Centre for Internet and Society

The Internet, Culture, and Society - Looking at Past, Present, and Future Worldwide

praskrishna — 2011-10-21T10:13:23Z

It is now well known that with 4.5 billion mobile phone owners in the world and increased Internet penetration, global cultures and communities have experienced shifts in their economic, political, and social well-being due to the digital revolution. As a scholar and consultant who works worldwide, Prof Ramesh Srinivasan will illustrate how new media technologies have been used creatively to enable political movements in Kyrgyzstan, literacy and educational reform in India, and economic development across the developing world. In addition to this, he will discuss some of digital culture's biggest challenges, including considering how the Web can start to empower different types of cultural perspectives and knowledges. The talk will be live streamed.

Prof. Ramesh Srinivasan

Ramesh Srinivasan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Studies and Design|Media Arts at the University of California Los Angeles. He is a hybrid of an engineer, designer, social scientist, and ethnographer. His research and consultancy work focuses on the interaction between new media technologies and global cultures and communities. This involves studying the ways in which information technology shapes global education, health, economics, politics, governance, and social movements. He works in such diverse parts of the world as Kyrgyzstan, India, Native America, and more. Ramesh earned a doctorate in design from Harvard University, a Master of Science in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT Media Laboratory and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University.

For more information on Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan

video

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/events/Internet-Culture-Society

The Internet Will Be Everywhere In 2025, For Better Or Worse

praskrishna — 2014-04-04T09:08:38Z

In 2025, the Internet will enhance our awareness of the world and ourselves while diminishing privacy and allowing abusers to "make life miserable for others," according to a new report by the Pew Research Center and Elon University.

The blog post was originally published on the website of WCAI Cape and Islands NPR on March 12, 2014. Dr. Nishant Shah is quoted.

But more than anything, experts say, it will become ubiquitous and embedded in our lives — the same way electricity is today.

"The Internet will shift from the place we find cat videos to a background capability that will be a seamless part of how we live our everyday lives," says Joe Touch, director of the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute. "We won't think about 'going online' or 'looking on the Internet' for something. We'll just be online, and just look."

The report follows a survey last month on how the Internet has affected our lives in the 25 years since Sir Tim Berners-Lee released a paper proposing the World Wide Web. By 1989, the Internet had already been around for nearly two decades, but it wasn't widely accessible. Berners-Lee's ideas became the foundation of the way we access the Internet today.

So the Pew report asked: What do you expect to be the most significant overall impacts of our uses of the Internet on humanity between now and 2025? Here are some of the 1,800 respondents' predictions:

Survey Highlights

The Internet will allow us to collect information on every aspect of our lives and become more aware of our behavior — at the peril of privacy.

"We'll have a picture of how someone has spent their time, the depth of their commitment to their hobbies, causes, friends, and family. This will change how we think about people, how we establish trust, how we negotiate change, failure, and success," says Judith Donath, a fellow at Harvard University. Other experts predict that this can also effectively personalize health care and disease prevention.

But the conveniences come with tradeoffs. Llewellyn Kriel, head of a media services company in South Africa, has a far less rosy view. "Everything will be available online with price tags attached. Cyberterrorism will become commonplace. Privacy and confidentiality of any and all personal will become a thing of the past," he says.

Some predict that privacy in 2025 will be a luxury reserved for the upper class.

The Internet's pervasiveness will spread both education and ignorance

"The smartest person in the world currently could well be stuck behind a plow in India or China," says Hal Varian, chief economist for Google. "Enabling that person — and the millions like him or her — will have a profound impact on the development of the human race."

The downside? Group-think, mob mentality and manipulation. "The Internet will be used as the most effective force of mind control the planet has ever seen, leaving the Madison Avenue revolution as a piddling, small thing by comparison," says Mikey O'Connor, an elected representative to ICANN's GNSO Council, representing the ISP and Connectivity Provider Constituency.

We can't fully understand its effects yet

"The greatest impact of the Internet is what we are already witnessing, but it is going to accelerate," says Nishant Shah, director of research at the Centre for Internet and Society in India.

It might not even do as much as we think, as Dell engineer Anoop Ghanwani predicts: "Regulation will always stand in the way of anything significant happening."

Jeff Jarvis, entrepreneurial journalism professor at the City University of New York, compares the Internet to the printing press: Its significance could not have been predicted. "The impact of the book on society was not fully realized until 100 years after the invention of the press. ... In the development of the Net and its impact on society, we are at 1472 in Gutenberg years," Jarvis says. "Consider the change brought by the Web its first 20 years, and now you ask us to predict the next dozen? Sorry."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/cape-and-islands-march-12-2014-the-internet-will-be-everywhere-in-2025-for-better-or-worse

The International Copyright System and Access to Education: Challenges, New Access Models and Prospects for New Principles

praskrishna — 2012-06-01T04:29:36Z

This event organised by Max Planck Institute was held in Munich, Germany on May 14 and 15, 2012. Pranesh Prakash participated in this event.

List of Participants

Name	Affiliation
Mr. Olatunji Babatunde Adetula	Director, Nigerian Copyright Commission
Prof. Olufunmilayo Arewa	African University for Science and Technology & University of California School of Law, Irvine
Prof. Michael W. Carroll	Professor of Law, Director, Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University, Washington College of Law
Mr. Alberto Cerda Silva	S.J.D. Candidate Georgetown University Law Center, Research Associate,Knowledge Ecology International
Ms. Vera Franz	Senior Program Manager Open Society Information Program Open Society Foundations
Prof. Christophe Geiger	Associate Professor Director General Director of the Research Department CEIPI, Université de Strasbourg
Prof. Daniel Gervais	FedEx Research Professor of Law Co-Director, Vanderbilt Intellectual Property Program Vanderbilt University Law School
Ms. Cristiana Gonzalez	Senior Researcher Universidade de São Paulo
Ms. Teresa Hackett	Programme Manager EIFL
Prof. Dr. Reto M. Hilty	Managing Director Full Professor ad personam at the University of Zurich Honorary Professor at the University of Munich Max Planck Institute
Dr. Zorina Khan	Professor Department of Economics Bowdoin College
Dr. Kaya Köklü	Senior Research Fellow Intellectual Property and Competition Law Max Planck Institute
Ms. Eniko Kovacs	Program Manager Academic Fellowship Program, HESP Open Society Foundations
Mr. Ahmed Abdel Latif	Intellectual Property and Technology Senior Programme Manager International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development
Ms. Mayara Nascimento Santos Leal	Division of Intellectual Property Economic Department Ministry of External Relations, Brazil
Prof. Lydia Loren	Professor of Law Kay Kitagawa & Andy Johnson-Laird IP Faculty Scholar Lewis & Clark Law School
Ms. Viviana Munoz Tellez	Programme Officer, IAKP The South Centre
Prof. Ruth Okediji	William L. Prosser Professor of Law University of Minnesota Law School
Mr. Pranesh Prakash	Programme Manager The Center for Internet and Society
Mr. G.R. Raghavender	Registrar of Copyrights & Director (BP & CR) Copyright Office Government of India, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resources Development
Prof. Jerome H. Reichman	Bunyan S. Womble Professor of Law Duke University Law School
Dr. Manon Ress	Director of Information Society Projects Knowledge Ecology International
Ms. Carolina Rossini	Senior Fellow at GPOPAI, University of Sao Paulo
Dr. Susan Strba	Expert and Author, Copyright L&Es for Education in Africa
Mr. Luis Villaroel Villalon	Director de Investigación Corporación Innovarte
Dr. Moktar Warida	First Secretary, Permanent Mission of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United Nations
Ms. Raquel Xalabarder Plantada	Director, Learning Resources Vice President’s Office, Faculty and Academic Organization Open University of Catalonia

Workshop Associates

Name	Affiliation
Lindsey Niznik	Senior, University of Minnesota
Peju Solarin	Doctoral Candidate International Max Planck Research School on Retaliation, Mediation, and Punishment, Max Planck Institute

See the original here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/workshop-on-education-and-copyright

The Intellects holds 2nd International Conclave of Odia Language

praskrishna — 2016-02-27T05:35:17Z

The Intellects, a Delhi-based progressive forum of intellectuals, held the 2nd International Conclave of Odia Language at the India International Centre in New Delhi today.

Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event and won an award. Look for the coverage by Odisha News here.

The seminar had the title of ‘Aamari Bhasha Pathe’. The conclave was inaugurated by eminent Novelist and Writer Dr. Bibhuti Pattnaik and Rajya Sabha MP Baishnab Charan Parida among others. In the inaugural session, the speakers, including Shri Baishnab Parida, Dr. Natabar Satpathy, Dr. Amarendra Khatua, Poet Sankarshan Parida, Dr. Iti Samanta, Smt. Mamata Mohapatra, Mr. Subhasish Panigrahi stressed on the need of promotion of Odia language and its development on the global arena. They highlighted various angles of Odia language, its history and the challenges it faced apart from outlining the modalities to give it a big boost.

In the second leg, a Poets’ Conference was held. Dr. Jagannath Prasad Das, Dr. Amarendra Khatua, Poet Sankarshan Parida, Dr. Anita Panda, Poet Gajanan Mishra, Smt. Yashodhara Mishra, Poet Manas Ranjan Mohapatra and many other recited poems.

In the last leg, Kendra Sahitya Akademi President, Dr. Vishwanath Tiwari and Sir Mark Tully (former Bureau Chief of BBC, New Delhi), graced the occasion among others. Several eminent personalities were honoured and received the awards from The Intellects.

Ama Gourav Samman – Shri Bibhuti Pattnaik

Amari Bhasha Pathe Samman:

Shri Baishnab Parida
Dr. Amarendra Khatua
Smt. Kunu Dash
Dr. Iti Samanta
Dr. Natabar Satpathy
Shri Gajanan Mishra
Shri Sankarshan Parida
Smt. Mamata Mohapatra
Shri Kulamani Biswal

Yuva Prerana Samman:

Shri Subhasish Panigrahi
Shri Manoranjan Mohanty
Shri Subhranshu Panda

Swabhimani Odia Sanghthan Samman:

Biswajit Dash (IPROCH)
Sanjeev Mohanty (Odisha Forum)
Bijaya Kumar Dash (Sukha Dukha Prakashan)

Shri Debendra Rout, Chairman of The Intellects and Parambrahma Tripathy, Secretary (Literature), The Intellects, organised the event successfully with all their hard efforts.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/odisha-news-february-22-2016-intellects-holds-second-international-conclave-of-odia-language

The India Conference on Cyber Security and Cyber Governance

praskrishna — 2014-10-13T07:10:19Z

Following the success of CYFY 2013 the CYFY 2014 will be held from October 15 to 17, 2014 in New Delhi. The Centre for Internet and Society is a knowledge partner for this event and Sunil Abraham is participating as a panelist in the session "Privacy is Dead".

Click to download the event details. The event brochure can be downloaded here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/india-conference-cyber-security-and-cyber-governance

The India Chronicles

praskrishna — 2011-10-14T09:13:15Z

Tory Read, a professional researcher, writer and journalist was commissioned by the Wikimedia Foundation to create a vivid description of its work in India. This was done in the interest of transparency and to ensure that it captured lessons from this new approach. Tory travelled for a couple of weeks across Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and some towns in Kerala — attending community meet-ups speaking with a host of individual community members in these cities. Tory has given a journalistic account and analysis, based on document review, interviews and observations conducted between November 2010 and June 2011, including 16 days in India in June 2011.The views expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Wikimedia Foundation.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/india-chronicles.pdf

The Impact of Regulation: FOSS and Enterprise

praskrishna — 2011-09-22T10:53:49Z

The workshop seeks to elaborate the impact of regulation, between Free and Open Source Software and Enterprise. It will look at the following key areas:

Education,
Software development,
Digital Content,
Empowering persons with disability,
FOSS for disaster preparedness etc.

If time allows, we will explore, if cloud computing is an open Source adjacent?

This lively discussion, is meant to bring into perspective the real picture in the market and broaden the minds of participants to realize the options available and come up with recommendations on what needs to be considered to have a fair playing ground, more especially for the developing countries.

Which of the five broad IGF Themes or the Cross-Cutting Priorities does your workshop fall under?

Access and Diversity

Have you organized an IGF workshop before? Yes

If so, please provide the link to the report:

http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/index.php/component/chronocontact/?%20chronoformname=Workshopsreports2009View&curr=1&wr=43

Provide the names and affiliations of the panellists you are planning to invite:

Mr.Samer Azmy- ICT Manager / Solution Integration Consultant, Huawei(Moderator)
Mr. Satish Babu -ICFOSS,India
Mr. Yves Miezan Ezo- Smile Training, Manager, (France)
Mr. Sunil Abraham,Executive Director, Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India
Mr. Evans Ikua- FOSS Certification Manager in the ict@innovation program
Dorothy Gordon- Director General, AITI-KACE
Ms. Judy Okite (Remote Moderator)

Provide the name of the organizer(s) of the workshop and their affiliation to various stakeholder groups:

Mr. Samer Azmy- FOSSFA(Pan-African)
Mr. Satish Babu -ICFOSS,(India)
Mr. Yves Miezan Ezo - Smile Training Centre(France)

Organization: FOSSFA, ICFOSS

Contact Person: Mr. Samer Azmy, Mr. Satish Babu

Workshop Number: 211

See the event details on the IGF website

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/foss-instrument-for-accessible-development

The I-MACX Summit & Demo Day (Spring 2015)

praskrishna — 2015-08-23T09:37:40Z

IIIT-B Innovation Center organized this event in Bangalore on June 18, 2015. Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker.

Programme

Time	Agenda
1.00 p.m.	Registration
1.15 p.m.	Welcome Address
1.30 p.m.	Keynote: “Solving Civic Issues through Technology Platforms” by Dr. Pramod Varma, Chief Architect – Technology, UIDAI
1.50 p.m.	Panel Discussion: “Opportunities and Challenges in Civic-Tech Startup Space” Ms. Radha Kizhanattam, Principal – Unitus Seed Fund Mr. Shyam Menon, Co-founder – Infuse Ventures Mr. Sunil Abraham, Executive Director – The Center for Internet & Society Mr. Rajith Shaji, Product Manager – Janaagraha Mr. VS Prakash, Director – Karnataka State Natural Disasters Monitoring Center (Retd.); Currently Registrar – IIIT Bangalore Mr. Syed Suhale Perveez, Senior Manager – Emergency Management Research Institute (108) Moderated by Dr. TK Srikanth, Professor – IIIT Bangalore
2.45 p.m.	Startups Pitch
3.55 p.m.	Vote of Thanks
4.00 p.m.	Investors – Startups discuss over High Tea Startups demonstrate their innovative solutions

About the Summit:

The I-MACX Summit is a civic-tech focused event that intends to bring together innovators from government and social organizations along with civic-minded startups, influencers, activists, investors and entrepreneurs.

The I-MACX Summit aims to not only bring out the opportunities and the challenges in the civictech space, but also showcase the offerings that are being created by the civic-tech startups nurtured at IIIT-B Innovation Center.

The I-MACX Summit, envisions itself as a thought-leadership forum that would delve into how the various players in the civic-tech ecosystem could potentially transform governance and society, using the emerging technologies (IOT, Data Analytics, Sensors, Mobile, Cloud).

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/icmax-summit-and-demo-day

The High Level Privacy Conclave

praskrishna — 2012-01-24T09:07:11Z

The conclave is being held on February 3 in Delhi at the Paharpur Business Centre in Nehru Place.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/privacy-conclave.pdf

The High Level Privacy Conclave

praskrishna — 2012-01-24T06:38:48Z

A closed door event in Delhi on February 3, 2011.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/high-level-conclave-poster.pdf

The High Level Privacy Conclave

praskrishna — 2012-02-01T06:29:20Z

Privacy India in partnership with the International Development Research Centre, Canada, Society in Action Group, Gurgaon and Privacy International, UK is organizing the High Level Privacy Conclave at the Paharpur Business Centre, Nehru Place Greens in New Delhi on Friday, February 3, 2012.

Since June 2010, Privacy India has been engaging in discussions with policy makers, the public and sectoral experts about privacy in India. The discussions have ranged from topics of identity and privacy, to minority rights and privacy, and consumer privacy. The findings of our research show that privacy was a neglected area of study in India during the past, however, this is changing. Advancements in technology, the introduction of e-governance initiatives like the National Fibre Optic Network, introduction of new legislations, and debates surrounding national security, have brought privacy debates to the forefront in India. Although currently sectoral legislation deals with privacy issues, e.g., the Telegraph Act or RBI guidelines for banking, India has just begun to consider a horizontal legislation that deals comprehensively with privacy across all contexts. This conference is an opportunity to look forward to what could be the future scope of privacy in India.

Privacy India was set up in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore and Society in Action Group, Gurgaon, under the auspices of an international organization ‘Privacy International’. Privacy International is a non-profit group that provides assistance to civil society groups, governments, international and regional bodies, the media and the public in a number of countries. For more info visit its website.

This is a closed-door meeting. For participation get in touch with Elonnai (elonnai@cis-india.org).

Conclave Advisors

Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet &Society (www.cis-india.org)
Gus Hosein, Privacy International (www.privacyinternational.org)
Phet Sayo, IDRC (www.idrc.org)
Rajan Gandhi, Society in Action Group (sag.delhi@gmail.com)
Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Centre for Law and Policy Research, Bangalore (www.clpr.org.in)
Vickram Crishna, Privacy International (www.privacyinternational.org)

Agenda

February 3 (4:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.)

Registration and Tea (4:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.)

Welcome &Introduction to Privacy India (4:30 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.)

Rajan Gandhi (CEO, Society in Action Group)

National Security and Privacy (4:45 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.)

Moderator: Malavika Jayaram (Advocate, Bangalore)
Gus Hosein (Executive Director, Privacy International, UK)
Vakul Sharma (Advocate, Supreme Court, New Delhi)
Justice AP Shah (Former Justice, Delhi High Court)
PK Hormis Tharakan (Former Chief of Research and Analysis Wing, Govt of India)
Saikat Dutta (Journalist, DNA)
Manish Tewari (Member of Parliament, Ludhiana)
Eric King (Human Rights and Technology Advisor, Privacy International, UK)

Internet and Privacy (5:45 p.m. - 6:45 p.m.)

Moderator: Sunil Abraham (Executive Director, Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore)
Rajeev Chandrasekhar (Member of Parliament, Karnataka)
Simon Davies (Director General, Privacy International, UK)
Vinayak Godse (Director- Data Protection, DSCI)
Deepak Maheshwari (Director Corporate Affairs, Microsoft)
Amitabh Das (General Counsel, Yahoo! India)
Talish Ray (Board Member, Software Freedom Law Center)
Pria Chetty (Associate Director, Technology and Innovation Law, PricewaterhouseCoopers, South Africa)*
Floriana Fossato (Center for Media and Society, Russia) *

The Way Forward (6:45 p.m - 7:00 p.m.)

Elonnai Hickok (Policy Advocate, Privacy India)

Dinner (7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.)

Conclave Advisors

Phet Sayo
Rajan Gandhi
Sunil Abraham
Sudhir Krishnaswamy
Vickram Crishna

*Participants to be confirmed

Amol Sharma (Journalist, Wall Street Journal)
Col Alok Mazumdar (COO, Hans Foundation)
Vibodh Parthasarathy (Associate Professor, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Milla Islamia University, Delhi)

See the Paharpur Business Centre in Nehru Place here

Download the agenda here

Download the event poster here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/high-level-privacy-conclave

The Habit of Care: Technologies of Living and Laboring Cyborgs at World Social Science Forum 2013

praskrishna — 2013-08-28T09:19:43Z

The World Social Science Forum 2013 organized by International Social Science Council will take place in Palais des Congrès de Montréal, Canada from October 13 to 15, 2013. Dr. Nishant Shah is participating in the event as a panelist and will speak on "The Habit of Care: Technologies of Living and Laboring Cyborgs".

This was published on the World Science Forum website.

Within the larger discourse around digital cultures, much attention is given to care. Care infrastructure includes physical infrastructure of access to remote spaces, regulatory and policy environments to control the digital spaces, redesigned geographies to house the new populations created by the ICT industries, and is discussed in disciplines as varied as Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change. Care Technologies find obvious resonances with the Foucaultian idea of ‘Technologies of the Self’, reminding us of the normative nature of measurement, cognition, discipline and punishment that is an inherent part of care.

The responses to Care Technologies and the Labor of Caring are not uniform. Some clearly identify the emergence of Care Technologies as a new form of alienation of labour, leading to discrimination and inequity. Others celebrate the ways in which the penetrative nature of the digital – from deep space probes to the sub-molecular conception of the human – allow us to imagine social interactions and our relationships with our own bodies in new ways.

In all the discourse around Care, there is silence about its form, function and nature. While attention is given to infrastructure, labour, politics, production and the intelligibility of care practices, we haven’t yet tried to fathom the conditions and generation of care, relegating it to the realm of the private and the subjective. Combining practice and theory, in different parts of the Global South, and inspired by gender and sexuality studies, this panel looks at Care as a Habit. We focus on the ‘care of technologies’, showing how the forced separation of care and technology needs to be revisited to look at conditions of being human, being social and being political. Working through diverse geographical and political contexts, the panel illustrates the tensions in understanding and engaging with Care and why there is a need to find new vocabularies and relationships to deal with this area.

Coordinator:

Dr. Nishant Shah

Dr. Radhika Gajjala

Organization/Institution:

Centre for Internet and Society and Bowling Green State University

Schedule:

Tuesday, October 15, 2013 - 09:00 - 10:45

Room:

520AD

Nishant Shah

Dr. Nishant Shah is the co-founder and Research Director at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India. He is an International Tandem Partner at the Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University, Germany and a Knowledge Partner with the Hivos Knowledge Programme, The Netherlands. He is committed to producing infrastructure, frameworks and collaborations in the global south to understand and analyse the ways in which the emergence of digital technologies have shaped the contemporary social, political and cultural milieu. He edits a series of monographs on ‘Histories of Internet(s) in India’ that examine the complicated relationship that technologies have with questions of gender, sexuality, body, city, governance, archiving and gaming. He was the principle researcher for a research programme that produced the four-volume anthology ‘Digital AlterNatives With a Cause?’, examining the ways in which young people’s relationship with digital technologies produces changes in their immediate environments. Nishant is on the steering committee of the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Project (USA) as well as on the Media Art Histories collective (Latvia). He is involved with the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Consortium (Taiwan/S. Korea/Hong Kong) and the global Network of Centres for Internet and Society housed at the Berkman Centre for Internet & Society, USA. He is committed to encouraging multi-stakeholder dialogue and hence regularly does public consultations and trainings for civil society and NGOs, governments, academic partners and private corporate entities. He is a regular speaker at events like Re:publica and Video Vortex and a columnist with India’s leading English language newspaper The Indian Express. His academic and research publications reflect his political stance on open access and open knowledge infrastructure and are all available for free download and distribution under open license.

Schedule Overview

Saturday, October 12
15:00-18:00 Pre-Registration

Sunday, October 13 (Day 1)
09:00-19:30 Registration
11:00-12:45 Plenary I
11:30-17:00 Exhibition Opens
13:00-14:45 Panel Session 1
15:00-16:45 Panel Session 2
17:30 Opening Ceremony and Reception

Monday, October 14 (Day 2)
08:30-17:30 Registration
09:30-17:00 Exhibition Opens
09:00-10:45 Panel Session 3
11:00-12:45 Plenary II
13:00-14:45 Panel Session 4
15:00-16:45 Panel Session 5
17:00-18:45 Panel Session 6
20:00 Movie Night with the NFB

Tuesday, October 15 (Day 3)
08:30-17:30 Registration
09:30-17:00 Exhibition Opens
09:00-10:45 Panel Session 7
11:00-12:45 Panel Session 8
13:00-14:45 Awards Luncheon
15:00-16:45 Panel Session 9
17:00-18:45 Plenary III
18:45 Closing Ceremony and Reception

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wssf2013-october-15-2013-panel-habit-care-technologies-living-and-laboring-cyborgs

The Geopolitics of Information Controls: A Presentation by Masashi Crete-Nishihata

praskrishna — 2013-06-26T09:56:01Z

Masashi Crete-Nishihata will give a talk on Citizen Lab's activities and present its approach to the study of information controls through recent research and case studies. The talk will be held on June 19, 2013 at TERI Auditorium in Bangalore, 5 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The Citizen Lab

The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary research group based at the University of Toronto. It explores the intersection of
information technology, global security, and human rights through technical, policy, and legal research.

A central focus of Citizen Lab's research analyzes the prevalence, operation, and impact of information controls. Information controls can be conceptualized as actions conducted in and through the Internet and other information and communication technologies. Such controls seek to deny (as with Internet filtering), disrupt (as in denial-of-service
attacks), or monitor (such as passive or targeted surveillance) information for political ends.

Masashi Crete-Nishihata

Masashi is the research manager of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. He has published work on information controls during the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict, cyber security research ethics, cyber attacks against Burmese media groups, and the psychosocial impacts of lifelogging technologies. His research interests include technology policy, information controls, and human computer interaction.

Relevant Links

http://citizenlab.org

http://citizenlab.org/publications/

https://citizenlab.org/2013/03/you-only-click-twice-finfishers-global-proliferation-2/

Please RSVP as seats are limited.
RSVP: Purba Sarkar (purba@cis-india.org)

Video

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/geo-politics-of-information-controls

The geek shall inherit the earth

praskrishna — 2012-01-03T10:34:03Z

Demystifying the mysterious -agents changing the world around you.

I met somebody last night who called herself a digital dinosaur. She grew up in the ’80s, got her first computer in the ’90s, trained herself as a geek, found a career as a coder (moonlighted as a hacker), helped people create their personal web pages, and has worked in the IT industry for more than a decade now. In her day, she was the cyber-guru, instructing friends, families, acquaintances and people who wrote to her on the dos and don’ts of cyber-living. And now, she finds herself strangely disconnected from Web 2.0, which is expanding faster than we can understand it.

Her relationship with Internet technologies was one of creation; coding, cracking, hacking, controlling the world in binaries, in bits and in bytes, and that world is now receding.

The new wave of Internet users, who are Born Digital, relate to technologies in new ways. Coding has become the domain of the professional developer and programming is limited to a handful of geeks.

These digital natives occupy environments where it is more about game and expression. Their relationship with the internet is about creation and dissemination of information. They create networks and webs of relationships, with machines and people alike. They treat their gadgets as extensions of themselves and map their physical lives on to their virtual worlds. They are different, even from the earlier generation of technocrats, in how they relate to and understand the new technologies.

Digital natives are everywhere. They are in universities and colleges, multitasking, preparing a classroom presentation while chatting with friends and tracking their online gaming avatars. They occupy offices, glued with equal passion, to dating or social networking sites, and moderating geek mailing lists.

We chance upon them in homes and bedrooms, sharing their most intimate details using live cam feeds and audio/video podcasts. If these images are familiar to you, you have encountered a digital native. It might have, recently, been a child who knows how to use the mobile phone more effectively than you do, or a teenager who can connect your machine online while thumb-typing on the cell-phone, in a language which is not very familiar to you.

It could also be the saucy colleague in office, who is always on the information highway, making jazzy presentations or playing games with his virtual avatar, or the taxi driver who has learned the power of GPS maps or even the chaiwallah who uses his mobile phone to download new music and conduct a romantic affair.

It is no surprise then that the digital natives appear mystifying, slightly frightening figures to those around them. Parents are concerned that they are losing touch with these youth who inhabit first and Second Lives seamlessly. Teachers lament that they value everyday cultural production on YouTube and blogs over canons and classics.

Policymakers are worried that they unwittingly break law and regulations through peer-to-peer sharing of information. Cultural industries are startled at how they produce as much as they consume, using easily available inexpensive tools to push the boundaries of cultural production; remixing, distorting, morphing and harvesting the potential of digital objects.

While many of these concerns are serious and need to be addressed, this column tries to focus on demystifying the digital native. Across borders, digital natives have been responsible for changing the contours of our world. They have fought repressive governments, like we saw in Iran’s Twitter revolution. They have mobilised people to challenge fundamentalism (the Pink Chaddi campaign in India). They have come to the aid of the needy and the ailing, like we saw during the recent natural disasters in Chile and Taiwan.

Digital natives are behind awareness initiatives to protect their privacy and right to information on social networking sites like Facebook.

They have changed the way knowledge is produced and consumed on online encyclopaedias like Wikipedia. They demand better education, transform their societies and show us the familiar through strange and uncanny lenses. Around the globe, in developed and developing information societies, digital natives are introducing radical changes that recalibrate our reality even as we live it.

Read the article in the Indian Express

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/geek-inherit-earth

The Gary Chapman International School on Digital Transformation — Deadline Expires on April 30

praskrishna — 2011-04-26T06:23:02Z

The application period for the Gary Chapman International School on Digital Transformation is now open! The deadline for applications is April 30, 2011.

The UT Austin Portugal program is now accepting applications for the third annual International School on Digital Transformation, to be held July 17-22 in Porto, Portugal. Advanced students and emerging professionals, social entrepreneurs, and activists from around the world with an interest in digital technology and the enrichment of civil society are invited to apply.

For the past two years, this intensive residential program has brought together scholars, policy experts, community advocates, designers, and hackers to explore the potential for digital media to empower citizens, strengthen communities, and contribute to a more vibrant civil society. The School is named for Gary Chapman, an internationally renowned Internet policy expert and member of the faculty at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT Austin who founded this innovative program and passed away suddenly last year. His life continues to inspire the School.

The School is conducted in English and in previous years has attracted faculty and participants from Portugal, South Africa, Finland, India, the U.K., the U.S., and Brazil, among many other countries. During the week, innovators in digital communications serve as teachers and mentors, presenting current projects and engaging in discussion. Faculty and students will be regarded as peers during the School.

Participants of the School will have the opportunity to present and discuss their own projects with those having similar interests, and explore ways to further develop their work. Additionally, members will collaborate on group projects involving digital media and civil society. Consisting of approximately 40 participants and 15 faculty, the School seeks to create an atmosphere of scholarly collegiality, fostering dialogue among diverse perspectives including those of design, policy, activist, and research backgrounds. The daily schedule will include time for presentations, bar camp style meetings, and informal conversations among faculty and students.

The School’s program for 2011 will focus on these themes:

Information access and open civic discourse
Digital tools for government transparency
Evolving Internet content regulation and the public’s right to information
Digital media and the democratic process
Factors influencing the growth of online civic engagement

The School will be held at the Hotel Eurostars Das Artes, a four-star hotel near the heart of Porto’s historic district, an area renowned for its active arts culture, wine, architecture, and breathtaking views. A link to the hotel site is below.

Participant fees are:

370 Euros, which includes

Six nights of lodging in a single room at the Eurostars Das Artes
Six days of breakfasts at the hotel (Monday-Saturday)
Six dinners at a local restaurant (Sunday-Friday)
The daily program of meetings, with coffee breaks
An evening cultural activity

170 Euros for UT-Austin-Portugal PhD Program students (this includes the items listed above, minus hotel and breakfast. Students will be asked to pay an additional charge for lodging, unless they are based in Porto andwish to stay at home.)

All participants should expect to pay for travel to and from Porto, lunches, and any incidental expenses such as bar tabs and outings to cafes or other Porto sites not included in the official agenda.

The Gary Chapman International School on Digital Transformation is organized by the UT Austin-Portugal program, a cooperative endeavor between the University of Texas at Austin and some of the top universities of Portugal. The co-directors of the School are Dr. Sharon Strover of the University of Texas at Austin and Dr. Artur Pimenta Alves of the University of Porto. More details on the program will be added and updated as they are confirmed.

The Eurostars Das Artes is a deluxe hotel located near many shops, restaurants, and art galleries and about a 20-minute walk to the Praça da Ribeira, at the shores of the Douro River. More information may be found here. For more information on the broader program, please see this.

There is limited space and the final deadline for applications is April 30. For questions regarding the program or call for applications, please contact Karen Gustafson at kegustafson@gmail.com.

Read the original news here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/international-school-on-digital-transformation