Our own Christopher Mitchell will be speaking at two upcoming events on broadband and the future of the Internet.
First, Christopher will be at F2C: Freedom to Connect in Washington, D.C., on May 21-22nd. Christopher will be speaking on May 22nd on the “Fight for Community Broadband” Panel along with other notables from the Free Press, Harvard University, the Center for Media & Democracy, and the SouthEast Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (SEATOA). The presentations will be at the AFI Silver Theatre and you can register here. If you can’t attend in person, you can sign up for a webcast. From the F2C website:
F2C: Freedom to Connect is a conference devoted to preserving and celebrating the essential properties of the Internet. The Internet is a success today because it is stupid, abundant and simple. In other words, its neutrality, its openness to rapidly developing technologies and its layered architecture are the reasons it has succeeded where others (e.g., ISDN, Interactive TV) failed.
The Internet’s issues are under-represented in Washington DC policy circles. F2C: Freedom to Connect is designed to advocate for innovation, for creativity, for expression, for little-d democracy. The Freedom to Connect is about an Internet that supports human freedoms and personal security. These values, held by many of us whose consciousness has been shaped by the Internet, are not common on K Street or Capitol Hill or at the FCC.
Keynote speakers include Vint Cerf, Michael Copps, Susan Crawford, Cory Doctorow (via telecon), Benoît Felten, Lawrence Lessig, Rebecca MacKinnon, Eben Moglen, Mike Marcus and Aaron Swartz.
After participating at F2C, Christopher will be heading over to Arlington, Virginia, to speak at “Creating Sustainable Broadband Solutions for Communities and Anchor Institutions” presented by the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB Coalition) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The conference will be May 23-24 at the Sheraton National Hotel in Arlington. Come the evening of the 22nd for a reception to meet the speakers and other attendees. The focus of the conference:
This national conference for anchor institutions, BTOP and BIP awardees, and anyone else (including non-awardees) will explore sustainability strategies for next-generation broadband networks and examine how community anchor institutions can benefit from and leverage these broadband investments to serve their communities.
The keynote speaker at “Creating Sustainable Broadband Solutions for Communities and Anchor Institutions” will be Lawrence E. Strickling, Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), U.S. Department of Commerce. The conference will also include several notable pleanary speakers, including community broadband champion Joanne Hovis. The agenda also includes Break-Out sessions for more in-depth discussion. You can view the agenda, and register for the conference online.