After looters stole the computers at Mosul University and burned the computer center, students and teachers like Wafa Zain Al-Abidin had no way to conduct research and communicate with colleagues around the country and the world. USAID officials discovered the need and provided forty-eight computers along with Internet access in June 2003, giving the university’s 32,000 students a place to continue their studies.

Dr. Wafa Zain Al-Abidin, assistant professor of literature at Mosul University, uses computer and Internet service provided by USAID working with the Coalition Provisional Authority to conduct research on modern women's poetry in the United States.

Each student or teacher can sign up to use the computer center for two hours a week. Although there are no printers yet, Dr. Al-Abidin downloads materials she finds on the Internet to floppy disks and takes them home where she has a computer and printer – but no Internet.