Stanford University has received $27.5 million from two Swedish foundations for an Internet-based global learning project, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News reports.

The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the related Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation made the gifts, the largest grants awarded by either organization.

Stanford officials say $15 million of the grant will go toward the planned Wallenberg Global Learning Center, which will connect students, instructors and researchers through Internet-based communications in what school officials are calling a "technologically agile" learning space prototype.

The university will provide another $12 million to fund renovation of a 60,000-square-foot building to house the new facility. The center is expected to open in 2001.

The remaining $12.5 million will go to the proposed Swedish Learning Laboratory, an offshoot of the existing Stanford Learning Lab. The 18-month-old lab is designed to test new technologies and new teaching methods needed for remote learning.

The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation has assets estimated at $3.75 billion. It is headed by banker Peter Wallenberg. The family is best known for the actions of Raoul Wallenberg, Sweden's envoy to Hungary during World War II. Wallenberg helped as many as 100,000 Jews escape the Holocaust. He was captured by Soviet forces after the war and disappeared.

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