Janna Anderson, an associate professor in the School of Communications and director of the Imagining the Internet Center, was named to the steering committee of the Internet Governance Forum-USA (http://igfusa.wordpress.com/).
The group is organizing a national forum in the U.S. to engage civil society, government, technologists and research scientists, industry and academia, helping to create partnerships and coalitions that move dialogues on the future of the Internet forward and demonstrate best practices. The first IGF-USA will take place Oct. 2, 2009, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1800 K Street NW, Washington, D.C.
The one-day event will focus on the changing Internet and the way forward for the international Internet Governance Forum, an initiative that is facilitated by the United Nations. Key speakers will include Markus Kummer of the UN Secretariat for IGF, National Telecommunications and Information Agency administrator Larry Strickling, and Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Other regional and national IGF meetings are taking place globally, including gatherings in East Africa, Europe (EuroDIG), Latin America, the Caribbean, West Africa, Spain and Italy. These events are organized on a local level and have no direct ties to the international IGF, however the UN Secretariat recognizes the importance of the regional and national events and reports from these meetings are shared at the international gatherings.
The steering committee includes: Fiona Alexander, National Telecommunications and Information Administration; Janna Anderson, Elon University; Iren Borissova, Verasign; Beckwith Burr, Wilmer Hale, a Washington, D.C., law firm; Marilyn Cade, ICT Strategies; Derrick Cogburn, American University; Steve DelBianco, NetChoice; Liesyl Franz, TechAmerica; Brenden Kuerbis, Internet Governance Project; Janice LaChance, Special Libraries Association; Leslie Martinkovics, Verizon; Katitza Rodriguez, Electronic Privacy; Heather Shaw, United States Council for International Business.
Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center has been actively documenting the UN-facilitated international Internet Governance Forums since the first such conference took place in Athens in 2006. Faculty-staff-student research teams have also produced coverage of the IGFs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Hyderabad, India. To read more, see http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/visionaries.xhtml.