DIANE was a grassroots driven regional videoconferencing consortium which promoted and supported cooperative electronic alliances in education, community service, and economic development.
Primary sponsors and underwriters of the two pilots included TVA, BellSouth, IBM led by Steven Wilkinson, and PictureTel (later purchased by Polycom).
A large portfolio of community oriented and educational test applications between Nashville and Huntsville were launched with a 40-minute discussion of intercity cooperation between the mayors of the cities.
Network participants and supporters were also successful in securing a wide bevy of public and private grants to pay for different types of community applications which utilized the project.
DIANE membership reflected a wide spectrum of community organizations which came together online to jointly plan and carry out public programs and services.
DIANE members took special care to include low income inner city residents, developmentally disabled children, senior citizens, speech and hearing impaired individuals, and other potential information highway have-nots in program development activities.
An important supplement to in-class instruction, schoolchildren frequently were able to go on electronic field trips through the DIANE network for meaningful interactive real-world learning experiences.
The Nashville Zoo conducted videoconferences with area schools to bring students safe interactive experiences with rare snow leopards and other wild animals.
Radnor Lake State Natural Area offered students a wide range of teleconference activities involving environmental conservation, water ecology, and wireless video/underwater camera views of its wildlife residents.
Often, Project DIANE electronic field trips took the children to international locations such as France, England, Japan, or to meet interesting people such as jet pilots, film actors and corporate executives.
The videoconferencing equipment used by Project DIANE in the Nashville and City Share startup field pilots were all OS/2 based videoconference units (PCS/1s) provided through a joint development partnership at the time between PictureTel and the IBM Corporation.
Project DIANE also later acquired a Tandberg Multipoint Control Unit (MCU), sometimes referred to as a video bridge or gateway, which allowed the network to deliver its interactive programming to up to 16 separate locations simultaneously.