 300 bits of information a second down cables and fiber optic wires. We will soon be doing it at trillions of bits and at the speed of light.

The world is beginning to operate more and more like a group of networked PC's individual power centers coordinated in a way that multiplies their capacity. Local control but center coordination. That is a phrase I believe will need to become the mantra of the 21st century, and it is the theme on which I would like to speak today. Local control, but central coordination.

This past week, we have seen two major events: the financial world consolidating, with banks, insurance companies and brokerage houses reshaping themselves into networked powerhouses; and an alignment between two major airlines, Delta and United. Who would have thought those two powerhouses, operating as individual entities and competitors, could bring themselves together to form a more efficient unit. Local control but central coordination.

It's happening in the telecommunications industry. Competitors are having to cooperate because consumers are demanding not just competition, but the convenience and ease of use that comes from local control but central coordination. In the field of electric utilities, there is choice now where none would dream. This represents a dramatic expansion of opportunity for higher education, its role and its mission.

An economic system that educates only a steady stream of young people will fall behind in the 21st century. Successful societies in the 21st century will be those that find a way to continually raise the level of knowledge in their entire population rapidly and repeatedly. A few decades can make an enormous difference. Fifty years ago, Japan – an economic power today – had an economy the size of modern-day Ethiopia.

The response of a nation's higher education system to this transition will ultimately determine its stake in the next generation of world economic power. That has been made clear to me in many ways ... The CEO of an $8 billion company, who told me if he misses one product cycle, his company is seriously imperiled .... The coal mine I visited with my son and daughter last summer, where the earth was moved by five or six people using computer technology. An industry that years ago could have satisfied the needs of a family for 30 years because it required skills learned in high school and provided a better than average wage. But no more. .... It could have been reaffirmed to me by Malaysia, which sent representatives to a meeting of the Western Governors University to say that it could no longer count on low-cost manufacturing for its prosperity. "We have to be an information society," they said. And they are moving their entire culture in that direction.

This will be a remarkably important transforming event during the next decade. There is radical expansion opportunity available for higher education. It is a huge growth industry. But there will be, predictably, a painful transition.

Look at the other industries I've mentioned. Terms that have been associated with their transitions are becoming relevant to higher education more every day. Terms like "unbundling," "cherrypicking," "alliances," "strategic partnerships." These have been used in telecommunications, with electric utilities, at banks and financial institutions, and now in higher education.

Like any other marketplace, there are going to be institutions that win and lose. This is a huge transformation that will occur over decades. Institutions will still maintain their independence. But they will become stronger, more efficient and responsive by aligning themselves in the global networks of collaboration. Again, local control, central coordination.

An academic common market is emerging, one with common currency and code. The currency of higher education at present is "credit," the unit of time spent in class receiving instruction. It may or may not be exchangeable with another institution. In the academic common market, the currency, the new Euro. Will be competency a guarantee to the marketplace that the student is competent in the field of his or her degree.

This new academic common market will create a system that is based on learning, not teaching. It is a system that will be centered around students, not institutions. It will be a system that measures quality in terms of output, not by brand name of the producer. Value-added market pricing will be a part of this common market and it will invite new competitors from the private sector that will drive costs down and quality up.

Campuses are going to change. We will always have them. But whereas today students gather there to learn and then go off campus to have their knowledge enhanced in internships or in study programs, tomorrow's students are going to mostly learn off campus and then return to have their knowledge enhanced through laboratories and interaction with faculty and discussion groups.

The faculties themselves will change. They will be more technologically able. They will be less attached to the campus. They will be more accountable for results. They will be dramatically more productive, and they will be better paid. The governing boards of our institutions will spend more time discussing competition, alliances and markets than they will tenure and state funding.

Much of the infrastructure of this higher education common market is going to be built not simply by states and private institutions, but by the entertainment and communications industries. A couple years ago, direct television, for example, had zero installations. Today there are literally thousands of small satellites on the tops of houses all over the world forming the equivalent of two-way interactive video.

I listened a couple days ago as the postmaster general of the United States described what will become the future of the Postal Service: vast global networks connecting literally every home and the delivery of information worldwide. Imagine the post office ultimately becoming part of the higher education system, able to deliver content literally anywhere in the world.

There will be new learning tools that make learning available and more efficient without regard to time, place or space. Will students still go to class? Will they live at the dorm and hang out at the student union building? Yes. But they will also have as part of their education, technology delivered education. It will be a part of every student's education. And college graduation for them, as well as everyone else in the world, will become an orientation to lifelong learning.

From suppliers of courses and curriculum to competition within academe, this academic common market will create an entire cast of new players and competitors. Publishing companies will develop curriculum. Corporations will develop their own universities. And the system will be driven into an atmosphere that is not mass-production oriented, but mass-customization oriented. Every student will have the ability to craft this package in a way that fits them.

There are many who just don't believe this is going to happen. There are some that just don't think it ought to happen. I had a professor tell me not long ago, "This scares the hell out of me." I said, "If it does, then just don't do it."

It is not going to be governors or state legislators that decide this. The faculty senate is not going to decide. The marketplace is going to make this decision. And just like Delta and United Airlines would have never thought of remaining competitors by combining their systems. And just like the electric utilities that never thought of themselves as being in a competitive business. Just like the retailers who never thought they would have to compete with someone in New York for my shopping. Or just like a coal miner who never thought he would mine coal with a computer, it will happen. And the marketplace will bring it because it is in the best interest of the student.

There is a great Utah entrepreneur, Ray Noorda, who made a statement that applies well when it comes to change in the Information Age. He said there are three ways you can deal with it: You can fight it and die; you can accept it and survive; or you can lead it and prosper. This is a conference for those who are determined that this nation or their nation will be among those who lead and prosper.

Again, technology is an enabler of this unprecedented opportunity, but its proliferation presents a problem. There is no synchronization, no uniformity, no worldwide standard. In essence, a barrier. And that is why we are here. Standards will make it all manageable. And we've been good at coming up with them as we've needed them in the past. We've done it with e-mail systems and standard communications. We've been able to do it with CD's and VHS tapes and DVD video. We will do it again with education technology.

The purpose of this conference is to start putting distance education methodologies on a common path. To come up with a common set of technology standards for use nationally and internationally. To identify the functional requirements for implementation. It is a very challenging proposition. But it is a very exciting proposition as well.

We are now delivering distance education through broadcast and interactive television, satellite, telephone and Internet. Advances in digital technology will allow voice and data and video to travel more rapidly from place to place. We have the power, we have the flexibility at our fingertips, so let's give it the uniformity that it requires as well.

There are many other groups working on standards. We all know what the problem is. Standards have not been defined. Most technology-in-education efforts face the same four dilemmas: hardware, infrastructure, professional development and content. We will confront some of these issues here.

The end result will be a written report that we can all use to move forward in developing information technology standards. We can make a powerful and lasting contribution. This will not be the end. It will be the beginning.

It is my hope that two things will occur here. One is that people with a common commitment will come together. The other is that we will keep working together, and as we formalize our ideas, we will move the world forward so that the soldier in China and the village of the West African ambassador will have the benefit of local control, central coordination.

Then, as a governor and as a father who has set some high educational goals for his children, as most parents in America have I can say to every family that has ever scrimped or dreamed, every adult who did not have enough time or money, every transitional worker changing paths and going back, and every high schooler pondering whether to move forward –I can say, "You will have more opportunity as a result of our work."

We are not going to look back. We are pressing ahead to make education more affordable, more accessible and more acclimated to a fast-paced world rushing headlong into the age of information. Thank you.