Promoting computer literacy

TALLINN - Microlink and Eesti Telefon organized an eight day Tiger Leap road show last week in eight different Estonian cities to introduce computers and Internet to a wide range of people.

The tour was opened with the speech of Estonia's President Lennart Meri through a video conference on August 22.

The event organizers are satisfied with the tour, which attracted more than 20,000 people. "Last year we had even more visitors, about 25,000, because we visited larger cities," said Mart Sepp, marketing specialist at Microlink.

"Microlink, as the leader in computer business, is interested in the development of the market, the expansion of Internet and the wider use of computers," said Sepp. The Tiger Leap tour introduced Internet possibilities from three aspects: work, home and studies.

The tour was started in 1997 as a one-day event, taking place in the Old Town Square in Tallinn when 100 PCs connected to Internet were set up for public use and complemented with a full day of lectures by top IT specialists in Estonia.

On June 9 1999 the Tiger Leap tour won the first prize in Sweden in the international Global Bange-mann Challenge contest in the equal-access-to-networking category .

Major sponsors of the non-profit event were Eesti Uhispank, the United Nations Development Program, Intel and several local and international companies.

All local TV channels, radio stations and newspapers were active media partners, covering the tour and advertising the event.