The topic of online behavior has seldom been more timely or more relevant. One wonders where America’s youth, who have literally grown up online, learn online social and ethics values. While there is widespread agreement over the need for robust rules of the road, the pipeline for that type of education remains elusive. How does our society guide youth to appropriate online behaviors? We’ve assembled an amazing panel of experts at State of the Net to grapple with this thorny topic on our panel “Strategies For Encouraging Ethical Digital Citizenship: Can It Be Taught?” A full description is below.
Leading the conversation will be:
ABOUT OUR PANEL
Today’s youth – tomorrow’s voters, workers, and leaders – have never known a world without consistent Internet access. The creators and creatives of today need the skills to discern and critically consider sources of information online and how their usage thereof informs their behavior.
But how does this generation learn the skills and rules of the road it needs to navigate cyberspace in a safe, responsible, and informed manner: From the digital immigrants that have come before them or from the digital natives that surround them? Are current efforts in teaching enough, or do we need to create new, comprehensive approaches to digital citizenship and media literacy?
We invite you join our panel of experts at the 13th Annual State of the Net Internet Policy Conference on January 23, 2017 at our panel, “Strategies For Encouraging Ethical Digital Citizenship: Can It Be Taught?” for a closer look at this crucial issue.
We are excited to announce that Congresswoman Suzan DelBene (D-WA), will participate in a keynote conversation with Tech:NYC’s Executive Director Julie Samuels at State of the Net on January 23 during our morning keynote session.
The keynote conversation will cover a variety challenges we currently face, both nationally and globally, in the areas of STEM education, encryption, surveillance and privacy among others.
In 2017 DelBene joined the House Ways and Means Committee, which will be at the forefront of debate on taxes, healthcare and retirement security in the new Congress.
In the House Judiciary Committee, DelBene serves on the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet, which handles the administration of the U.S. courts, as well as oversight over information technology and copyright, patent and trademark law. Her second Judiciary assignment is the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law, which tackles bankruptcy law, state taxation affecting interstate commerce and antitrust matters.
Through her role on the House Judiciary Committee, DelBene is at the forefront of issues relating to technology and privacy, and has become a leading voice in the House calling for greater transparency and oversight of the NSA to restore American’s privacy rights, which passed.
In addition she also serves as co-chair of the New Democrat Coalition’s 21st Century Job Skills Working Group, and co-chair of the Women’s High Tech Caucus, Internet of Things Caucus, and Trademark Caucus.
Finally, DelBene hosted the Congressional App Challenge, a competition aimed at encouraging U.S. high school students to learn how to code by creating their own applications. The Challenge is intended to highlight the value of computer science and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education and encourage students to engage in these fields. The winning app in her district (WA-1) was Code Carbon.
Expectations are that the incoming Trump Administration and Congress will work together to realign regulatory authority in the area of communications policy. After this realignment the communications policy roles for the FCC, the FTC, counties, cities, and states may be quite different from recent memory.
At State of the Net 2017 we will be closely examining what the future of communications policy in the US will be with the help of our Keynote Speakers and through our panel discussion later in the day.
Leading the conversation will be:
Keynote Speakers
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Senator John Thune (R-SD) is the Senior US Senator for South Dakota and is currently the senior most Senator and Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. For the 115th Congress, Senator Thune also serves on the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee and the Finance Committee. Thune also served in Republican leadership as Chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee from 2009 – 2011 and now serves as the Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, the number three position in Senate Republican leadership.
Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) is the Senior US Senator for Hawaii and is currently the Ranking Member of the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet. He also serves on three additional Senate Committees: Appropriations, Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and Indian Affairs. Senator Schatz is also one of just three Democrats on the Select Committee on Ethics.
PANELISTS
Larry Downes is is author of the New York Times and Business Week business blockbuster, “Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance” (Harvard Business School Press, 1998). His new book, now a best-seller, is “Big Bang Disruption.” He serves as Project Director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy’s Evolution of Regulation and Innovation project, and as Research Fellow with the Accenture Institute for High Performance.
Markham Erickson is a Partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLC, regularly representing clients in regulatory complaints, investigations, rulemakings, and proposed mergers before the Federal Communication Commission and the Department of Justice. He also represents clients before the United States Copyright Office and the Patent and Trademark Office. He has challenged and defended regulatory actions before federal courts.He has been appointed by the White House to represent the United States before the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development on Internet speech and regulatory matters. He also is co-chair of the firm’s Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Committee and a member of its Technology Committee.
Gigi Sohn is currently the Leadership in Government Fellow at the Open Society Foundations. From 2015 to 2016 she served as Counselor to the Chairman at the FCC. Ms. Sohn served from 2001-2013 as the President and CEO of Public Knowledge and, from 2011-2013 as the Co-Chair of the board of directors of the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG).
Dr. Mark Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center (PURC) at the University of Florida and also serves as its director of Telecommunications Studies. He provides international training and research on business and government policy, focusing primarily on utilities and network industries. He directs the PURC/World Bank International Training Program on Utility Regulation and Strategy.
We invite you join our Keynote Speakers and Panelists at the 13th Annual State of the Net Internet Policy Conference on January 23, 2017 for a closer look at the Future of Communications Policy.
In October, the European Court of Justice rocked the data privacy world with their decision to invalidate the U.S-EU Safe Harbor framework, citing concerns that U.S. government surveillance undermines privacy protections for European citizens once their data has been transferred across the Atlantic. Lawmakers have been scrambling since, trying to come up with a “Safe Harbor 2.0” that will satisfy the European Court and let companies continue repatriating data. What does the current status of Safe Harbor mean for business and transatlantic relations? Will we ever be able to reconcile these two vastly different privacy regimes?
Kelly DeMarchis, Venable (Moderator)
Andrea Glorioso, Counselor, Delegation of the European Union to the U.S.
Meg Leta Jones, Georgetown University
Bijan Madhani, Computer and Communications Industry Association
Join the discussion at the 12th Annual State of the Net Conference on January 25, 2016
Zero-rating plans and offerings continue to emerge across the world as a way to provide certain Internet content and applications to citizens at free or special costs. These services often are referred to as “toll-free data.” Sometimes this zero-rated Internet content is provided at reduced rates (sometimes even free) or at attractive terms (the content does not count against a mobile data cap, for instance). Many different zero-rating services have emerged in the U.S. and around the world. Some plans provide free services and content in developing communities around the globe; others are domestic and entertainment-based. There are many others and more certainly on the way. Our panel will look at the myriad zero-rating plans and will imagine what zero rating plans are on the horizon around the world and at home. They will discuss the benefits of zero-rating plans and also address criticism that some of these plans run afoul of net neutrality principles.
We invite you to join this important conversation at the 12th Annual State of the Net Internet Policy Conference on January 25, 2016 at our afternoon panel Zero Rating and the App-Accessed Internet.
