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Defending an Unowned Internet (2/3); 2014 High-Level Conferences on ICT & the Internet: What Do They Mean for the Net (2/4)

Berkman Events Newsletter Template
Upcoming Events / Digital Media
January 29th, 2014

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special event

Defending an Unowned Internet

Monday, February 3, 5:00pm ET, Milstein East B (Room 2036), Wasserstein Hall, Harvard Law School. Free and Open to the Public. RSVP Required.

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In the wake of the disclosures about government surveillance and the rise of corporate-run applications and protocols, is the idea of an "unowned" Internet still a credible one? The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is pleased to invite the community to a panel discussion on February 3rd, 2014 that will address this question as well as explore the potential for reforms in policy, technology, and corporate and consumer behavior.

Panelists will include: Yochai Benkler, Berkman Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School; Ebele Okobi, Global Head and Senior Legal Director for Human Rights, Yahoo!; Bruce Schneier, CTO of CO3 Systems and Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.; Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Editor in Chief of Lawfare; Jonathan Zittrain, Co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, will moderate the discussion. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

berkman luncheon series

2014 High-Level Conferences on ICT and the Internet: What Do They Mean for the Internet As We Know It?

Tuesday, February 4, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

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In October, President of Brazil Dilma Roussef announced a high-level meeting on Internet governance to be held in April in Rio de Janeiro. ITU will have not one, not two, but three international meetings, and will be tackling Internet issues. As governments initiate talks about policies with regards to who controls the Internet, Veni Markovski will explore how the 2014 landscape of Internet governance may change.

In September 1990, Veni Markovski started his work on the Internet as a system operator of the first Sofia-based bulletin-board system, part of FidoNet. In 1993 Mr. Markovski partnered with another Bulgarian Internet pioneer, Dimitar (Mitko) Ganchev, to form bol.bg, the second Bulgarian Internet Service Provider in history. Veni Markovski was President and CEO of bol.bg for nine years. The two owners sold the company successfully in 2008 to an international investment fund. In 1995, he co-founded the Bulgarian Internet Society, a non-profit, of which he serves still as President and chairman of the Board. In March 2002, Mr. Markovski was appointed as the Chairman of the Bulgarian President's IT Advisory Council, a position he held until the President stepped down from office at the end of his second term on January 22, 2012. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

berkman luncheon series

How Dungeons & Dragons and Fantasy Prepare You for Law and Life

Tuesday, February 11, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

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How is a lawyer like a wizard? How does a courtroom resemble an epic battle? How is a casebook like the Dungeon Master's Guide? If you played Dungeons & Dragons in another age, or today, then you know this enormously influential role-playing gaming, which shaped the video gaming industry and geek culture, can be perfect training ground for law and life. This low-tech, pencil-and-paper-and-dice game teaches us how to solve problems, be a heroic leader, and achieve a common goal in a collaborative group environment. But the skills, rulebooks and "laws" required to play D&D --- whether understanding complex "to hit" charts or inventing the backstory of an evil Witch King -- can especially apply to law students. What Dungeon Master or lawyer doesn't need to parley with a foe? In this informal talk and conversation, critic and journalist Ethan Gilsdorf, author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, discusses how D&D's inherent storytelling skills can champion a role for creativ e play space in both your work and leisure life. We'll also discuss the push and pull of laws and rules vs. imagination in a game like D&D, a book series like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, or any fantasy world, and the role of the dungeon master/author/world-builder in the consistent (or inconsistent) application of these rules and standards, and how this all might apply to the imaginary world of law, too.

Jonathan Zittrain will join Ethan Gilsdorf for a conversation about how D&D can be a perfect training ground for law and life.

Ethan Gilsdorf is a journalist, memoirist, critic, poet, teacher and 17th level geek. He wrote the award-winning travel memoir investigation Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. Jonathan Zittrain is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

special event

US Launch of *impossible*

Wednesday, March 5, 6:30pm ET, Harvard Law School. Free and Open to the Public.

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Since September, the public has been experimenting with an app that relies on the goodness of humankind. Called *impossible*, it leverages the idea of a gift economy through social media to grant wishes. Users interact by posting wishes—such as a desire to learn Spanish or to find a jogging buddy—and other *impossible* users who can grant those wishes based on skills and proximity connect to grant the wish.

On March 5, the Berkman Center will celebrate the US launch of *impossible*. Joining us will be Lily Cole, founder of *impossible* and fashion model, actress, and social entrepreneur, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Founder and CEO of the World Wide Web Foundation, Rosemary Leith, Berkman Center fellow, Jonathan Zittrain, Director at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Professor at Harvard Law School, and moderator Urs Gasser, Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

In an interactive discussion, the group will discuss the feasibility of a social media platform that relies on themes related to human cooperation, reciprocity, and kindness. Read more about *impossible* and its origins in The Telegraph and Wired UK and of course, download it in the iTunes app store.

Lily Cole is a fashion model, actress and social entrepreneur; Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing; Rosemary Leith is a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center, where she works with Berkman’s Internet Robustness team, and acts as a Director of Herdict; and Jonathan Zittrain is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

video/audio

Eszter Hargittai and Aaron Shaw on Internet Skills and Wikipedia's Gender Inequality

berkman

Although women are just as likely as men to read Wikipedia, they only represent an estimated 16% of global Wikipedia editors and 23% of U.S. adult Wikipedia editors. In this talk, Eszter Hargittai -- Delaney Family Professor in the Communication Studies Department and Faculty Associate of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University, and Aaron Shaw -- Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University -- discuss findings from their recent study of both Wikipedia contributors and non-contributors showing that the gender gap in editing is exacerbated by a similarly important Internet skills gap. They suggest efforts ways of overcoming the gender gap in Wikipedia contributions by addressing the Web-use skills gap, and paths for future research. video/audio on our website>

Other Events of Note

Local, national, international, and online events that may be of interest to the Berkman community:

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