Backers hope a huge book brings aid to tiny Bhutan

By Kim Peterson
Seattle Times technology reporter

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While many of his Microsoft colleagues traveled to sun-splashed beaches to take the edge off the Puget Sound winter, one Microsoft researcher made his way last year to a monastery with no electricity in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, a place where yak is a main course and mountain ponies are the preferred transportation.

David Salesin took several weeks off work last December to join a group traveling through Bhutan, documenting the little-known region on film.

The project has resulted in a book of photographs that organizers say is the largest ever produced. The book, "Bhutan: a Visual Odyssey Across The Last Himalayan Kingdom," measures 5 by 7 feet and costs $10,000 per copy.

It will be on display Thursday at a private showing at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

Friendly link For more information about professor Michael Hawley's nonprofit organization, Friendly Planet, visit www.friendlyplanet.org

Most of the proceeds from the book's sales will be used to pay for educational development in Bhutan, which has a population of about 700,000 and is about half the size of Indiana. About two dozen books have been sold so far.

The trip was one of two Bhutan expeditions organized last year by Michael Hawley, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has accompanied students on trips to Cambodia and other countries.

Hawley formed a nonprofit organization called Friendly Planet and collected donations from technology companies around the country for the Bhutan project. Apple Computer gave him a server to hold thousands of digital images, and Hewlett-Packard sent a printer large enough to print the book's massive photos.

Amazon.com has agreed to sell the book on its Web site without taking any transaction fees. Hawley said he pitched the idea to Chief Executive Jeff Bezos as Amazon's chance to literally become the world's largest bookseller.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation contributed $100,000, and Microsoft gave another $100,000 through its iCampus partnership with MIT. Microsoft is expected to donate an estimated $25 million over five years to pay for projects through iCampus, which started in 1999.

"We thought it was a wonderful opportunity," said Kevin Schofield, director of university relations at Microsoft's research division. "One of the most interesting parts about this project is taking a look at the technology they were using for the photography."

Schofield bought one of the 130-pound books, and said he hopes to donate it to a local library or museum.

Salesin, who is also a computer-science professor at the University of Washington, accompanied Hawley's group as an amateur photographer. He also picked up some research ideas that Microsoft could pursue.

One area that interests him is creating digital images that include a broader range of light intensities. Right now, human eyes can perceive more levels of bright and dark than digital images can portray, Salesin said.

He is also looking at ways to archive and retrieve images that are indexed geographically. The Bhutan team attached global-positioning data to photographs that were taken during the trip, and Salesin is exploring ways to categorize them by location.

Salesin said he didn't know what to expect when he arrived in Bhutan. He was taken, he said, by "the openness of the people."

"They were open to new ideas and ideas from the modern world, and yet at the same time they are very grounded in their traditions," he said.

This week, two 14-year-olds from Bhutan will be touring America with Hawley as the book is exhibited in New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle and San Francisco. The final showcase will be in Tokyo, at a party thrown by Ron Winston, the son of jeweler Harry Winston and a friend of Hawley's.

One of the children, Gyelsey Loday, has never been to America and grew up in a village with no electricity or plumbing.

Hawley has limited the print run of the book to 500 copies and said he will donate a large portion of the proceeds to the Ministry of Education in Bhutan, which has 200 schools. Some money is being set aside in a trust fund for Bhutanese students who want to get a university education abroad.

"We want schools in different parts of the world to be better connected, so that kids can share their lives a little more," he said.

Kim Peterson: 206-464-2360 or kpeterson@seattletimes.com

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