Ang Peng Hwa
School of Communication and Information
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore

Champions and Runners-Up in

Internet Governance

In November 2004, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed 40 people to the Working Group on Internet Governance to write a report on Internet governance. Why did he do it? Who or what advocated for the formation of the Group? Eight months later, the report is completed. Who has won? Who has lost? What will happen next? The aim of the colloquium is to address these questions and to explore the implications for society and for academe.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005, 4:00 p.m.

Foellinger Auditorium

Speaker: N. R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman of the Board and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies Limited, Bangalore, India

To learn more details: link

Duncan Watts' talk at UIUC:

Monday, August 29, 2005, 4:00 p.m.

"Social Networks and Social Dynamics in a Small World".

Mobilization for World War II triggered profound changes in all areas of human endeavor. Innovations in microelectronics and computing are well known. Less familiar but of critical importance were vectors of change in the organization and retrieval of information. These changes drew on a concurrent elaboration of systems thinking and contributed to the growing hold exercised by informational metaphors over the scientific and technological imagination, as well as in the adjacent field of telecommunications policy planning and system development.

What factors prompted this wide-ranging endeavor to recast theory and practice within the sphere of information and communications? How did these initiatives emerge and develop? What were the repercussions? The goal of this panel is to stimulate inquiry and discussion about these vital dimensions of change in information and communications, which have led to the development of our present-day networked world.

Mark Leff (History) will provide an overview of how World War II acted as a crucible for rewiring the US political economy. Fernando Elichirigoity (GSLIS) will address alterations underway in the cultural conception of information. Boyd Rayward (GSLIS) will focus on developments in the theory and practice of information science. Christian Sandvig (Speech Communication) will discuss how constantly evolving telecom policies and industry organization have fed into Internet development. GSLIS Dean John Unsworth will moderate.

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This presentation is held in anticipation of the CAS interdisciplinary initiative for academic year 2005-06 The Age of Networks: Social, Cultural and Technological Connections, which will examine the workings of networks across the sciences, arts, and humanities. This project will draw on scholarship in computer science, humanities, engineering, life sciences, law, organizational sciences and social sciences in order to take an in-depth look at socio-technical networks and theories for self-generating, self-organizing networks. It will undoubtedly reveal many ironies, ambiguities, and contradictions --- precisely those shifting areas where we are likely to discover basic human and societal values.

(this lighter part be cut if there isn't enough room)

Thursday, February 17, 2005

3pm-5pm

Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center

919 W. Illinois Street, Urbana