Institute on Internet and Society

• See the brochure on Institute on Internet & Society
• Download the Agenda (PDF)

With financial support and visionary guidance from the Ford Foundation, this initiative represents an important opportunity to bring together various stakeholders in a neutral forum and share ideas. The week-long residential institute will cover topics surrounding the internet and society.

Course Content

• History of the Internet (This session will cover brief history of the Internet, its early stages and growth. It will also cover origins of internet in India and its impact on the Indian GDP. It will also focus on hot topics/debates surrounding the Internet).
• Internet Technologies and Infrastructure (The session infrastructure, purpose and function of an ISP, advantages and disadvantages of different modes of Internet access).
• E-Governance (This session will cover the various e-governance initiatives).
• Principles and Values of the Internet (This session will cover various principles that underpinned the creation of the Internet, the threats they face and the need for a truly “open internet”).
• Ownership and Management (This session will cover ownership and market distribution).
• Internet Activism (This session will deal with various initiatives which have successfully used the Internet to build movements and campaigns).

Institute Highlights

• Guest Lectures by Experts & CIS Staff
• Interactive Panel Discussions
• Case Studies
• Surveys
• Breakout Sessions
• Demonstrations
• Product Walkthroughs
• Networking Opportunities and much more…

At the end of the week long residential course, attendees will have:

• Acquisition of knowledge on Internet in the Indian society.
• Appreciation of the role of community and other stakeholders in issues surrounding the Internet.
• Creation of a starting point for improved communication of research findings, innovations, information and new technologies in Internet to evolve a community comprising academicians and policy makers.
• Appreciation of the need to bridge the gap between policy and implementation.

Agenda

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Monday, June 10, 2013

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Friday, June 14, 2013

Speakers

1. A.K Bhargava
   A. K. Bhargava is a Telecom Engineer with more than 35 yrs of experience in various fields of Telecommunication, Installation, Operation, Maintenance, Software and Management. Prior to joining BBNL as Director (Operations), he was working as Executive Director (Wireless Services) with Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) Delhi.
2. Ananth Guruswamy
   Ananth Guruswamy is the director of Amnesty International India. Previouly, he was the Programme Director at Green Peace. Ananth joined Greenpeace India in 2001 at its very beginning and played a key role in moulding Greenpeace India into one of the leading stakeholders in the NGO sector in India.
3. Archana Gulati
   An Indian Civil Service Officer, she has worked as a Universal Service Policy Expert with respect to Access to ICTs for Persons with Disabilities for the International Telecommunications Union. She also successfully pioneered the e-government system in her previous posting as Joint Controller Communication Accounts, Department of Telecommunications (DoT). At present she is posted as the Financial Advisor with the National Disaster Management Authority of India.
4. Chakshu Roy
   Chakshu Roy heads technology initiatives at PRS Legislative Research (PRS), New Delhi.  PRS is a unique initiative that provides non-partisan analysis to all Members of Parliament in India.  Chakshu is developing a comprehensive technology strategy to engage large sections of the population in the policy process.  He has conceptualised and developed India’s only online database of all state laws.  Chakshu has conducted capacity-building workshops for over 1000 journalists on tracking the work of legislators.
5. Elonnai Hickok
   Elonnai Hickok works as a Programme Manager at the Centre for Internet and Society. Her main areas of work are Privacy and Data Security.
6. Gaurab Raj Upadhaya
   Gaurab has a long record of volunteerism and commitment to the Asia Pacific Internet Community. Gaurab is one of the 14 global Trusted Community Representatives who cryptographically sign the root of the domain name system in ICANN Root DNSSEC Key ceremonies. In 2001, he was the founder of the Nepal Internet Exchange (NPIX), the first IX in the South-Asian region.
7. Helani Galpaya
   Helani Galpaya is the Chief Executive Officer at LIRNEasia. She holds a Masters in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Mount Holyoke College, USA.
8. Dr. Madan Mohan Rao
   Dr. Madan Mohan Rao is the research director at the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre. He is the editor of a three book series: “The Asia Pacific Internet Handbook”, “The Knowledge Management Chronicles” and “AfroDotEdu”.
9. Michael Ginguld
   Michael Ginguld is the Chief Executive Officer at AirJaldi. He has more than 15 years of experience working with ICT, community and rural development projects in India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Nepal, and Israel.
10. Dr. Nadeem Akhtar
    Dr. Nadeem Akhtar is currently working as Principal Research Engineer at the Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT). He leads the network layer research team at CEWiT and also represents CEWiT at 3GPP Radio Access Networks Working Group meetings. His research interests lie in the field of mobile and broadband wireless access technologies. Dr. Akhtar is a member of IEEE Standards Association and ITU-APT Foundation of India.
11. Nandini. C
    Nandini. C is a Research Associate with IT for Change (www.itforchange.net), and is part of a team that is engaged in research studies in the area of gender and ICTs, democratic governance and ICTs, and the political economy of the information society. She holds a Masters in Urban and Rural Community Development from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
12. Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan
    Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan is a Policy Director at Centre for Internet and Society and works on policy research and advocacy related to IP reform and technology access for persons with disabilities.
13. Dr. Nishant Shah
    Dr. Nishant Shah is the Director-Research at CIS. He is a recipient of the Asia Scholarship Foundation's fellowship for comparative research at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China. Nishant is a regular columnist with the Sunday Eye, the national edition of Indian Express, Delhi, GQ India and DML Central. He has authored/co-authored many peer-reviewed articles in several journals.
14. Parminder Jeet Singh
    Parminder Jeet Singh is Executive Director of IT for Change.  He was recently appointed as a member of Task Force set up by the Indian government on implementation of proactive disclosures provisions of the Right to Information Act. He was also associated with Department of IT's Sub-group on e-governance for the 12^th Five Year Plan. He recently authored a report on 'Community Knowledge Centers' for the Karnataka Knowledge Commission.
15. Pranesh Prakash
    Pranesh Prakash is a Policy Director at CIS and works on policy research and advocacy around intersections of technology and law focusing on access to knowledge (primarily copyright reforms), promoting 'openness' (including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software), freedom of expression, privacy, and internet governance.
16. Ravikiran Annaswamy
    Ravikiran Annaswamy is an entrepreneur learning to create the next big business. He is very excited about the opportunities at the cusp of social media, mobile Internet and Big Data. Currently, He is nurturing a unique concept called Teritree, which brings social shopping into mainstream business.He has vast experience of making successful telecom solutions for global markets, mainly in the area of Online Billing and Charging, OSS, Innovative 3G/4G applications, Media and Security Solutions.
17. Dr. Ravina Aggarwal
    Dr. Ravina Aggarwal works on media issues in India from the Ford Foundation's New Delhi office. Her grant making advances issues of democratic expression and media access among marginalized communities. She holds the position of Programme Officer in Ford Foundation, India
18. Satyen Gupta
    Satyen Gupta is a veteran in the field of telecommunications, drawing from his vast experience in telecom regulation as well as industry. Among other accomplishments, he was a member of the NGN Regulation review group of ITU and also worked as advisor with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India at the level of Additional Secretary and is heading the Converged Network Division dealing with regulatory, technical and economic aspects of Data Networks and Services.
19. Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam
    Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam is a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society. Improving information access both for scientists and for the rural poor; scientometrics, ICT-enabled development and open access are among his current research interests.
20. Sunil Abraham
    Sunil Abraham is the Executive Director of the Centre for Internet and Society. He is also a social entrepreneur and Free Software advocate.
21. Tulika Pandey
    Tulika Pandey is an Electronics and Telecommunications Engineer. She has been with the Government of India since 1992 and is currently Director with the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India. She is involved in implementation strategy and action plan formulations for wider reach of ICT facilitated benefits; Integration of appropriate technology interfaces between human and cyber world; Steering of Research and Development projects for development of contextual ICT technology, tool, applications and content.
22. Vir Kamal Chopra
    Vir Kamal Chopra is currently the Sr. General Manager (QA) with BSNL at New Delhi. He started his career in teaching. He has played a vital role in providing telecommunication facilities and shaping BSNL and is also responsible for finalization of high value products which are purchased at the central level of BSNL. He is credited with introducing e-tendering for the first time at BSNL.
23. Vishnu Vardhan
    Vishnu Vardhan is the Programme Director of the CIS-A2K Team which works with Wikipedians and also conducts workshops and meetups in order to build Wikipedia community for Indic languages.