Elon School of Communications students Alex Trice and Randy Gyllenhaal will participate as panelists in events at the Internet Governance Forum-USA on Friday, Oct. 2, at the Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C.
Gyllenhaal, a senior broadcast journalism major and winner of the Hearst National Broadcast Reporting award, will join a panel of top U.S. Internet experts as the “youth” respondent to the morning plenary presentation “What We Don’t Know About the Future of the Internet,” a speech to be delivered by School of Communications Advisory Board member Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Among the other participants in the morning plenary are Andrew McLaughlin, deputy U.S. chief technology officer in the Office of the President; Markus Kummer, executive coordinator for the United Nations Secretariat for the Internet Governance Forum; Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center; Larry Atlas, senior policy adviser, and Larry Strickling, assistant secretary for the National Telecommunications and Information Agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce; Phil Bond, president of TechAmerica; and Lee McKnight, CEO of Wireless Grids Corporation.
Gyllenhaal will also participate later in the day along with Trice as a panelist in the workshop “GenNext’s Online Future” (http://www.igf-usa.us/group/OnlineFuture). Young Internet users, entrepreneurs and advocates will be the expert respondents in this session, which is aimed at illuminating current and future issues. Discussion points will include the positives and negatives of hyperconnectivity, online security/safety, copyright, the future of the media and information, and the future of identity and privacy in social networks, virtual reality worlds and online games.
The IGF-USA is a multistakeholder effort to raise awareness about Internet governance issues and to contribute to awareness about the global Internet Governance Forum. IGF-USA is a one-day forum to engage civil society, government, technologists/researchers, industry, academia and young people in discussions about topics that are being deliberated at a global level regarding governance of the Internet, including management of critical Internet resources, privacy, cyber-security, access, openness/freedom of expression, child online safety, capacity building and development.
Imagining the Internet Center director Janna Anderson, an associate professor in the School of Communications, is a steering committee member for IGF-USA, and she has been instrumental in the planning of the event.
To watch the events involving Gyllenhaal and Trice and the other elements of IGF-USA on Friday live via video conferencing, go to http://www.igf-usa.us/page/igf-usa-2009-remote-1.