Centre for Internet and Society

Prime Security: The Mathematics of RSA Encryption

elonnai hickok — 2011-09-22T07:13:19Z

Based on simple properties of prime numbers, RSA encryption protects our money and digital identity. But how does it actually work? The Centre for Internet and Society invites you to a one-day workshop by Rohit Gupta on 9 September 2011.

Workshop

As remarked by one of its inventors, RSA is the scheme that "protects 95 per cent of the electronic commerce in the world". The recent breach of 40 million RSA Secure ID tokens ( widely used in Bangalore ) makes this an urgent issue. Apart from the proposed use of 2048-bit RSA keys in the UIDAI project by the government of India, we unknowingly use this algorithm every time we use a credit card, ATM or provide any kind of digital authentication.

Surprisingly enough, to understand the basic mechanism one need not have any more mathematical background than high school - the concept of prime numbers. From that basic knowledge this hands-on workshop will show the way RSA works in reality, under the hood in most networks, computers and smart devices. We will focus on the core mathematical idea rather than any specific software implementations.

For more information, please click here.

Convener:

Rohit Gupta is a mathematician working in the area of 'group theory' which is a fundamental part of physics, puzzles and cryptography. He is also a columnist for the Sunday Guardian and tweets as @fadesingh.

Registration:

The fees for the workshop ( Rs. 1500/- per person, cash only) is to be paid on arrival at the venue. No prior registration is required but the seats are limited to 15-20 people. Everyone who is interested is welcome.

Workshop Schedule:

Session I:

11.30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Lunch:

1:00 p.m. to 2.30 p.m.

Session II:

2.30 p.m. to 4.00 p.m.

VIDEO

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/workshop-rsa-encryption

Profit by Sharing: Anatomy of an Open Source Hardware Business

praskrishna — 2012-10-17T09:58:06Z

Ian Lesnet, founder of DangerousPrototypes will give a lecture on open hardware and open source at the Centre for Internet & Society office in Bengaluru on October 24, 2012, 3.00 p.m. to 5.00 p.m.

Dangerous Prototypes

Dangerous Prototypes started as a hobby on a kitchen table, but now five team members develop new open source electronics projects every month. Open source hardware means every part of an electronic device design can be changed and reused in other projects. Despite giving everything away to users and competitors, open source hardware businesses still flourish. Learn how Dangerous Prototypes started, our development process, the underlying open source business philosophy, and how the business is structured today.

Key Concepts

Open hardware businesses grow by sharing. Companies share design information with customers, the customers create communities that give improvements and fixes back to the company. Sharing is mutually beneficial to the company and community.

An open development process is a further extension of open hardware. The company designs products publicly, with active support and input from the community. Sharing extends to design review, improvements, and even testing before the project is launched.

Ian Lesnet

Ian builds a new open hardware project every month at DangerousPrototypes.com. Copies of the projects are available from Seeed Studio's open hardware manufacturing service.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/anatomy-of-an-open-source-hardware-business

UK DNA Database and the European Court of Human Rights: Lessons that India can Learn from Its Mistakes

praskrishna — 2012-09-17T03:40:07Z

On September 24, 2012, the Centre for Internet & Society in collaboration with the Alternative Law Forum invites the public to a talk with international experts, Helen Wallace from GeneWatch, UK and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics in the United States. The meeting will be held at the Centre for Internet & Society office in Bangalore from 5.00 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The UK National DNA Database was the first to be established, in 1995, and is the largest per capita in the world. A major DNA expansion programme began in 2000 but is now being rolled back by the implementation of a new Protection of Freedoms Act, following a judgment against the UK government by the European Court of Rights. The lessons for the UK experience for the DNA Bill in India will be discussed, including the need for safeguards to protect privacy and rights, maintain public trust in police use of DNA, and prevent miscarriages of justice.

Dr. Helen Wallace

Dr. Helen Wallace is Director of GeneWatch UK, a not-for-profit organisation which aims to engage members of the public in ensuring that genetic science and technologies are used in the public interest. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on the social and ethical issues raised by DNA databases and is widely quoted in the UK press. Helen provided expert evidence to the applicants in the case of S. and Marper v. the UK at the European Court of Human Rights, in which the Court ruled unanimously that the indefinite retention of innocent people's DNA database records was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. She has supplied both oral and written evidence on this issue to numerous parliamentary committees including the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee and the UK Science and Technology, Home Affairs and Constitutional Committees, as well as the scrutiny committee for the Protection of Freedoms Act, 2012. This new Act requires the removal of about a million innocent people's records from the UK National DNA Database and the destruction of all stored biological samples.

Jeremy Gruber

Jeremy Gruber is the President and Executive Director of Council for Responsible Genetics. Jeremy joined CRG in March 2009. Previously he served as the legal director of the National Workrights Institute, a human rights organization dedicated to the rights of American workers. Prior to that he served as the field director for the ACLU’s National Taskforce on Civil Liberties in the Workplace. Jeremy has worked for over a decade on genetic non-discrimination legislation at the state and Federal level. He helped author and pass numerous state laws on genetic non-discrimination. Jeremy is a founder and executive committee member of the Coalition for Genetic Fairness, a group of 500 organizations that advocated for genetic non-discrimination legislation on Capitol Hill and played a major role in the recently passed Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act (GINA) by Congress. He worked closely with members of Congress and staff on GINA language as well as strategy and support. He is a prolific writer on privacy issues and is often consulted by state legislatures. He is regularly featured in print, radio and television. Jeremy holds a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from St. John’s University School of Law and a B.A. in Politics from Brandeis University.

Overview and Concerns Regarding the Indian Draft DNA Profiling Act

Forensic DNA: A Human Rights Challenge

The above video was originally posted in YouTube

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/uk-dna-database-and-european-court-of-human-rights-lessons-that-india-can-learn-from-mistakes

GeekUp with Erica Hagen

praskrishna — 2012-02-29T03:00:14Z

HasGeek is organizing a GeekUp with Erica Hagen of the GroundTruth Initiative on 1 March 2012 at 5 p.m. Erica will speak on the theme: "From Information to Empowerment: Unpacking the Equation".

From Information to Empowerment to Unpacking the Equation

In 2010, Erica Hagen and Mikel Maron started GroundTruth Initiative to work towards empowering communities through open data, open information and participatory processes. Erica's and Mikel's work at GroundTruth is informed by their earlier experience of working with the Map Kibera project where they helped the youth and the communities in Kibera to map their geographies and represent information about themselves to the world through citizen media. In the process, Erica and Mikel uncovered several complex dynamics about self-representation by communities, what open data really means to communities and how they apply it to their circumstances, the dynamics between participatory development and participatory technologies, and the process of using community media tools and online methods for talking about issues that matter to them.

In this lecture, Erica Hagen will talk about her work with communities in Kenya, Jerusalem, Nigeria and other parts of the world through GroundTruth Initiative. Specifically, Erica will unpack the relationship between empowerment, information, and storytelling, and what both these elements mean to communities in different parts of the world. How are communities applying the information and data that they collect about their governments and themselves? What are the challenges involved in the process of working with open data, participatory processes and technologies? How can communities apply new media and data gathering tools to achieve local goals? What does empowerment mean in the face of the delicate lines and precariousness that communities and the interveners/practitioners have to tread in the process of data gathering, representation, communication and outputs?

Interested persons need to confirm attendance by registering at http://geekup.in/2012/erica-hagen

Erica Hagen

Erica Hagen is a journalist and international development practitioner working for democracy of information and citizen participation in both online and traditional media. She is the co-founder of Map Kibera and GroundTruth Initiative. Erica has worked in four countries on development communication and evaluation, and in the United States on refugee and immigrant issues, for organizations such as United Nations Population Fund, Concern Worldwide, and Unicef. She holds a Masters Degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, New York.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/geek-up-with-erica

Exposing Data: Art Slash Activism

yelena — 2013-03-01T05:44:23Z

Tactical Tech and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) invite you to the first round of discussions on the intersection of Art and Activism at CIS office in Bangalore on 28 November 2011. Ward Smith (Lecturer, University of California, LA), Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski (Co-founders, Tactical Technology Collective), Ayisha Abraham (Film maker, Srishti School of Art Design) and Zainab Bawa (Research Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society) are leading the conversations.

The Exposing Data Project

An NGO sets up a database to track elected representatives’ participation in the Parliament, the spending for their constituency, and keeping a track of their political mandates and promises.

A geographer tracks the movements of US Government satellites and visualises their paths to form curious visuals of ‘State secrets’.

A photographer travels to an island in the Pacific Ocean to take pictures of the plastic debris found in the stomach of a Laysan albatross carcass.

Each of these examples is about how data that serves as evidence can be collected and visualised in different formats. The NGO can output its data as infographics, the geographer creates non-cartographic maps and the photographer’s images serve as testimony to increased pollution levels. We live in database times. Never before in human history have we consumed, produced and shared as much data as we do now in bits and bytes through our digital devices, coded as images and graphs and spreadsheets. The power to do so has allowed individuals and communities around the world to expose and reveal things that have been invisibilised and obscured, robbed of language and articulation.

At the same time, the visual immediacy of such data sets and the ability to manipulate it to construct new ways of looking at our reality, often hides the fact that the production and use of data as evidence is not benign or neutral. While data itself claims a certain objective fact value, the politics involved in identifying something as data are subject to strong power confluences.

The Centre for Internet and Society and Tactical Technology Collective, Bangalore, propose the Exposing Data Project as a series of conversations between people working across art, activism, politics, information science, cartography, geography, social sciences, humanities and technology science to share, learn, discuss, debate and explore processes, methods, challenges and implications of what it means to live in a data-rich world.

Art Slash Activism

The first round of discussions will be looking at the intersections of Art and Activism, but without falling into the usual traps of looking at art as the vehicle of activism or activism as a form of art. Hence, instead of Art and Activism, we are looking at Art Slash Activism exploring how data visualisation, data representation, and new forms of data mapping re-articulate what it means to be political.

The event will bring together professionals such as Ward Smith (Lecturer, University of California, LA), Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski (Co-founders, Tactical Technology Collective), Ayisha Abraham (Filmmaker, Srishti School of Art Design) and Zainab Bawa (Research Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society). Rather than being a seminar to instil practical knowledge, the aim of Art Slash Activism is to engage participants in a curated conversation on the use of data as evidence and its dissemination through visual depiction as a catalyst for change. We are seeking a variety of perspectives when answering questions such as whether data can have a universal reach through visual presentation; how we can utilize various forms of representation to spread awareness; and what happens when information cannot be represented as data.

Art Slash Activism is a multidisciplinary learning experience that will involve members of the art community, open data activists, designers, and others active in the processes of social change in a creative, playful and innovative manner that will result in textual and visual documentation which will serve as a knowledge corpus for researchers and practitioners interested in these questions.

Bio of the Speakers

Zainab Bawa
Zainab is a PhD scholar at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore. Zainab primarily works as an independent researcher on issues of governance, politics, property and how technology is embedded in state-citizen interactions and society. In the course of her work, she is associated with the Centre for Internet and Society and the Centre de Sciences Humaines - New Delhi. Zainab is also a designated partner at HasGeek Media LLP, Bangalore.

Ayisha Abraham
Ayisha Abraham lives and works in Bangalore as an installation artist and short filmmaker. She works at the Srishti School of Art, Design, Technology, as a visual arts consultant and is a member of the BAR1 (Bengaluru Artists Residency).

Stephanie Hankey
CO-founder & executive director, Stephanie has been working to strengthen the use of technology by civil society in the global South since 1998, initially working with the Open Society Institute establishing their Technology Support for Civil Society Program, before co-founding Tactical Tech in 2003. Stephanie has a background in information design, was editor-in-chief of Pulp and worked as a creative director and producer for a number of London-based multimedia companies. She has a Masters in Information and Interaction Design from the Royal College of Art London, and a certificate in Campaigning and Lobbying from NCVO.

Marek Tuszynski
Co-founder & director of programmes & technology, Marek has been working to help advocates use technology since 1995. In the mid-nineties he co-founded the International Network of Contemporary Art Centres and worked with others to create a television programme about independent culture in Poland. He was director of the Stefan Batory Foundation’s Internet programme (Warsaw), sat on the board of Klon/Jawor (a research and infrastructure NGO) and The Second Hand Bank. Marek worked as a consultant to many funding agencies focusing on information and communication strategies for civil society in Central Asia.

Ward Smith
Ward Smith is a librarian who works with academics, activists and artists to design and implement information systems that aid in the development and documentation of their work. He has recently worked with the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, the Arts, Computation, Engineering program at UC Irvine, the Southern California Library, the 2009 Digital Arts and Culture Conference, and rhizome.org.

This event is free and open to everyone. However, we would appreciate a confirmation of attendance ahead of time so as to ensure that your space is reserved. To confirm your attendance please write to: yelena.gyulkhandanyan@gmail.com

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/art-activism

Gandhi, Freedom, and the Dilemmas of Copyright

praskrishna — 2012-04-28T04:11:01Z

To commemorate Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary, the Centre for Internet and Society cordially invites you to a talk by Prof. Shyamkrishna Balganesh of the University of Pennsylvania on Gandhi, Freedom, and the Dilemmas of Copyright on 30 January 2012 at 6.00 p.m.

When the copyright on Rabindranath Tagore's writings were to expire, his estate sought (and got) an extension in copyright term. But when the copyright on Mahatma Gandhi's writings were to expire, the trustees did not seek such an extension, in deference to Gandhi's views on copyright. On the cover of the first English edition of the Hind Swaraj, it states: "No Rights Reserved". Was Gandhi a Wikipedian at heart, and a prophet who foresaw the 'copyright wars' and had his own visions of how far free culture and free knowledge activism could and could not go?

Description

Central to modern discussions of copyright law is the conflict between copyright’s role as a market-based mechanism of cultural production and its detrimental effects on access to knowledge, free speech, and cultural creativity. So divisive is this debate in the world of copyright law today that some have characterized it as the ongoing “copyright wars”. In January 2009, when copyright in all of Gandhi’s works expired, to the absolute surprise of many, the Navjivan Trust,to whom Gandhi had transferred the copyright in his works, chose not to seek a statutory extension of copyright.

The Trust’s firm decision rested in large part on Gandhi’s unease with copyright law, and his reluctant acceptance of its benefits. Gandhi’s opinions on copyright law reveal a rather concerted attempt to grapple with the innumerable public and private trade-offs that are central to the institution, which are today seen as the very basis of the copyright wars. Much like Gandhi’s views on other issues, they reveal a pragmatism, nuance, and creative engagement, which likely emanate from Gandhi’s training as a lawyer. Instead of simplistically rejecting the institution in its entirety, Gandhi saw copyright law for what it is—an important social compromise—and sought to engage with it in a way that tracked his beliefs on other issues.

This talk will argue that the nuances of Gandhi’s engagement with copyright law hold important lessons for thinking about copyright law in society, and for managing its complex trade-offs. Gandhi’s thinking on the topic anticipated many of the modern dilemmas about the structure and function of copyright law--such as the role of exclusivity, the importance of control and integrity, and the costs and benefits of licensing revenues. And while Gandhi may not have had a clear (or unambiguously correct) solution to any of them, he almost certainly asked the right questions.

About the Speaker

Shyam Balganesh’s scholarship focuses on understanding how intellectual property and innovation policy can benefit from the use of ideas, concepts and structures from different areas of the common law. His most recent work tries to understand copyright law’s pre-requisite of “copying” for liability, as a mechanism of pluralistic decision-making that allows it to incorporate both utilitarian and rightsbased considerations into its functioning.

Balganesh received his J.D. from the Yale Law School, where he was an Articles and Essays Editor of the Yale Law Journal and a Student Fellow at the Information Society Project (ISP). Prior to that he spent two years as a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, and received a B.C.L. and an M.Phil in Law from Oxford University.

His recent publications include: ‘“Hot News’: The Enduring Myth of Property in News,” 111 Columbia Law Review 419 (2011); “The Pragmatic Incrementalism of Common Law Intellectual Property,” 63 Vanderbilt Law Review 1543 (2010); and “Foreseeability and Copyright Incentives,” 122 Harvard Law Review 1569 (2009), among others. He is also currently editing a collection of scholarly essays on the topic of intellectual property and the common law, scheduled to be published by the Cambridge University Press in 2012.

VIDEO

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/gandhi-freedom-and-copyright

Bangalore Meet-up for the Open Government Partnership Brasilia

praskrishna — 2012-04-12T13:18:28Z

The international Open Government Partnership (OGP) is holding its first annual meeting on April 17 and 18, 2012. Representatives from over 50 member countries will gather in Brasilia to celebrate the progress that has been made to date, to exchange best practices, and to grow and strengthen the global collaborative network of open government leaders. Bangalore meet-up at CIS on April 17, 2012 from 5.30 p.m to 7.30 p.m.

Those who work on open government initiatives but unable to attend in person, can still participate remotely. OGP has tied-up with a number of external partners to make arrangements for people to participate in the event online. There will be live webcasts, interviews and chats. Viewers will be able to pose questions to those being interviewed and will be polled in real-time to see who is watching, where they are, what their interests are and what are their thoughts on the programme.

The two day meeting offers an opportunity for open government advocates throughout the world to connect with local civic activists and public officials as well as those working on similar problems in other countries.

The Centre for Internet & Society is hosting the Bangalore meet-up on April 17 and 18, 2012. Get together to watch the live video stream, engage in conversations via live chat, or on Twitter and Facebook for discussing plans to move open government forward in your region.

Click for the full list of countries participating in the event.

8:30-9:30 am Registration & Coffee

9:15-9:30 am Official photo of OGP Member Government Heads of Delegation and Steering Committee Members

9:30-10:15 am Opening Remarks and Welcome

The Honorable Dilma Rousseff, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil
The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States of America
The Honorable Jakaya Kikwete, President of the United Republic of Tanzania
The Honorable Nika Gilauri, Prime Minister of Georgia

10:15-10:45 am Setting the Stage for the Age of Open: OGP 2012

Minister Jorge Hage, Brazil
Under Secretary of State María Otero, United States
Warren Krafchik, International Budget Partnership

10:45-11:15 am Coffee and Networking

11:15-12:30pm Plenary: Using Transparency to Transform Lives Online and Offline

Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar, United States
Gautam John, Akshara Foundation and TED Fellow, India
Elisabeth Ungar Bleier, Transparency International, Colombia
Juliana Rotich, Co-Founder of Ushahidi, Kenya

Moderated by Samantha Power, The White House, United States

12:30-1:30 pm Innovation Village of Regional Government, Private Sector, and Civil Society organizations advancing Open Government

1:30-2:45 pm Lunch and Networking.

Lunch will be provided onsite at the conference center.

2:45-5:30 pm Open Government on the Move: The OGP Country Action Plans in Two Parts

In Part I and Part II of regional breakout sessions, government ministers and leading civil society activists will discuss country action plans and how to promote a race to the top on open government in each region. Highlights from each panel will be transcribed. Moderators will encourage discussion with the audience following comments from panelists. Governments not presenting in Part I will present in Part II of the regional sessions, from 4:30 to 5:45pm. Participants presenting in Part II are encouraged to attend the session of their choice during Part I and vice versa.

2:45-4:00pm Country Action Plans PART I

South America, I

Government of Chile
Government of Colombia
Government of Uruguay
Government of Brazil
Maria Ferrari Fontecilla, Participa, Chile
Edison Lanza, CAInfo, Uruguay

Moderated by Juan Pardinas, IMCO, Mexico

Central America and Caribbean

Government of Honduras
Government of Guatemala
Government of El Salvador
Government of Dominican Republic
Jose Ricardo Barrientos Quezada, ICEFI, Guatemala
Carlos Hernandez, Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa, Honduras

Moderated by Vonda Brown, Open Society Foundation, United States

Africa, I

Government of Liberia
Government of Ghana
Government of South Africa
Alison Tilley, Open Democracy Advice Center, South Africa
Vitus Azeem, Ghana Integrity Initiative, Ghana

Moderated by Rakesh Rajani, Twaweza, Tanzania

Asia

Government of Mongolia
Government of the Republic of Korea
Government of Indonesia
Government of Philippines
Dorjdari Namkhaijantsan, Open Society Foundation, Mongolia
Vincent Lazatin, Transparency and Accountability Network, Philippines

Moderated by Suneeta Kaimal, Revenue Watch Institute

Central Europe

Government of Romania
Government of Bulgaria
Government of the Slovak Republic
Government of Czech Republic
Gergana Jouleva, Access to Information Program Foundation, Bulgaria
Andra Teodora, Fundatia Soros Romania

Moderated by Martin Tisne, Omidyar Network, United Kingdom

Western Europe, I

Government of Norway
Government of Sweden
Government of Denmark
CSO Representative TBD
CSO Representative TBD

Moderated by Tim Kelsey, Cabinet Office, United Kingdom

Southern Europe, I

Government of Albania
Government of Montenegro
Government of Croatia
Government of Macedonia
Katarina Ott, Institute of Public Finance, Croatia
Vuk Maras, MANS, Montenegro

Moderated by Warren Krafchik, International Budget Partnership

Baltics

Government of Latvia
Government of Lithuania
Government of Estonia
Rura Mrazauskaite, Transparency International, Lithuania
Linda Austere, Center for Public Policy, Latvia

Moderated by Liia Hanni, E-Governance Academy, Estonia

4:00-4:30 pm Coffee and Networking

4:30-5:45 pm Country action plans PART II

South America, II

Government of Peru
Government of Paraguay
Government of Mexico
Miguel Pulido, Fundar, Mexico
Samuel Rotta, Proetica, Peru

Moderator TBD

North America

Government of Canada
Government of the United States
Patrice McDermott, Openthegovernment.org Coalition, United States
Toby Mendel, Center on Law and Democracy, Canada

Moderated by Tara Hidayat, Government of Indonesia

Africa, II

Government of Tanzania
Government of Kenya
John Ulanga, The Foundation for Civil Society, Tanzania
George Kegoro, International Commission of Jurists, Kenya

Moderated by Zohra Dawood, Open Society Foundation South Africa

Middle East

Government of Israel
Government of Jordan
Professor Tamar Hermann, Israeli Democracy Institute, Israel
CSO representative TBD

Moderated by Anthony Richter, Transparency and Accountability Initiative

Northeastern Europe

Government of Ukraine
Government of Moldova
Serghei Ostaf, National NGO Council, Moldova
Khmara Oleksii, Civic Partnership for Supporting OGP in Ukraine

Moderated by Tom Blanton, National Security Archive, United States

Western Europe, II

Government of the United Kingdom
Government of the Netherlands
Government of Spain
Government of Italy
Rufus Pollock, Open Knowledge Foundation, United Kingdom
Marjan Besuijen, Hivos, Netherlands

Moderated by Alan Hudson, ONE Campaign

Southern Europe, II

Government of Greece
Government of Malta
Government of Turkey
CSO representative TBD
CSO representative TBD

Moderated by Håkon Arald Gulbrandsen, Government of Norway

South Caucasus

Government of Armenia
Government of Georgia
Government of Azerbaijan
Eka Gigauri, Transparency International Georgia
Galib Abbaszade, National Budget Group, Azerbaijan
Liana Doydoyan, FOI Centre, Armenia

Moderated by Jonas Moberg, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Norway

5:45-6:30 pm First Day Closing Remarks

7:00-9:30 pm Celebrating Open Government: A Reception hosted by the Government of Brazil and Omidyar Network.

The reception is onsite at the Convention Center.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

9:00-10:00 am OPENING Plenary: Responsibility and Challenges that Come with Openness

Walid al-Saqaf, YemenPortal.net & Alkasir, Yemen
Minister Francis Maude, United Kingdom
Secretary of State Ben Abbes, Tunisia
Fernando Rodrigues, Folha de São Paulo, Brazil

Moderated by Alex Howard, O’Reilly Media, United States

10:00-10:30 am Coffee and Networking

10:30-12:30 pm Thematic Breakout Sessions: Paths to Openness

Participants choose one of five breakout sessions to attend in the morning block of thematic discussions. Follow Sessions 1 or 2 in the morning and afternoon blocks for in-depth discussions on one topic, explored from three perspectives: government, civil society, and the private sector.

Access to Information: Government Perspectives

Vania Vieira, CGU, Government of Brazil
Dr. Ali M. Abbasov, Minister of Communications and Information Technologies, Government of Azerbaijan
Government of Liberia
Pierre Boucher, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Government of Canada

Moderated by Laura Neuman, The Carter Center, United States

Lessons Learned in Service Delivery: Government Perspectives

Minister Mathias Chikawe, Government of Tanzania
Ms. Marie Munk, Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Economy and the Interior, Government of Denmark
Government of Estonia (invited)
Permanent Secretary Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Government of Kenya

Moderated by Mark Robinson, DFID/Transparency and Accountability Initiative, UK

Networking Mechanism Affinity Group: Open Data Portals

Steve Davenport, AidDATA, United States
Tim Kelsey, Director of Transparency & Open Data, Cabinet Office, United Kingdom
Marko Rakar, Windmill, Croatia
Eric Gunderson, Development Seed, United States

Moderated by Abhinav Bahl, Global Integrity/OGP Networking Mechanism

Networking Mechanism Affinity Group: Public Finance Management and Fiscal Transparency

Iara Pietricovsky, INESC, Brazil
Secretary Butch Abad, Government of Philippines
Dr. Brian Wrampler, Boise State University, United States

Moderated by Nicole Anand, Global Integrity/OGPNetworking Mechanism

Advancing Open Government through Knowledge Exchange

Roberto Perez, IACC, Latin America, invited
Ms. Stela Mocan, Director e- Government Center, Government of Moldova
Miguel Pulido, Fundar, Mexico
Prayoga Wiradisuria, President's Delivery Unit, Government of Indonesia
Eric Braverman, McKinsey, United States

Moderated by Han Fraeters, World Bank Institute

12:30-2:00 pm Lunch and Networking.

Lunch will be provided onsite at the conference center.

2:00-4:00 pm Thematic Breakout Sessions: More Paths to Openness

Participants choose one of five breakout sessions to attend in the afternoon block of thematic discussions.

Access to Information: Civil Society and Private Sector Perspectives

Panel I: Civil Society Perspectives

Karin Lissakers, Revenue Watch Institute
Alison Tilley, Open Democracy Advice Center, South Africa
Ivan Pavlov, Freedom of Information Foundation, Russia
Karina Banfi, Alianza Regional Por La Libre Expresion e Informacion, Latin America

Moderated by Helen Darbishire, AccessInfo Europe, Spain

Panel II: Private Sector Perspectives

Alexandre Gomes, SEA Technologia, Brazil
Chris Taggart, Open Corporates, United Kingdom
Jose Francisco Compagno, Ernst and Young
Ginny Hunt, Google, United States

Moderated by Rufus Pollock, Open Knowledge Foundation, United Kingdom

Lessons Learned in Service Delivery: Civil Society and Private Sector Perspectives

Part I: Civil Society Perspectives

Jose Ricardo Barrientos Quezada, ICEFI, Guatemala
Felipe Heusser, Ciudadano Inteligente, Chile
Nikhil Dey, MKSS, India
Harvey Lowe, Canadian Council on Social Development, Canada

Moderated by Rakesh Rajani, Twaweza, Tanzania

Part II: Private Sector Perspectives

Philip Ashlock, OpenPlans/Open311, United States
Jorge Soto, Citivox, Mexico
Tom Steinberg, MySociety, United Kingdom, invited
Michael Gurstein, Center for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training, Canada

Moderated by Rakesh Rajani, Twaweza, Tanzania

Open Government and Legislatures

Part I: Legislative Perspectives

Representative Paulo Pimenta, Brazil
Denis Russo,Votenaweb, Brazil
Laura Alonso, Legislature of City of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Cristiano Ferri Soares de Faria, e-Democracy Program Director, Brazilian House of Representatives, Brazil

Moderated by Gherardo Casini, Head of Global Center for ICT in Parliaments, United Nations

Part II: Civil Society Perspectives

Andrew Mandelbaum, National Democratic Institute, United States
John Wonderlich, Sunlight Foundation, United States
Danardono Siradjudin, Indonesian Parliamentary Center, Indonesia
Melissa Ortiz Masso, Latin American Network on Legislative Transparency, Latin America

Moderated by Tiago Peixoto, World Bank Open Government Specialist

Measuring for Impact: How to build the case for Open Government

Rolf Alter, OECD, France
Nikos Passas, Northeastern University, United States/Greece
Jorge Garcia-Gonzalez, Director of Technical Secretariat of MESICIC, Organization of American States, Latin America
Harlan Yu, Princeton University, United States

Moderated by Martin Tisne, Omidyar Network, United Kingdom

Learning from Country Consultations to Date: New Strategies for Public Engagement

Samuel Rotta, Proetica, Peru
Chris Vein, The White House, United States
Khmara Oleksii, Civic Partnership for Supporting OGP in Ukraine
Government of Philippines, invited

Moderated by Warren Krafchik, International Budget Partnership, United States

4:00-4:30 pm Coffee and Networking

4:30-5:00 pm Report from Working Group on Meeting Outcomes

5:00-6:00 pm OGP at Home: Closing Remarks with OGP Leadership

Vice-Minister Luiz Navarro, Brazil
Samantha Power, White House, United States
Warren Krafchik, International Budget Partnership
Tim Kelsey, Director of Transparency and Open Data, Cabinet Office United Kingdom

Note: Brazil's local time is approximately eight and half hours behind us. The welcome address on April 17th starts at 9:30 A.M (B.R.T) which is approximately 5:00 P.M (I.S.T).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/open-government-partnership-brasilia-bangalore-meetup

Digital AlterNatives book launch

praskrishna — 2012-01-04T06:56:41Z

On Friday the 16th of September Hivos will launch the Digital AlterNatives with a cause? book, which looks at the dynamics of a new generation that is growing up with digital technology. In 2011 the digital native generation has been all over the front pages of the major newspapers in the world. CNN, BBC, de Volkskrant and the NRC gave prominent coverage on the ‘digital’ revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa and dubbed them as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ revolutions. However, the recent events in the Middle East and North Africa, Spain, Greece, Israel, India, Chile and England show that there is more to this generation then just a nice tool. By framing it as Facebook actions we are simplifying the complex processes that are taking place and denying and underestimate the challenges and dynamics of this younger generation.

In this last year Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India have tried to shed some light on the actions, identities, networks and implications of the digital natives generation. We started by asking the basic questions: Who are they? Do they have a cause? What is their role in social and political processes? This exploration has resulted in new insights, reflections, anecdotes, case studies and opinion pieces by digital natives, academics and policy makers around the world, which have been synthesized in the Digital AlterNatives with a cause? collection.

We would like to invite you to the Museum for Communication in the Hague for the book launch of the Digital AlterNatives with a cause? collection. Here we will share our insights into the dynamics of this younger generation. Then Rebecca MacKinnon and Maarten van den Berg will give their opinion on our work which will be followed by an open debate. Please join us for the book launch on the 16th of September from 17.00 till 18.00.

See the information on the Hivos website here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/book-launch

Internet Privacy and Surveillance

praskrishna — 2011-09-08T03:16:39Z

Caspar Bowden, Chief Privacy Adviser for Microsoft gave a public talk at TERI, Bangalore on 27 June 2011. The Centre for Internet and Society organised the event. The views expressed herein are his personal and not attributable to Microsoft.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/internet-privacy-surveillance.pdf

3rd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series at NLSIU, Bangalore

praskrishna — 2012-05-25T15:33:16Z

The Indian Journal of Law and Technology in association with the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore is organising the 3rd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. The lecture series will be spread out over the course of the year and will include eminent speakers who will talk with the students and other interested persons on their topics of expertise.

To kick off the lecture series, Professor Rohan Samarajiva will deliver the inaugural lecture on Tariff Regulation in South Asia.

Tariff regulation has in the recent past attracted the attention of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal, as well as the Department of Telecom at the Union Ministry of Communications. India has a burgeoning and competitive cellular services provider market, and tariff regulation has far-reaching impact on the industry. Moreover, as aware consumers of mobile telephony and data services, this is an issue that is relevant for all of us.

Prof Samarajiva is a pre-eminent figure in policy-making and academia on the subject of information and communications technology, and this is an excellent opportunity to get his insights on the crucial topic, not just from an Indian perspective but from a pan-Asian viewpoint. He has taught at universities in USA, Netherlands and Sri Lanka and is currently Chairman & CEO, LIRNEasia, an ICT policy and regulation think tank active across 12 emerging Asian economies. He is also a Board member at Communication for Policy Research - South, which is a capacity building initiative to develop Asia-Pacific based policy initiatives on ICT policy regulation among junior to mid level scholars. His full profile can be accessed here.

The lecture will be organised at NLSIU, Bangalore on Sunday, the 27th of May, 2012 from 5.30 pm to 6.30 pm. You are requested to take your seats by 5.20 pm. The hour-long session will include both a lecture and an interactive session with the speaker. Interested persons are requested to register for the lecture series by sending in an email to editorialboard@ijlt.in

The address of the venue is

National Law School of India University
Jnanabharati Road, Nagarbhavi
Bangalore - 560072
Google maps location: http://g.co/maps/ppwcr

Follow our event page ‘3rd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series’ on Facebook to remain updated!

Download the event poster [PDF, 57 kb]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/ijlt-cis-lecture-series-nlsiu

Biometric Identification: Specified Error, Accuracy and Efficiency, Considered for the Operations of the UIDAI — A Talk by Hans Varghese Mathews

praskrishna — 2012-09-10T08:07:28Z

Hans Varghese Mathews gave a public lecture on biometric identification at the Centre for Internet & Society office in Bangalore on August 17, 2012 at 5.00 p.m.

Click to read UID Summary by Hans Varghese Mathews

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/biometric-identification

Free Speech Online in India under Attack?

praskrishna — 2012-03-02T03:03:24Z

When the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal suggested pre-censorship for a range of popular online platforms and social networking sites, the suggestion was met by a barrage of criticism, which soon forced him to back down. Yet Sibal’s suggestion is not the only threat to free speech on the Internet in India today. Legislation such as the Intermediary Due Diligence Rules and Cyber Café Rules (also jointly known as the IT Rules) issued in April 2011 is equally dangerous for free speech online.

Achal Prabhala, Anja Kovacs and Lawrence Liang will join Sunil Abraham to discuss in more detail some of the direct threats to freedom of expression online in India today including the larger legal and social context of freedom of expression and censorship, control and resistance in which they have to be understood and the steps that can be taken to ensure that substantive protections for freedom of expression online will be put into place.

The Speakers

Achal Prabhala

Achal is based in Bangalore, Karnataka. He is a researcher, activist and writer in the areas of access to knowledge and access to medicine besides being a member of the Advisory board of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Anja Kovacs

Anja works with the Internet Democracy Project, which engages in research and advocacy on the promises and challenges that the Internet poses for democracy and social justice in the developing world.

Lawrence Liang

Lawrence is a researcher and lawyer based in Bangalore, who is known for his legal campaigns on issues of public concern. He is a co-founder of the Alternative Law Forum and works on the intersection of law, technology and culture. He has worked closely with filmmakers and artists in a number of anti-censorship campaigns.

The Moderator

Sunil Abraham

Sunil is the Executive Director of the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based non-profit organization. He is also a social entrepreneur and Free Software advocate. He founded Mahiti in 1998 which aims to reduce the cost and complexity of Information and Communication Technology for the Voluntary Sector by using Free Software.

This event is jointly organised by the Internet Democracy Project and the Centre for Internet and Society. Join us at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, on Wednesday 21 December, at 5.30 pm.

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/free-speech-online-in-india-under-attack

Design!publiC - II

praskrishna — 2011-10-13T07:00:43Z

The Centre for Internet and Society in partnership with the Center for Knowledge Societies, Venkataramanan Associates, Center for Law and Policy Research, Headstart Foundation, Chaia Innovation Accelerator, MXV Consulting, Mint Newspaper and Confederation of Indian Industry is organising the second edition of Design Public on October 14, 2011 at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Bangalore. There will be a series of pre-conference research outings on October 13, for which participants may register in advance.

Innovation and the Public Interest

Design Public is a series of conversations about whether and how Innovation can serve the Public Interest.

At our inaugural event, in New Delhi on March 18th earlier this year, we focused on the question of whether innovation in governance is needed and how it can be achieved. An excellent overview of the event can be found in a Mint Newspaper article by Aparna Piramal Raje. While we discovered wide agreement in principle as to the need for innovation in India, there was much uncertainty about how government systems relate to innovation, and some doubt as to whether governments are in fact capable of innovation. At our upcoming event, we aim to widen the ambit of the discussion, to ask how innovation serves the public interest, thereby opening up the question of innovation to the social sector, to corporations, to venture capitalists, designers, students, academics and more.

Following Schumpeter, we understand innovation to be a fundamental part of modern economic and social life -- in fact the very source of the momentum that drives us forward into the future. However, we have also found that innovation need not be limited to entrepreneurs in the private sector, but can also be accomplished, in various ways, in government, in the public sector, and by social and developmental agencies. Moreover, if the specific components of innovation can be identified and learned, it would be possible for many more organizations and individuals to successfully drive beneficial social and technical change.

If the term Innovation describes the business or economic dimension of the forward movement of society under capitalism, then the immanent, cognitive or mental aspect of this forward movement can be captured by the term Design. It is the multivariate, parallel, sometimes collaborative process of finding solutions to problems that have no obvious and available answer. Whereas the language of design gained prominence in the Industrial Age as a means for the rendering of surfaces and finishes for the more effective marketing of consumer products (posters and toasters), the concept has far wider application in the present. Design and Innovation are by definition the strategies through which the most intractable, complex, and multivariate challenges encountered by individuals or groups.

At our event, therefore, we seek to articulate exactly how these strategies can be brought to bear on the Grand Challenges facing our society, in areas such as:

Complete and Effective Healthcare for Mothers and Children
Increased Use and Acceptance for Toilets
Broad-based Higher Education
Participatory and Responsive Civic Administration

Over the course of the day-long event, we will consider different approaches and paradigms of innovation and how they may be applicable to these grand challenges. We will break out into sessions in order to apply these perspectives and approaches to specific challenge areas. At the end of the day we will seek to expand the circle of innovation in order establish new ways of collaborating and sharing knowledge such that we are able to accelerate and intensify the application of innovation to addressing these and other grand challenges facing the public.

Panchayat meeting on Village Sanitation in Khera village, Budaun District, UP

Agenda

09.00 Word of Welcome and Mutual Introductions
10.00 Innovation and the Indian Corporation

- Samar Halankar, Hindustan Times (moderator)

- Anil Narayan Sondur, TATA Elxsi

- Harish Bijoor, HB Consults

- Ekta Ohri, Center for Knowledge Societies (respondent)

11.00 Is Innovation in the Public and Social Sectors Possible?

- Sunil Abraham, Center for Internet and Society (moderator)

- Rohini Nilekani, Arghyam Foundation

- Ramesh Ramanathan, Janaagraha

- Ashwin Mahesh, Mapunity

- Sneha Raman, Center for Knowledge Societies (respondent)

12.00 The Challenge of Start Up Innovation

- Amit Garg, MXV Consulting (moderator)

- Mahesh Murthy, Pinstorm

- Zackery Denfeld, Pacific Northwest College of Art

- Naresh Narasimhan, VA Group

- Aditya Dev Sood, Center for Knowledge Societies (respondent)

13.00 Lunch: Regional Cuisines of Karnataka prepared with Local Ingredients
14.00 The Theory and Practice of Innovation
- Aditya Dev Sood, Center for Knowledge Societies (moderator)
- Reto Wettach, Interaction Design Studios Berlin
- Shiv Vishwanathan, Sociologist of Science
- M. P. Ranjan, Design for India
15.00 Grand Challenge Breakout Sessions
A: Online Higher Education
Moderator: Sunil Abraham, Center for Internet and Society
Innovation Expert: Sneha Raman, Center for Knowledge Societies
Domain Expert: Udhay Shankar, Intel
B: Quality Maternal and Child Healthcare
Moderator: Jayna Kothari, Center for Law and Policy Research
Innovation Expert: Shehla Hussain, Center for Knowledge
Societies
Domain Expert: Lakshmi Menon, G.E. Healthcare
C: Toilet-training for All!
Moderator: Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Center for Law and Policy Research
Innovation Expert: Namrata Mehta, Center for Knowledge Societies
Domain Expert: Sunita Nadhamuni, Arghyam
Tea Served During Breakout Sessions
16.30 Reports Back from Breakouts
17.30 Conclusion: Planning and Policy for Innovation and the Grand Challenges of Society
- Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Center for Law and Policy Research (moderator)
- Harsh Shrivastava, National Planning Commission
- Anant Shah, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- Jamuna Ramakrishna, Hivos Foundation
- Dilini Wijeweera, LIRNEasia
- Gaurav Gupta, Dalberg
- Riku Mäkelä, Finnode

Individual Participation

In order to make each voice count, entry to the conclave will be by arrangement only. Others who are truly interested, should please drop us a few lines on how they would like to contribute and we will be glad to get back in touch. There are no registration fees. However, we would like to see participants take their own initiative in covering their own travel costs and making their own arrangements for stay so far as possible. If specific needs are perceived, please communicate them to the organizers. If you are interested in participating in this conversation on innovation, design thinking, and the public interest please contact Anand Vijayan at anand@cks.in.

Institutional Participation

Confederations of industry, associations of management, departments of government and diverse development sector and civil society organizations are invited to express their interest in supporting this event.

Organizers

Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS)
Center for Internet and Society (CIS)
Venkatramanan Associates (VA)
Center for Law and Policy Research (CLPR)
Headstart Foundation (HF)
Chaia Innovation Accelerator (ChIA)
MXV Consulting (MXV)
Mint Newspaper (MN)
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)

For participation: contact Anand Vijayan, Innovation Planning, CKS
For media: contact Ayesha Vemuri, Innovation Research, CKS (ayesha@cks.in)

For more info, click here [PDF, 496 kb]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/design-public-in-bangalore

Dialogue Cafe @ Centre for Internet and Society

praskrishna — 2011-12-07T11:10:08Z

The Centre for Internet and Society announces the launch of its dialogue cafe, where every month, we approach seminal thinkers, scholars and practitioners to help explore knowledge paradigms that help us understand and research techno-social realities through innovative thought, concepts and frameworks.

The dialogue cafe draws upon different disciplines, histories, perspectives and intellectual legacies in order to respond to a seminal piece of writing that has changed, challenged and shaped the contours of interdisciplinary science and technology studies.

The dialogue cafe initiates several strands of dialogues — between critical thinkers and canonical texts, between different paradigm of knowledges that interact with digital and internet technologies, and between interlocutors located in different disciplines, to initiate critical thought/work for new and innovative research in the field of Internet and Society.

For its first brew of conversations, the Dialogue Cafe serves you...

Computation and the Humanities: Revisiting a Silent Revolution

Steve Jobs’ comments on how “technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities” made Apple hearts sing is today widely re-circulated, but not fully comprehended. We often take this to be the mark of one man’s genius, rather than the symptom of a broader interdisciplinary history. Noted Artificial Intelligence scholar Philip Agre recalls, “When I was a graduate student in artificial intelligence, the humanities were not held in high regard. They were vague and woolly, they employed impenetrable jargons, and they engaged in "meta-level bickering that never decides anything".

What happened, in the formative decades of Jobs and Agre’s generation, to bring technology and the humanities into conversation? What have the results been, other than well-designed personal computational devices, and what is the significance for us? On December 2, 2011, the Centre for Internet and Society invites you to a Dialogue Cafe, where we engage in exploring what this all means and what kinds of labour it might take to ‘marry’ these disparate ways of knowing.

As a response to Philip Agre’s seminal essay on “Critical Technology Practice”, the cafe will begin with an exposition by Kavita Philip (University of California, Irvine), opening up into a critical response spearheaded by Cherry Matthew, and leading to a larger dialogue with the audience, exploring fault lines of interdisciplinary research and challenges of integrated technology studies.

For more background on these questions, audience is encouraged (but not required) to explore the materials at Agre’s home page http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/, and STSrelated links from Wikipedia’s page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology_and_society

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/dialogue-cafe

2012 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest

praskrishna — 2012-05-02T05:04:57Z

We are pleased to announce the Second Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. The theme for this year’s Congress will be “Setting the positive agenda in motion,” and will have a special focus on developments and opportunities in the so-called “BRICS” group of emerging economies. This note invites applications to attend the Congress, including proposals to chair workshops or deliver a paper or presentation related to the Congress’s theme.

Application and Cost Information

The application form is available now at http://infojustice.org/globalcongress2012/registration. Due to generous support from our sponsors, the Congress will cover the registration fees and all on-site costs for all attendees, including lunches and dinner receptions. Limited travel grants to cover accommodation and/or travel to the Congress will be available, with priorities for those from developing countries.

Deadline

Priority applications for travel assistance and to present or chair a workshop at the Congress will be due by August 1, 2012.
Final applications for travel grants, subject to funding availability, as well as applications to present at the Congress, will be due by September 1, 2012.
Applicants not seeking travel assistance or presentation opportunities may apply to attend the Congress by November 1, 2012.

Please forward this invitation to interested lists and individuals. For more information or questions, you may contact globalcongress2012@gmail.com

Global Congress Planning Committee

Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade – CTS | FGV DIREITO RIO, 2012 Chair
American Assembly, Columbia University, New York
International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Geneva
Centre for Internet and Society, India
Open African Innovation Research and Training (Open AIR) initiative
Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, American University, Wash. D.C.

Read the original published on infojustice.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/global-congress-on-ip