MIT technology will soon make it easier to search the World Wide Web for environmental information.
MIT's Global System for Sustainable Development (GSSD) is an adaptive intelligent-agent interface for the Internet that makes it easier to access and analyze the complex, multidimensional aspects of environmental problems. Using GSSD, individuals can access Web sites with environmental information that has been prescreened by MIT and is coherently organized and cross-referenced for use in the system.
GSSD is now available on a test basis worldwide, said Professor of Political Science Nazli Choucri, who gave a demonstration of the system last week at the annual meeting of the Alliance for Global Sustainability. The final version is expected to go on Web by June.
The URL is http://gssd.mit.edu/application.html>.
Last fall at the First International Workshop on Cyberspace for Global Sustainability, the major international institutions responsible for shaping the global agenda on environmental sustainability formally agreed to work with GSSD to coordinate environmental efforts around the globe.
The system is a collaborative effort by the Department of Political Science and the Technology and Development Program, along with the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Laboratory for Computer Science and the Center for International Studies. The researchers have applied for a patent on GSSD.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 29, 1997.
