This keynote address discusses the need for a new worldwide association for online education or, a congress of existing associations concerned with the Internet and education. The linguistic and cultural distance between Japan and Western countries is so great that mutual understanding can only be a matter of degree. Japanese language search engines and directories quickly yield many Web sites concerned with online education, but apparently in mainstream colleges and schools the Internet is no more than a supplement to courses for credit, not the means of delivery. Yasuhiko Hirao of the Kagawa Prefectural Education Center, an inservice training facility, endeavors to theoretically justify using the Internet in public schools while presenting experimental findings in published articles and at his Web site. There are two countervailing trends related to online education that can be projected statistically into the future. According to a vernacular economic daily, the number of computers in Japan connected to the Internet will rise from 12 million in 1998 to 32 million in the year 2001. This paper concludes by posing a question for online discussion: "What can be done to give those educated worldwide a brighter future online?" (AEF)