Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Berkman Luncheon Series

#iranelection: The digital media response to the 2009 Iranian election

Cameran Ashraf, Adjunct Faculty member in the Department of Geography and Anthropology at California State University, Pomona & Brett Solomon, recently Campaign Director at Avaaz.org and Executive Director at GetUp.org.au

With Iran as a case study, this presentation will explore the role new communication technologies are playing in the post-election unrest, how people outside of Iran are helping through digital media, and the Iranian government's efforts at maintaining its information border.

Berkman Luncheon Series

Kudunomics: Information and Property Rights in the Weightless Economy

Sam Bowles, Santa Fe Institute, Behavioral Sciences Program

Sam Bowles will discuss how an evolutionary model and computer simulations will show how systems of property rights might respond to the challenges of the weightless economy.

Law Lab Speaker Series

Big Data, Global Development, and Complex Social Systems

Nathan Eagle, Omidyar Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute

Petabytes of data about human movements, transactions, and communication patterns are continuously being generated by everyday technologies such as mobile phones and credit cards. This unprecedented volume of information facilitates a novel set of research questions applicable to a wide range of development issues. Nathan Eagle will discuss. This event will be webcast live at 12:30 pm ET.

Berkman Luncheon Series

What Information Was

David Weinberger, Berkman Center

David Weinberger will present an informal sketch of a direction for understanding the dominance of information as concept, metaphor, etc., suggesting that we leaped into "information" because it reflected a long-held but squirrely metaphysics. There will be lots of time for open discussion. This event will be webcast live at 12:30PM ET.

Internet Companions: technical and social issues.

Yorick Wilks, Oxford Internet Institute

If a Companion were to become the internet repository for someone’s whole life, to be a “cognitive prosthesis” for dealing with their own life’s records, what safeguards are essential, both technical and legal, concerning access to such a repository during the owner’s life and after?