FACT SHEET   Museum of the Americas The Museum of the Americas will display, interpret and promote the rich historical and cultural legacy created by the peoples of the Americas. It is being designed to house the vast Latin American and Caribbean collections of the Smithsonian Institution, estimated to include more than 500,000 objects currently in storage. This project, launched in 1998, will bring a major new museum to the National Mall area in Washington, D.C. Although the city has museums devoted to many other areas in the world, including Africa and Asia, this will be the first museum in the U.S. capital to focus on the countries of the Western Hemisphere: North, Central and South America and the Caribbean. The Museum of the Americas is proposed be built on the grounds of the Organization of American States (OAS), strategically located on Constitution Avenue near the Washington Monument. An international architectural competition will be held to choose a design for the new museum. The target date for groundbreaking is 2005. The Museum of the Americas is a collaborative effort initiated by the OAS, the Smithsonian Institution and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). OAS Secretary General César Gaviria and IDB President Enrique Iglesias are Honorary Chairmen of the museum’s Inter-American Advisory Board, which is chaired by Carlos Slim Helú, Chairman and President of Telmex in Mexico.    Virtual Museum of the Americas/MuseAmericas In the short term, the Museum of the Americas will launch a powerful online resource, nicknamed MuseAmericas. This multifaceted portal will enable museums and other institutions all over the hemisphere to be linked together, bridging the digital divide and enriching the region’s cultural ties. MuseAmericas will include gateways for exhibitions, interactive education, entertainment and e-commerce, covering subjects as diverse as art, history, archaeology, food, fashion, sports and science. It is scheduled to be up and running by the next Summit of the Americas – which will be held in April 2001 in Québec City, Canada – and will be accessible in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. The electronic hub of MuseAmericas will be in Monterrey, Mexico; technical construction of the project began in July 2000 under the direction of Telmex in Mexico City. This project has support from many leading companies, including Microsoft, Visa International, Bacardi, Philip Morris, Stanford Financial Group, Cisco Systems, Lucent Technologies, Avaya Communication, Global Crossing, Hewlett Packard and Cisneros Educational TV. It also has curatorial support from a variety of sources, including the Smithsonian Institution, Mexico’s Institute of History and Anthropology, the Latin American Institute of Communications in Education (ILCE), the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives and the Latin American Folkloric Institute.   # # #