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Events

Explore our upcoming events, find video and audio from our past events, and subscribe to stay updated on all of our talks, panels, and live webcasts.

Welcome to the Berkman Klein Center’s events. These get-togethers are all about having great conversations and making new connections in a friendly and inclusive space. We believe everyone has something interesting to say. Please bring your ideas, experiences, and unique perspectives. Feel free to critique ideas and speak from your own experience, all in the spirit of lively and respectful discourse.

Thanks for helping us create a great community atmosphere!

Our hybrid and virtual events are hosted on Zoom with closed-captioning. Questions can be submitted to the moderator, who will highlight popular and emerging themes and relay them to the speakers. Please note that translation services are currently unavailable.

Public event recordings will be available one week after the event. You can find them on the event page or BKC’s YouTube channel. For the latest updates, follow BKC on X or LinkedIn.

Respiratory illnesses like flu, COVID-19, and RSV affect millions annually. Protect yourself and others by wearing a high-quality face mask in crowded indoor settings and staying home if you're unwell.

Harvard University and the Berkman Klein Center welcome individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you would like to request accommodations or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact our Event Specialist at events@cyber.harvard.edu in advance of your participation or visit. Requests for American Sign Language interpreters and/or CART providers should be made at least two weeks in advance, if possible. Please note that the University will make every effort to secure services, but that services are subject to availability.

For further questions about accessibility on Harvard's campus, we invite visitors to check out Harvard University Disability Resources page and the Digital Accessibility page.

For in-person attendees, below is a list of resources regarding parking and accessibility at HLS. Harvard is a tough area to find parking, but we do have a number of options around Lewis.

For those with accessibility needs who have handicap parking permits:

  1. Private HLS parking is available at 10 Everett St Garage (the garage recommended for events) for a moderate fee. Passes must be purchased in advance and printed ahead of time. For more info on Accessible Parking at HLS click here.
  2. Public handicap spots are spread out throughout Cambridge. Click here for a guide to public Cambridge parking, and click for campus interactive accessibility maps. The closest spots within reasonable walking distance and NO major roadways to cross are located at 2 Kirkland St, 23 Everett St, and 12 Oxford St. All 3 locations are located within 1 block of Lewis. Please note, so long as the driver has a legal handicap permit, they can park at any public, paid metered spot, or "Residents Only" spot in Cambridge, but MUST have their permit displayed at all times in their car window. If the permit is not visible, they will be ticketed and/or towed. They do NOT need to park in a handicap spot so long as their permit is visible.
  3. The most accessible streets to park on (meaning no major roadways to cross and within reasonable distance of Lewis) are Everett St, Oxford St, and Kirkland St.

For those not using handicap parking permits:

  1. Private HLS parking is available at 10 Everett St Garage, 52 Oxford St Garage, and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. These are the 3 privately owned Harvard garages recommended. Click here for daily permit purchasing information, which must be done ahead of the event. A day rate is $25. Click here for Harvard’s Parking Map.
  2. Public, metered parking spots are available. They range in maximum parking time limit from 2-4 hours for $1.50-$2.00/hour. Please note, if you pay using the mobile Passport Parking app, you will NOT be able to renew your session once it ends. You will have to feed the meter using coins as the app will not permit you to surpass the maximum parking limit. (continued below).
  3. Car-pooling and public transportation are great ways to save money and time. These methods of transportation are highly recommended to those who can do so! 

The Berkman Klein Center is located on the 4th and 5th floors of the Lewis Law Center. The street address is 1557 Massachusetts Avenue. Most events occur in the 5th floor multipurpose room. The Center is wheelchair-accessible and includes accessible restrooms. The building is key card access only. For public events, staff will be stationed at the door to allow entry.

If an event is being catered, it will be noted in the event description and you will be prompted to indicate your dietary preferences on the RSVP form. Food is always offered on a first come, first served basis. The more we know, the better we can prepare, so please always RSVP. If you were unable to RSVP, please still come but consider not taking a meal unless there is an abundance.

Using a variety of local caterers, BKC does its best to provide an assortment of clearly labeled dietary options at all catered events. We usually have vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options available.

For all event related needs or concerns, please contact someone on our Events Team at events@cyber.harvard.edu or call our Event Specialist at 617-384-0596. Thank you.

Past Events

Event
Oct 6, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Cloud Law, Finance 3.0, and Digital Institutions: A Report from the Berkman Center's Law Lab

John Clippinger, Urs Gasser, and Oliver Goodenough

The Berkman Center Law Lab is a project devoted to investigating and harness the varied forces — evolutionary, social, psychological, neurological and economic — that shape the…

Oct 6, 2009 @ 6:00 PM

What Information Was

David Weinberger

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 …

Sep 29, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Network Recorders and Social Enrichment of Television

Herkko Hietanen, Berkman Fellow

Television recorders are going online. Device manufacturers are starting to produce consumer devices and software that can be connected to Internet at consumers' homes. New models…

Event
Sep 23, 2009 @ 7:00 PM

Communication and Human Development: The Freedom Connection?

Amartya Sen, Michael Spence, Yochai Benkler, Clotilde Fonseca

Nobel Laureates Amartya Sen and Michael Spence joined Information and Communication Technology (ICT) experts Yochai Benkler and Clotilde Fonseca in a public discussion of the role…

Sep 22, 2009 @ 1:30 PM

OneWebDay: Working Space Mash-up brainstorming session, Party, and More

Join Berkman Center Research Associate Tim Hwang and Research Assistant Catherine White for a session open to all to discuss this year's theme: One Web. For all.

Sep 18, 2009 @ 1:15 PM

Transforming Scholarly Communication

Lee Dirks - Director, Education & Scholarly Communication / Microsoft External Research

In the future, frontier research in many fields will increasingly require the collaboration of globally distributed groups of researchers needing access to distributed computing,…

Sep 15, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Broadband Internet for Eastern Africa: Policy and Legal Issues

Professor Calestous Juma, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

The launching of Seacom’s fiber optic cable in July was the single most important infrastructure investment in eastern Africa since the construction of the Uganda Railway, then…

Sep 8, 2009 @ 7:00 PM

Berkman Center Open House

Come to our Open House to hear about our research, meet Berkman faculty, fellows, and staff, and learn about ways you can get involved...

Jul 31, 2009 @ 8:30 AM

Google Books Search Settlement Open Workshop: Alternative Approaches to Open Digital Libraries

This workshop seeks to bring a fresh perspective to the complex and widely debated topic of the Google Book Search Settlement. It will examine the idea of possible alternative…

Jul 21, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

A Discussion Around the Google Book Search Settlement

Alexander Macgillivray of Google

Alexander Macgillivray, Deputy General Counsel for Products and Intellectual Property at Google (and soon to be General Counsel of Twitter), will discuss the Google Book Search…

Jul 14, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Mapping the Global Commons: A Quantitative Perspective on Free Cultural Practice

Giorgos Cheliotis

Where in the world are people using Creative Commons licenses? How much content is licensed under Creative Commons and what are the individual, social and cultural factors that…

Event
Jul 7, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

HIT me baby one more time, Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love Amazon Mechanical Turk

Aaron Shaw, Berkman Center Fellow

Aaron Shaw will discuss who's using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, its implications for social scientists, the future of labor markets, and life on the Internet as we know it.

Jun 30, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Changing the World of Changing the World: Pushing the Models of Online Organizing

Ben Wikler, Avaaz.org

Ben Wikler from Avaaz.org will discuss Avvaz.org's approach to online political organizing by nimbly aggregating small actions by individuals around the world into focused…

Jun 23, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Skill Matters: The Role of User Savvy in Different Levels of Online Engagement

Eszter Hargittai, Berkman Fellow

Much enthusiasm surrounds the opportunities made available by digital media for people to express themselves and participate in the public sphere without having to go through…

Jun 19, 2009 @ 9:00 AM

Open Video Conference

The Open Video Conference will bring together video creators, technologists, academics, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, activists, remixers, and many others. to discuss the growing…

Event
Jun 17, 2009 @ 10:00 AM

Online Discourse in the Arab World: Dispelling the Myths

at the United States Institute of Peace

The Internet & Democracy presents the Berkman Center's new research on the Arabic blogosphere, which analyzes over 10,000 blogs from 18 countries and which follows last year's …

Jun 16, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Form, Function and Fiction: ICTs and their uses in resource constrained environments

Beth Kolko, Berkman Fellow

Beth Kolko will present an examination of what are essentially fictional definitions (what is "the Internet," "an Internet user," a "mobile phone") and discusses how the same…

Jun 16, 2009 @ 6:00 PM

Cluetrain at 10: So How's Utopia Working Out for Ya?

with Berkman Fellows Doc Searls and David Weinberger, and Berkman faculty co-director Jonathan Zittrain

On the tenth anniversary of The Cluetrain Manifesto, how's all that freedom, that cyberutopianism, that Internet exceptionalism working out for you? Harvard Law professor and co…

Event
Jun 9, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

The Second and Third Enclosures

Lewis Hyde, Berkman Fellow

In his lunchtime talk, Lewis Hyde will trace the roots of the second enclosure (it goes back at least to the invention of printing); he will describe traditional forms of…

Jun 3, 2009 @ 9:00 AM

Beyond Broadcast 2009: Public Service Media from Local to Global

at USC Annenberg

Since 2006, the annual Beyond Broadcast conference has explored the evolution of participatory digital public media. This year's conference, titled "Public Service Media from…