Skip to the main content

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

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…

Event
Jun 2, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Beyond Objectivity: Global Voices and the Future of Journalism

Lokman Tsui, Berkman Fellow

Drawing on the Global Voices project as an exemplar, Lokman Tsui will argue that we need to move beyond objectivity towards "hospitality" in pursuing the potential of journalism…

May 26, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Caught in the Cloud: Privacy, Encryption, and Government Back Doors in the Web 2.0 Era

Christopher Soghoian, Berkman Fellow

Cloud computing leaves users vulnerable to significant invasions of privacy by the government, resulting in the evisceration of traditional Fourth Amendment protections. Chris…

May 23, 2009 @ 8:00 PM

Information Superhighway Six: The Tim and Diana Show Edition

Information Superhighway is Boston's monthly party gathering hackers, activists, artists, designers, nonprofits, startups, academics and general geekery to hang out and connect…

Event
May 20, 2009 @ 6:00 PM

Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group

Aaron Shaw - Polanyi's Penguin? Commons-Based Industry in the Neoliberal Knowledge Economy; Colleen Kaman - The World in the Network; Rasmus Kleis Nielsen - Mundane Tools and…

May 19, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Video games and pro-social learning

Gene Koo, Berkman Fellow, & Scott C. Seider, Boston University

Video games -- whether "casual" or "hardcore," single- or multi-player, mainstream or independent -- have become a powerful cultural force. Researchers have extensively…

Event
May 15, 2009 @ 9:00 AM

ProjectVRM West Coast Workshop 2009

ProjectVRM, an initiative lead by Berkman Fellow Doc Searls, will host its first West Coast Meeting in Palo Alto.

Event
May 12, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

How Shall the Commons Be Governed? New Challenges Facing the Digital Commons Sector

David Bollier, Author of "Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own"

David Bollier will discuss the rise of the commons paradigm in the digital environment, the subject of his new book, "Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of…

May 11, 2009 @ 12:00 PM

Protecting Your Scholarship: Copyrights, Publication Agreements, and Open Access

Kenneth Crews, Columbia University

Kenneth Crews will provide a review of the issues affecting authors and creators of copyrightable works.

May 5, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

From the Crowd to the Cloud: Social Media in the Obama Administration

Elizabeth Losh, University of California, Irvine

Although the Obama administration is often praised in comparison for its mastery of such many-to-many computational media, Elizabeth Losh poses that its use of proprietary third…

Apr 28, 2009 @ 3:00 PM

A Sneak Preview of Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine

Stephen Wolfram, creator of Wolfram|Alpha and Mathematica, & Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

There's been great anticipation around Stephen Wolfram's ambitious project to create a comprehensive "computational knowledge engine." The Berkman Center is hosting a sneak…

Apr 28, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Theories of Media Evolution

W. Russell Neuman, University of Michigan

Russ Neuman will trace the flow of information and entertainment into the typical American home from 1960 to 2005 in search of a theory of media evolution.

Apr 24, 2009 @ 9:30 AM

Whatever happened to loneliness? Social thought about communication, 1959/2009

John Durham Peters, University of Iowa

John Durham Peters, University of Iowa, will present his paper on "Whatever happened to loneliness? Social thought about communication, 1959/2009", what is new in the media…

Event
Apr 22, 2009 @ 12:15 PM

The End of Lawyers? The End of Law Schools?

Professor Richard Susskind, Author of "The End of Lawyers?" and IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England

Professor Richard Susskind predicts that the legal profession will be driven by two forces in the coming decade: by a market pull towards the commoditization of legal services,…

Event
Apr 21, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Mediactive: Why media consumers, not just creators, need to be active users

Dan Gillmor, Berkman Fellow

The supply side of tomorrow's media is emerging quickly, if messily, in a democratization of media-creation tools that give us a vast and growing amount of content of all kinds,…

Apr 14, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

The Internet Governance Model as Seen from an Eastern European Perspective

Veni Markovski

Veni Markovski presents at the Berkman Center Luncheon Series.

Event
Apr 13, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

Law for a Flat World: Building Legal Infrastructure for the New Economy

Gillian K Hadfield of USC

Gillian K Hadfield on how and why our legal infrastructure is outdated and ill-suited to the new economy, looking mostly to the non-market or protected-market mechanisms on which…

Apr 8, 2009 @ 2:00 PM

CouchSurfing: What one website reveals about the future of the net

Daniel Hoffer, Founder of CouchSurfing, interviewed by Jonathan Zittrain

Daniel Hoffer, Founder of CouchSurfing, will be interviewed by Jonathan Zittrain.

Apr 7, 2009 @ 12:30 PM

The LOLCat-hedral and the Bizarre: A Memescape Manifesto

Tim Hwang, Berkman Center

What's the link between Rick Astley and funny cat pictures? How about "alpaca sheep" and Anonymous? Is internet culture as a whole fundamentally random, or does an underlying…

Apr 4, 2009 @ 8:00 PM

Information Superhighway Five

INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY is Boston's monthly party gathering hackers, activists, artists, designers, nonprofits, startups, academics and general geekery to hang out and connect…