Berkman@10 Conference: The Future of the Internet

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Save the date! On May 15-16, 2008, the Berkman Center will cap off its 10th anniversary celebration with a conference on “The Future of the Internet.” The Center has been in full celebratory mode for the 2007-08 academic year and has hosted many events including a distinguished speaker series and book releases by Berkman projects and people. (Save another date! This week, on April 4, Lawrence Lessig will at the Berkman Center, giving a talk on "Building the Change Congress Movement." Next up, Jonathan Zittrain's book release on April 11 and April 18.)

Dan Gillmor over at the Center for Citizen Media has blogged about the choice of keynote speaker for the conference, Joshua Micah Marshall. As Gillmor notes, not only is Marshall the founder and editor of the highly regarded Talking Points Memo, but he is also a passionate proponent of journalism “by the people, for the people.”

I, on the other hand, have accessing government information on my mind--we’re about to launch the Access section of our legal guide. To risk sounding like a broken record and blogging again about the importance of open government, I’m thrilled that the Sunlight Foundation will be co-hosting a session on Technology and Political Transparency.

The abstract for the session reads:

It has been argued that new information technologies and other online tools have the capacity to enhance political transparency and the accountability of government officials, processes, and institutions to their citizens. How does the Internet interact with, protect or endanger democratic engagement and trust? What can we do to push forward in a positive direction? Are there unintended consequences that need addressing? An invitation to a dialogue about the future of politics in the internet age.

Other sessions at the upcoming conference include:

  • Anonymity, Privacy and Identity: Towards a Bill of User rights
  • Democratized and Distributed Innovation
  • The Dilemma of Games: Moral choice in a Digital World
  • Framing the Net: What We Say is What We Get
  • The Global Internet: Emerging Tech in Emerging Markets
  • Internet Censorship and Surveillance: A Multi-Stakeholder Response
  • The Musician and the Scientist Write the Code: Protocols for Compensation and Openness
  • Netizenship: Engaging with Race and Diversity Online
  • Networked News and Public Discourse
  • Open Access: Problems of Collective Action and Promises of Civic Engagement
  • Political Mobilization, the Internet and the 2008 Elections

All are welcome. For more information about these sessions and the conference itself, visit Berkman@10.

(Note: the Citizen Media Law Project is affiliated with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.)