Kristin Little Presents on Active Listening
DCD Fellow Kristin Little Presents: Listening Dear PCI Community, I enjoyed sharing some thoughts and approaches to active listening on our community call this past Sunday. I really believe that this topic has something to offer in the pursuit of fruitful Digital Cooperation and Diplomacy and a more people-centered Internet. Thanks, all, for a rich
Introducing new PCI Board Member, Justin Bryant
The People Centered Internet welcomes its newest board member, Justin Bryant, who will bring his robust background in law, policy, and technology research to his new role as PCI’s treasurer. Now a J.D. candidate at Stanford Law School, Justin’s expertise spans the data protection, public policy, and digital rights disciplines and crosses continents at the community, government, and nonprofit and research levels.
Along with his role as treasurer, Bryant will focus on training a people-centered eye to every new and old PCI project and building capacity and scalability for grassroots digital solutions.
“My goal as part of PCI is to bring forward the importance of progressive digital policy that’s tailored to the needs of local populations and thinking about what privacy means to us in each of our communities,” Bryant said.
People-Centered Internet welcomes Justin Bryant as Board Member, Treasurer
Palo Alto, CA, November 9, 2020 — People-Centered Internet, a California-based 501(c)3 organization with a mission to “put humanity at the center of the Internet,” announced the appointment of Justin Bryant as its newest board member and treasurer.
Justin brings his robust international research background to the PCI board. A third-year J.D. candidate at Stanford Law School, he focuses on the intersection of law, policy, and technology in a global context.
Mei Lin Gives Keynote Speech at Global SME Finance Forum 2020
Global SME Finance Forum 2020 The Decade of Transformation on the Digital Frontier Keynote Speech, Mei Lin Fung Get Involved
People-Centered Internet Announces Launch of Global Help Desk
People-Centered Internet (“PCI”), a California-based 501(c)3 organization with a mission to “put humanity at the center of the Internet,” today announced the launch of the Global Help Desk (“GHD”). Applying the same principles that guided the Internet’s decentralized growth, the GHD will serve as an online network to connect people with a web of goods and services that are proven to address problems that span geographies and communities, acting as a coordinated, accessible and scalable toolkit for solutions-based digital capacity building.
October Update: Message from Mei Lin
Dear Internauts,
I have some exciting news to share this month, but first, I want to take a trip back in time: Just over 50 years ago in 1969, the first two nodes of the Internet were connected. This would begin a long series of innovations, like the TCP/IP specification developed by our PCI co-founder, Vint Cerf and the vision of Douglas Engelbart’s “Mother of all Demos.” People-Centered Internet was founded in 2015 in the same spirit of “participation by all” to ensure the Internet continues to be “a force for good in the world.”
Last year’s Internet Governance Forum in Berlin catalyzed a new area of focus for PCI on “Digital Cooperation and Diplomacy,” supporting the recommendations of the United Nations’ High Level Panel. Fabrizio Hochschild, Doreen Bogdan, Vint Cerf, Hinrich Thoelken, and I envisioned an informal network of those working to augment traditional diplomacy with the connections that technology enables and building on the spirit that energized the original spread of the Internet in the 1980s and ’90s.
PCI to Co-produce [email protected] Conference
Palo Alto, CA, Sept. 23, 2020 — People-Centered Internet, a California-based 501(c)3 organization with a mission to “put humanity at the center of the Internet,” is co-hosting [email protected], and Mei Lin Fung is Chairing the Opening Day. Our Founding Chair, Vint Cerf will be part of the event from 8 to 10 a.m. and make closing remarks at 9:45 am Eastern.
The event is free to attend and kicks off with Digital Cooperation and Diplomacy Day on Thursday, Sept. 24 and closes on Oct. 2. As part of the celebration of the United Nations’ 75th Anniversary, speakers from across the globe will usher in a new era for a personal commitment to acting on science, technology, and art in an interconnected and interdependent way.
The goal of the dialogues is to shift the culture of science to be more human, and to share our hopes and inspiration so that each of our actions on the micro scale will lead to a macro effect.
The Digital Cooperation and Diplomacy Day session is divided into three acts: The Art of Learning, The Art of Health, and The Science of Thriving. Dozens of leaders from across the public and private sector will present their perspectives on how to bring art and humanity to the center of progress. Their expertise and priorities will help guide forward the vision and priorities for executing on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
People-Centered Internet is uniquely positioned to co-host this event by leveraging changemakers and resources from across sectors and nations — all while keeping our people-centered vision at the heart of the conversation.
The culmination of the event is a call to action for volunteers to “Connect to Thrive” and bring expertise and resources to this momentous effort. PCI encourages attendees to use the hashtag #Connect2Thrive to tune into updates and conversation.
Examining the 2020 U.S. Election with David Becker
Becker’s message for Americans headed into the 2020 election is threefold: voter fraud is low and election security is improving, but the real threat — a growing mistrust in U.S. election outcomes — remains.
“It’s highly unlikely the Russians and others are trying to infiltrate our systems in an undetected way to change election results,” Becker said. “What we know they’re trying to do is to delegitimize our elections and to reduce our confidence in our elections.”
“It’s highly unlikely the Russians and others are trying to infiltrate our systems in an undetected way to change election results,” Becker said. “What we know they’re trying to do is to delegitimize our elections and to reduce our confidence in our elections.” “The Russians and others aren’t trying to infiltrate our systems in an undetected way to change election results,” Becker said. “What they’re trying to do is to delegitimize our elections and to reduce our confidence in our elections.”
Connecting Kenya: A Conversation with Bitange Ndemo
Ndemo is known as a pioneer for Internet access in Kenya. He led the establishment of TEAMS, the fiber optic cable system from Mombasa to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, linking Kenya to the rest of the world. The history of the effort to create TEAMS, it turns out, relied on government investment and trust for Ndemo’s vision.
Matthew Rantanen Honored with Public Knowledge IP3 Award
“The recognition is an honor, and this time more so, because I share it with my good friend, Geoffrey Blackwell,” Rantanen said. “The greatest benefit is bringing more focus to the work we do in Indian Country.”
Mei Lin Gives Remarks at WSIS Forum 2020
Today digital technology brings perils as well as promise. Connecting the schools safely means regulators have to assure that technologies Do No Harm. I commend the ITU for #Reg4Covid and in 2019 WSIS, Regulators on the digital frontier spoke about the importance of “share and learn” together in Regional (cross border) networks. National implementations can be improved by sharing breakthroughs and building on lessons learned by neighbors. Regulatory learning networks are needed to keep up with rapid change and the constant cyber attacks. Regional networks are also key to designing regional infrastructure built on common digital building blocks (Appendix 1) This can decrease by ten-fold the cost of health, education, social support systems. I know because I am from Singapore where this strategy has been underway for 2 decades with huge cost savings. Singapore is also the home of the DQ Institute – Digital Quotient – recognized by OECD, IEEE and others for assessing child and adult digital literacy.
August Update: Message from Mei Lin
As we come to understand that our interactions with each other will continue to be primarily “virtual” for many months ahead, I find myself returning to the idea that friendship and empathy fueled the start and the success of the early Internet. I recently had the privilege of addressing the World Summit on the Information Society, where I emphasized that the future of the Internet must follow a similar path, with leaders prioritizing equity and “do no harm” policies in their shaping and design of new and old systems.