On 1 October 2001, the PEN-International Multimedia Lab was officially dedicated at Tsukuba College of Technology in Japan. Mr. Riezo Utagawa, executive director of The Nippon Foundation, was the honored guest at the dedication ceremonies. Professor T. Araki of TCT described how the lab would be used to educate students who are deaf. A videoconference between NTID and TCT was an integral component of the dedication ceremonies. The videoconference was also streamed on the WWW and viewed in real time at the PEN-International Multimedia Lab at Tianjin University of Technology.