Weekly Events and Digital Media Roundup

BERKMAN CENTER FOR INTERNET & SOCIETY AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
September 2, 2009 // Upcoming events and digital media

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[1] [TUESDAY 9/8/09] Berkman Center Open House (http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2009/09/openhouse)

[2] [SAVE THE DATE 9/15/09] Berkman Center Luncheon Series: "Broadband Internet for Eastern Africa: Policy and Legal Issues" with Professor Calestous Juma (http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2009/09/juma)

[3] [SAVE THE DATE 9/23/09] Communication and Human Development: The Freedom Connection? with Nobel Laureates Amartya Sen and Michael Spence, Yochai Benkler, and Clotilde Fonseca; sponsored by Canada's International Development Research Centre (http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2009/09/idrc?utm_source=BerkmanCenter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=WklyEvents1)

BERKMAN CENTER OPEN HOUSE
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Tuesday, 9/8/09, 7:00PM
Harvard Law School, Pound Hall Room 102
Followed by a reception at the Berkman Center's offices, 23 Everett Street, Second Floor
Free and Open to the Public

Tell us if you're coming or see who is planning to attend on Facebook (Optional): http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=141101864621

Come to our Open House to meet Berkman faculty, fellows, and staff and to learn about the many ways you can get involved and learn with our dynamic, exciting environment.

As a University-wide research center at Harvard University, our interdisciplinary efforts in the exploration of cyberspace address a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences. If you're interested in the Internet’s impact on society and are looking to engage a community of world-class fellows and faculty through events, conversations, case studies, and more please join us to hear more about our upcoming academic year!

Paid research assistant positions will also be available in the fall. In addition to Berkman courses and events, these positions provide a wonderful way to join our community. People from all disciplines and universities are encouraged to attend the Open House to learn about Berkman opportunities. As a primer, visit http://cyber.harvard.edu/getinvolved/internships to see currently available positions.

More information here: http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2009/09/openhouse and http://cyber.harvard.edu/getinvolved/internships

Map to Pound Hall: http://map.harvard.edu/level3.cfm?mapname=camb_allston&tile=F6&quadrant=C&series=N

[SAVE THE DATE 9/15/09] BERKMAN LUNCHEON SERIES on BROADBAND INTERNET FOR EASTERN AFRICA
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Tuesday, 9/15/09, 12:30 PM ET, Berkman Center Conference Room @ 23 Everett St., Cambridge, MA
RSVP is required for those attending in person (rsvp@cyber.harvard.edu).
This event will be webcast live.

Topic: Broadband Internet for Eastern Africa: Policy and Legal Issues
Guest: Professor Calestous Juman, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

The launching of Seacom’s (http://www.seacom.mu/index2.asp) fiber optic cable in July was the single most important infrastructure investment in eastern Africa since the construction of the Uganda Railway, then dubbed “The Lunatic Express”. This talk explores the implications of this development for Africa’s capacity to expand the global market for access devices, creation of content and development of markets. It identifies key policy challenges and opportunities facing Africa countries arising from the introduction of broadband Internet.

Calestous Juma is Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project. He also directs the Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is a former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and Founding Director of the African Centre for Technology Studies in Nairobi, and he also served as Chancellor of the University of Guyana.

This event will be webcast live; for more information and a complete description, see the event web page: http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2009/09/juma

[SAVE THE DATE 9/23/09] COMMUNICATION AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: THE FREEDOM CONNECTION?
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Wednesday, 9/23/09, 7:00PM ET, Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School
Sponsored by Canada's International Development Research Centre
Free and open to the public; live video and audio-only streams will also be available.
Optional RSVP via Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/editevent.php?picture&eid=124927576447&new&m=3#/event.php?eid=124927576447) or Upcoming (http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4405330/?ps=5)

Topic: Communication and Human Development: The Freedom Connection?
Guests: Amartya Sen, Michael Spence, Yochai Benkler, Clotilde Fonseca

Nobel Laureates Amartya Sen and Michael Spence will join leading Information and Communication Technology (ICT) experts Yochai Benkler and Clotilde Fonseca in a public discussion of the role of communication and ICTs in human development, growth and poverty reduction. What has changed, been learned, not been learned, needs to be learned, needs to be done most urgently? Panelists and the in-person and online audiences will debate a range of topics, including:

* Communications and the technologies that enable them, like education, comprise a basic building block of human development at all levels of poverty/prosperity and freedoms.

* The “connectedness revolution” is a major dimension of globalization, with the expansions and contractions of prosperity and freedoms that globalization causes for different peoples.

* Communications, enabled by ICTs, are increasing informed public dialogue and debate in many countries and societies.

* Informed public debate at national and international levels will be essential in achieving solutions to global warming, and better management of the global economy.

* Crisis prevention and management – financial, economic, pandemic, natural disaster – are being improved by ICT-enabled communication and information delivery.

* Openness is always better than protection in principal; how far can it reach in practice?

Amartya Sen is Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, at Harvard University and was until recently the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He has served as President of the Econometric Society, the Indian Economic Association, the American Economic Association and the International Economic Association. In 1998, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Michael Spence is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus of Management in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He is the chairman of the independent Commission on Growth and Development, focusing on growth in developing countries. He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001 and the John Bates Clark Medal from the American Economics Association in 1981.

Yochai Benkler is the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard, and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Before joining the faculty at Harvard Law School, he was Joseph M. Field '55 Professor of Law at Yale. He writes about the Internet and the emergence of networked economy and society, as well as the organization of infrastructure, such as wireless communications.

Clotilde Fonseca is a Founding Director of the Costa Rican Program of Educational Informatics created in 1988 in Costa Rica by the Omar Dengo Foundation and the Ministry of Public Education, a program that has reached over one and half million children and teachers during its more than two decades of work. She has been Executive Director of the Omar Dengo Foundation from its founding in 1987 to 1994 and from 1996 to present.

This event will be webcast live; for more information and a complete description, see the event web page: http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2009/09/idrc?utm_source=BerkmanCenter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=WklyEvents1

OTHER EVENTS OF NOTE
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[1] 9/10-11/09: *TMI: Social Justice in the Age of Facebook (*TMI: Too Much Information) // International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life, Brandeis University (http://www.brandeis.edu/ethics/events/index.html)

[2] 9/9-9/10: O'Reilly Gov 2.0 Summit at the Grand Hyatt Washington in Washington D.C., is a non-partisan forum co-produced by O'Reilly Media and TechWeb that seeks to advance an agenda of participation, collaboration and transparency among government, industry, and non-profit leaders. (http://www.gov2summit.com/gov2009/public/schedule/grid)

[3] 10/17: PublicMediaCamp in Washington, DC (http://www.npr.org/blogs/inside/2009/08/publicmediacamp_strengthening.html)

DIGITAL MEDIA: Watch and Listen
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Did you miss this week's luncheon talk? Catch up with Berkman videos, podcasts, pictures, and dig in to our archive at http://cyber.harvard.edu/interactive.

-RADIO BERKMAN: Tweeting a Dead Horse
(http://cyber.harvard.edu/interactive/podcasts/radioberkman128)

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BERKMAN CALENDAR & UPCOMING EVENTS PREVIEW
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See our events calendar if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, conferences, and more: http://cyber.harvard.edu/events. All of our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.

ABOUT US
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The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University was founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. For more information, visit http://cyber.harvard.edu.