September 22, 1999
Scholars, Internet visionaries, government strategists gather at UW
A group of international scholars and leaders in the public and private sectors, including Vinton Cerf, one of the four men credited with founding the Internet, will gather at the University of Washington for a conference tomorrow and Friday to discuss how the Internet is transforming politics and economics on a global scale.
It’s a meeting that’s badly needed, says Donald Hellmann, UW professor of international studies and conference chair. While the Internet surges ahead, cutting across traditional geographic, political and institutional boundaries and promising to change the very nature of the way people, businesses and governments relate to one another, he fears many of his colleagues are being left behind.
“Right now there is a huge vacuum in the social sciences in linking the Internet to societal change,” Hellmann said. “It’s time that universities focus on figuring out how and why the Internet is having a transforming effect on societies across the globe. This conference is intended to jump-start the discussion.”
The conference, titled “Internet and Global Political Economy,” will also provide the launching point for a newly formed multi-university consortium to explore the Internet’s place within the world’s political and economic system. Joining the UW as founding members of the Internet Political Economy Forum are Stanford University, Harvard University, the University of Cambridge and the National University of Singapore.
The conference will be in the Douglas Forum Room of the UW School of Business Administration’s Seafirst Executive Center. Adjacent areas will be available for conducting interviews. Highlights include:
Tomorrow, 9 a.m.: Cerf, senior vice president, Internet architecture and technology, MCI WorldCom, will speak on “Dawn of an Internet Worldview.” Cerf, widely recognized as one of the four “fathers” of the Internet, will set the stage for the conference by recounting a brief history of the Internet and its current status. He will also discuss how the Internet is transforming nearly all the social and economic aspects of modern society.
Tomorrow, 1:30 p.m.: John Perry Barlow, senior fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, will address “The Culture of Technarchy.” If the Internet has its own culture, what are the core values of that culture? And are universal values shared among Internet users that help define patterns of economic and social behavior across national boundaries? Barlow will explore the nuances and ramifications of a global cyber culture.
Friday, 8:30 a.m.: Craig Mundie, Microsoft senior vice president of consumer strategy, will give a presentation titled “World Wide Web Lifestyle.” Mundie will discuss how average consumers’ lives will change because of the Internet and other emerging technologies. Those include broadband PC connections, home networks, and new entertainment delivery and storage mechanisms. Mundie will show prototypes that suggest what the consumer’s experience may be like. He will also discuss national and international economic and public policy changes that may be prompted by emerging technology.
Members of the news media are also invited to a reception honoring Cerf beginning at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow in the Columbia Tower Club, 701 Fifth Avenue, Suite 7600, in downtown Seattle.
In addition to academic participants from Asia, Europe and North America, other groups sending representatives to the conference include the Paris-based Organization for Economic and Commercial Development; International Telecommunications Union; Geneva-based World Bank; senior government officials from the United Kingdom, France, Mexico and the Philippines; the U.S. Information Agency; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and conference sponsors IBM, Wells Fargo, Starbucks, Microsoft, Boeing, Real Networks, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation and the Port of Seattle.
The conference is being presented by the UW’s new Center for Internet Studies and co-organized with Stanford’s European Forum, housed at the school’s Institute for International Studies.
UW Vice Provost Steven Olswang said the event reflects the UW’s commitment to scholarly endeavor in what promises to be a vital field of study going into the new millennium.
“This conference is a beginning,” Olswang said. “Our new Center for Internet Studies and the Internet Political Economy Forum position the UW as a leader in exploring what the Internet Age means to us as a global community.”
UW contributing departments include the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, the School of Business Administration Center for International Business Education and Research, the European Union Center, the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs and the Human Interface Technology Laboratory.
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