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F2C: Freedom to Connect 2012

Date: 
Monday, May 21, 2012 - 12:00am - Tuesday, May 22, 2012 - 12:00am
Location: 
Washington, D.C.
F2C: Freedom to Connect will be held on May 21 and 22, 2012 at AFI Silver Theatre. Registration is open, early bird prices are in effect through March 15.
 
See newest speakers below, including new keynotes by Eben Moglen, Software Freedom Law Center, and Mike Marcus, pioneer of unlicensed wireless data. Additional speakers to be announced soon. Stay tuned!
 
More bang for your travel buck! The Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition (pronounced "shell-bee coalition") will present a major broadband conference in Washington, D.C. immediately following F2C, "Creating Sustainable Broadband Solutions for Communities and Anchor Institutions." Opening reception, evening of May 22, program on May 23 & 24, more info here.
 
The Program so far . . .
 
Confirmed keynote speakers include Vint Cerf, Michael Copps, Cory Doctorow (probably via telecon), Rebecca MacKinnon, Eben Moglen, Mike Marcus and Aaron Swartz.
 
Topics (and additional confirmed speakers) include:
  • Big Enough to Succeed: small carriers at the leading edge — entrepreneurial (non-Municipal) carriers show a fourth way (after Telco, Cable and Muni) to the future of connectivity. Confirmed speakers include:
  • BIP, BTOP, UCAN, Gig-U, Google Fiber and other big pipe experiments
    • Lev Gonick, CIO, Case Western University, founder, Case Connection Zone
    • Bill Schrier, CTO, City of Seattle
    • Michael Smeltzer, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
    • . . . more participants soon . . .
  • Freedom & Connectivity from Alexandria, Egypt to Zuccotti Park
  • Corruption, Power and Internet Progress
    • Tim Karr, Free Press (moderator)
    • Chris Mitchell
    • Catharine Rice
    • . . . more participants soon . . .
  • Internet Freedom is Local
    • Susan Mernit, Oakland Local
    • Kwan Booth, Oakland Local
    • . . . more participants soon . . .
  • and . . .
Watch this space for further details.
 
Sponsors needed. Interns & volunteers needed. Press passes available to working press with direct interest in telecom/Internet issues. Contact David S. Isenberg — isen@isen.com.
 
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, D.C. 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.
 
F2C: Freedom to Connect is about having access to the Internet as infrastructure. Infratructures belong to — and enrich — the whole society in which they exist. They gain value — in a wide variety of ways, some of which are difficult to anticipate — when more members of society have access to them. F2C: Freedom to Connect especially honors those who build communications infrastructure for the Internet in their own communities, often overcoming resistance from incumbent cable and telephone companies to do so.
 
The phrase Freedom to Connect is now official U.S. foreign policy, thanks to Secretary of State Clinton’s Remarks on Internet Freedom in 2010. She said that Freedom to Connect is, “the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the Internet, to websites, or to each other. The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace.” Her speech presaged the Internet-fueled assemblies from Alexandria, Egypt to Zuccotti Park.