F2C: Freedom to Connect 2008

http://freedom-to-connect.net/#agenda

The theme of is The NetHeads Come to Washington.

Conventional wisdom is that NetHeads have sharply different interests than telephone companies and cable companies. This is mostly true, yet both need a robust, sustainable Internet. It is in the long-term interests of neither to kill the 'Net's success factors. Further, conventional wisdom is that NetHeads are represented by public advocacy groups like Free Press, Public Knowledge, and the New America Foundation and aligned with Internet companies like Google, Amazon, and eBay. Again this is directionally correct, but the diversity of the NetHead community ensures divergence on key issues.

Biology teaches that diversity is good. Most business practices teach the opposite. Washington hears much from the telcos and cablecos, and much from the Internet companies and the public advocacy groups, but way too little from the NetHeads themselves. F2C 2008 will provide a platform for NetHead voices and a forum for dialog among all parties with a stake in the future of an open, sustainable, state-of-the-art Internet.

This year there will be a second theme at F2C, "A Carbon-Negative Internet." We will devote at least one session, and perhaps a half day, to exploring the impacts of applications like user monitored edge-based control of energy usage, cloud routing of compute-intensive operations to geographical locations with renewable energy, peer-to-peer automobile traffic optimization, and the putative trade-off between physical presence and virtual presence.

Schedule & Agenda update 3Jan08

Committed F2C speakers currently include:

Jim Baller [bio], advocate for a US National Broadband Strategy [lots of links].
Bas Boorsma [bio], head, Cisco's Connected Urban Development Program.
Robin Chase, founder of ZipCar, entrepreneuse and environmentalist.
Susan Crawford, founder of OneWebDay, ICANN Board Member, blogger.
Tom Evslin, founder ITXC, founder AT&T WorldNet, blogger, author, telecom activist
Reed Hundt, former chairman of the FCC
Kevin Moss, BT America's head of Corporate Responsibility [interview].
Danny O'Brien [bio], EFF's International Outreach Coordinator.
Andrew Rasiej, co-founder, Personal Democracy Forum
Bruce Schneier [bio], internationally-renowned security technologist and blogger.
Bill St. Arnaud, Chief Research Officer CANARIE and green-broadband blogger
John St. Julien, grassroots champion of Lafayette, Louisiana's FTTH network.
Brad Templeton, Chairman, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Dirk van der Woude, Program Manager of Amsterdam's world-leading FTTH offer.
Katrin Verclas, former Exec. Director NTEN, MobileActive blogger.
Tim Wu, Professor, Columbia Law School, Author of Wireless Carterphone (2007)
The conference will probably follow this general schedule:

March 31, 2008 (***subject to change***)

8:00 AM -- Registration, breakfast
8:45 - 10:00 AM --
10:00 - 10:30 AM -- Break
10:30 - 11:15 AM --
11:15 - Noon --
Noon - 1:00 PM -- Lunch
1:00 - 2:30 PM --
2:30 - 3:00 PM -- Break
3:00 - 5:00 PM --
5:30 - 8:30 PM -- Reception -- venue TBD, probably downtown this year.
April 1, 2008 (***subject to change***)

8:00 AM -- Registration, breakfast
8:45 - 10:00 AM --
10:00 - 10:30 AM -- Break
10:30 - Noon --
Noon - 1:00 PM -- Lunch
1:00 - 2:30 --
2: 30 - 3:00 PM -- Break
3:00 - 5:00 PM --
5:00 PM -- Adjourn