Archive for the 'university' Category

Page 7 of 21

channeling charlie

Published by nesson on June 2, 2007 in berkmania, harvard and rhetorical space. Closed

the dot is not knowledge, the dot is us, we are knowledge
we are dots in small world networks of a large world network
we are the dot at the center of lessig’s matrix of what governs us

flat on my back with laptop propped before me
two excellent lines of staples lacing up my groin
in the aftermath of is2k7 wondering what happened in the afternoon
after i adjourned to the operating room
the archive of what was recorded not up yet

i wanted to write something to express my thought but wanted first to listen again to ethan’s lead off response to jp. i felt identity forming, not yet coalesced, but becoming self aware

university is a concept we express. we testify to it. we reify it with our thought and action.

nicolas negroponte
hero all around

we express it in our conference
stucture substance trajectory
we express it in our selves

now listening to my own mp3 recorded through the telephone
derek bok
mission of university
discover knowledge for its own sake
renew culture
advance civilization
achieve greater understanding of our heritage
explore the deepest problems of human existence

which reminds me, here are my notes from friday morning

TECHNOLOGY IS OUT TO FUCK YOU!

arghh!!

/anger

/shrug

just listening to derek and steve respond to terry’s questions at the outset value enough in the day. I heard in their words a charter for the future. so wonderful to here derek’s deep friendly voice speak as champion. so great to hear steve back him up with truth and science.

excellent start

what an amazing feeling to be lying on my back listening to the unfolding audio of our conference, imagined as a future event, virtual in the mind, real yet still i am imagining its reality

jp calls on terry. i’ve been there. i called on fred friendly once, him sitting in the audience yet present in my mind as dominating authority, had to wrestle to get it back

anne speaks. clear voice, moving forward, just the facts, 99.9% figure hits like a brick
way to go jp filling out .01 percent
it’s a seed

how are they registered, how are they identified, the citizen’s of the net
how will we be sure that they will stick to the use
how tight will be our information bubble in rhetorical space

just a hypothetical, humphrey bogart 20 seconds, will you do it, jeremy rises, can’t conceive of company denying, wrong of harvard counsel to ask, /clap

movie industry users of content, fighters for free speech

sid expounds harvard square principle, tells his course pak story, will he tell them that he just went ahead and copied
serious note, lack of clarity, hear fear, feel timidity

alex sounds a balance note, don’t destroy until you have new model

deighton doright’s after fame, as mercenary as anyone, hbs all the way, mammon plays his part.

okay time to turn to empathy, where is the heart of the struggling corporation, enough talking to ourselves. we need to hear from elsivier
jeremy, ys chi, the other lords of copyright came here to speak to us with us to listen. speak to us. deighton, be sure they get it out

imagine this as a kind of negotiating table, meta table
a lot of pain of university put on the table
there is pain on the other side
speak your pain
what do you want from us
what do you feel we have to offer
constitute negotiation at a meta table in second life even if just in imagination?
each affinity group controls its avatar
make an agenda, sit down and talk

will it violate chatham rules to put this on my blog? how might appropriate permission be given?

eon

—
when appropriate (in my judgment) to an open project and not sensitive (in my judgment) in terms of privacy, i may post email to my blog. all privacy requests respected.

wsj yay hay!

Published by nesson on May 3, 2007 in berkmania, General, harvard, poker and rhetorical space. Closed

“>thank you neil
tall like cary grant
voice deep and resonant

poker:

The Online Etymology Dictionary
[snip]
poker (2) Look up poker at Dictionary.com
“card game,” 1834, Amer.Eng., perhaps from the first element of Ger. Pochspiel, name of a card game similar to poker, from pochen “to brag as a bluff,” lit. “to knock, rap” (see poke (v.)). Another version traces the word to Fr. poque, also said to have been a card game resembling poker. The earlier version of the game in Eng. was called brag. Slang poker face “deadpan” is from 1885.

bluff comes closer than bet to the essence of the game

poker

Published by nesson on May 1, 2007 in berkmania, General, harvard, poker, rhetorical space and trust. Closed

poker is quintescentially an american game, american invention, universal in its appeal, open as the frontier to anyone to learn the skill of bid and call and bluff and raise and fold. no better game to learn how to win and lose and how to feel about it. no finer way to come to terms with your personal relationship to risk and resource, finding balance in the flow of signals in the brain for defense, for aggression, for neutrality, women, men, old, young, every race, every religion, a moment to learn a lifetime to master, understanding that the ante and the blinds buy you the privilege of neutrality in the choice you have to fold, but every time you fold you pay a little. you need a little aggression to offset this leak in the assets you have to live with. you start to feel and see that this is how you play not just this game but the game of life.

here’s email from amwoods at hlcentral

“Andrew M. Woods”
to me

show details
7:25 pm (7 hours ago)

Professor-

I happened upon this the other day, and have been meaning to forward it to you:

http://media.www.hlrecord.org/media/storage/paper609/news/2006/03/16/News/FirstTimer.Wins.Charity.Poker.Tournament-1688977.shtml

While the article isn’t exactly a stirring defense of the importance of skill in poker – a first time player won the tournament, you may be interested to notice at the bottom of paragraph 2 the article describes the faculty participation in the public interest charity tournament. That faculty included one Professor Charles Nesson, “who hung in for several rounds before being knocked out by 1L Andrew Woods”. 🙂

(While I may have put you out, you do look better in the photo – they only got the side of me…)

-Andrew

——————————–

Andrew M. Woods
Director of Events
HL Central
(310) 254-5218
amwoods@law.harvard.edu

as we spoke last night poker university took shape
enquiry into the genius of the game top down
professor and professor with sister annie
andy bloch producer
full tilt on a table of ten
avatars driven by students of all ages in classrooms round the globe
global classrooms to engage our poker curriculum in which the culmination course is tournaments
open to developing nations as an expression of american democracy

eon here
the crazy guy of lessig’s dedication
let poker be the message that goes out through libraries and classrooms
it’s the spirit of america we are fighting for

assume you are playing poker with a fundamentalist
schelling’s madman at the door
are you bargaining with him or is he bargaining with you

this is a better game than the game with bombs and guns
people who make bombs and guns are the enemy
why prefer their game to ours

we make the bombs and guns and the markets into which to sell them
we are on a road to blowing ourselves apart if we can’t figure out how to find our norms

one thing you can say about a fundamentalist
their action is grounded in deep spirit
twisted we may think to evil ends yet spirit nonetheless

suppose a poker game between the avatar of our spirit and the avatar of his
what would be our conversation
what have i got that he wants that i can give him
what is he looking for
he says he’s looking for one thing but you know he is looking for another

suppose the chips in the game are the minds of people
the question in each individual mind which spirit speaks truth in its understanding of the world
quick
the stick
fight
youre right

so okay let’s get to it
teresa and librarians of the world
eIFL.net consortium of consortia of libraries
communia thematic network
where better to assemble to play a global online poker game than is community libraries and schools starting with solar power electricity, hardware to structure and control the flow of electric bits, connection to the net and thus to UNIVERSITY

the berkman center has a grant from the state department of the united states of america to teach democracy. american democracy is spirit in US to express.

as i type into this blog i am listening to the recording of our poker meeting before the formal meeting began, low murmers and talk of separate conversations with lovely jokes. annie tells the story of a man addicted to water, was drinking eight gallons a day, he died, and me telling the story of last year’s public service poker tournament pictured above in which andrew m woods knocked me out, how we couldn’t do it this year because of government regulation.

uploading it to z share
hope it works
i’ll bet there are some folks out there deep enough into the game to listen to poker pros talking poker to each other
yes it does! here it is: http://www.zshare.net/audio/poker1-mp3.html

last night another berkman book party, david weinberger, everything is miscellaneous, a gift to all librarians as we come to see internet as library. david, a poker question. i have written to game theorists asking them how they classify texas hold’em poker in the taxonomy of their rigorous systematic way of understanding our reality. in answer to the conceptual question of relationship of one think to another miscellaneous doesn’t tell us much. are you speaking to scientists as well as to librarians?

off to a2k today

Published by nesson on April 29, 2007 in berkmania, family, harvard and poker. Closed

salubrious recording with fern this morning after soliloquy about fear in my heart, then clippinger telling me of a study comparing ability to detect deceit among harvard undergraduates and the shiwiar, an isolated amazonian tribe of hunter-horticulturalists. the shiwiar were just as adept at identifying a con as the harvard grads.

yesterday at northeastern after merley evars spoke i bought a book by bob moses urging algebra as answer to race transcendence. in the night i woke fern with a vision of classrooms of kids deciding on the move its avatar would make in a game of online poker and felt bob moses idea up a dimension.

we are here to teach

through the net we can teach kids to transcend

i teach law students. many law students come to harvard law school risk averse. they have thrived in sheltered institutions. they are not yet ready for the world. learn to play poker i tell them, starting with one-card war.

i am proposing a collaboration among all of us who gathered and all who would have liked to be there at our poker meeting to create poker university with its classrooms linked on line.

think of a massive multiplayer game of games in which the software of the game is architecture for gatherings of people who learn the game together and play for fun and moderate money within an environment of understanding for addiction.

imagine an online poker table with each avatar a classroom in a different school, let’s try law schools out to start, maybe each in a different state, maybe each in a different country. may we do this? from whom do we seek a declaratory judgment?

we say poker is a more genuine expression of the AMERICA we want to be than slavery and white supremacy. together we can mobilize to make our future.

how to play a hand

Published by nesson on April 28, 2007 in General, harvard and poker. Closed

at the noir bar after our poker meeting howard lederer told me about an interesting hand of poker he played with gabe kaplan. i asked him to send me the link.
http://www.nbcsports.com/poker/1083822/feature1.html

the hand occurs about 1/3rd of the way through, and here’s my blog of the experience of watching and listening to the leadup and the segment.

glitz for a full minute at the beginning
how the people who talk the game play the game
howard says he’s an analyst
mike sexton pushes it doing his thing
conversation going at the table
this is not a good idea because conversation at the poker table is desultory
blind 200 400
gabe in the big blind with 24000
lederer on the button 10s 7s with 15000
raises to 1200
kaplan qs js
call
flop 2d Ah 8s
gabe checks
howard bets 1300
gabe calls

turn 2h
kaplan bets 3000
howard calls

river Ad
gabe checks
howard bets 3000
gabe folds

in this hand there is a script expressed in the calls and raises
as judith donath observes this is communicative betting
howard, i’d love you to tell the story in words play by play
at each move pause and let clippinger and halperin have their say
this is pure poker

what did gabe think howard had
how did howard lead gabe to think that

here’s my morning audio walk transcribed:

april 27, 2007, i fell off my bike last night, skidded in the rain when i put on the brakes, not too bad considering, felt my helmet hit the pavement, felt the cushion of it, felt my shoulder hit, no cushion. i feel it now. it happened after charles ogletree’s conference salute to john doar

knowledge above authority -if knowledge is above authority and wants authority to respond to knowledge wisely how would one best proceed? is it a prisoner’s dilemma in which we are always required to tat? or can we give a little tit without getting carried away.

what are the ways in which issues press your buttons. what are the issues on which you could loosen up.

play with digital media that’s the name of our game -michael yap writes back delighted to collaborate in playing with digital media -back to singapore this summer comes state of play -i began this play with you when last i was there walking along that lovely esplanade out in front of the ritz hotel enjoying a weed in the land of lee quan yu and then offering that information to the crew i was teaching cyberlaw to, eight faces from the office of the attorney general at full attention, intelligence engaged -how could singaporeans learn to loosen up, how about coming to jamaica, how could jamaicans learn to tighten up just enough to get the place running right, visit singapore -suppose each were to create the other in virtual reality what would the other look like -could we meet in second life to learn to play poker together

on the thursday night of the is2k7 conference there is an open slot, a time for people who have had food for thought to sit down and play some poker -suppose we were to play in a newly structured way, suppose we were to record it, make it an asset, fill the airwaves -would we enjoy would we learn.

my shoulder stiff and aching last night i was up in the middle wathcing tv, watched poker after dark on nbc, saw little new in form over world poker tour but could see a more interesting way of using the talents there on display, wrote to howard this morning to see what he would say.

breakfast with yinlan

Published by nesson on April 26, 2007 in harvard, jamaica, poker and rhetorical space. Closed

is it the mission of university to promote and foster the creation and lawful use of intellectual property? this is the creed of RIAA

and if there is some vision of our mission which includes some contextualized true form of the riaa creed how should university seek to accomplish it?

riaa-mpaa let’s get to it

talk with me
be my client
let me speak with yours
you be he or she

we see the old form is broken
to dependant on threat of law to keep its leaking hulk afloat
we feel the plight of those of you caught within it to transcend to an open environment
let us help you find you way

come play a game with us
in which we build a university together and together set the norms
poker university numbers and norms reality in the game you play the ultimate name of the game

breakfast with yinglan recording to yap playing poker in second life in singapore and jamaica each helping the other to loosen up sorry for the terrible sound we were in noisy henrietta’s table

Gay? Fine by me: A Grassroots Example

Published by nesson on April 25, 2007 in harvard. Closed

(that’s andy bloch in the background behind annie duke and howard. andy made it happen, and dan walsh and michael bolcerek)

gay fine by me on my t shirt to open yesterday’s poker meeting now thinking about it as i load the audio from my morning walk into my machine along the way to linking it here. let’s hear it for barney frank. let’s hear it for taking a sensible approach to poker at all levels of our society and throughout the world.
now the task is to fill the wiki. jay kadane please give us your story. make us smile.

april 25, 2007 hubbard park cambridge massachusetts united states of america planet earth –howard lederer perhaps the smartest man i’ve ever met -right up there with mort halperin maybe past at this point i’d say yes -game theory at the hightest level -conversations at the top – john clippinger howard lederer talk about war annie duke talk about negotiation the power of position play why do you want your opposite number in a negotiation to make the offer first?

todd rakoff to teach contracts in second life in contract when you make an offer you are vulnerable to having your offer accepted then you will have a deal but what enforces it what are its terms poker at the highest level how we deal how we make deals how we learn what it takes to keep them sometimes deals we have to make with ourselves. now the wiki to fill it in to offer report to the conference on friday

first we spoke about the caution of not finding happiness in a database though there was contest over whether we could look for it perhaps even in the doing of that find it. then talk of addiction our struggle to find it the effort that seemed right to me to rethink it as an issue of public health collective health a problem that is of all of us when we act in our best interest. sometimes best interest means taking care of part of yourself that is rebelling see how gently you can put rebellion down see how lovingly you can do it like stretching out a pain the pleasure of the stretch a thank you that the pain was there.

thank you poker stars you were wonderful right up to the end where we foundered on secrecy just a bit. so here’s to barney frank barney we are with you -who are we let us figure out some way to let you know -how do you play rhetorical poker -now you see do it now you see don’t like the cards that flip in three card monte the queen that’s never there -like avery playing poker, fun to remember that here hello to avery

then on from addictions to life skills where annie duke took over and showed you how a woman runs the room -thanks to her older brother that was really nice –think of sister ivy andrew spoke he was great -lookin out over that laptop silouette in the room red headed energy chin up great smile talked about doin it for the money and giving it up because the money wasn’t good enough wanted to do other things -then lunch sitting next to neil trying to read him not succeeding interesting guy long and lanky voice booming deep journalist from the wall street journal before whom others will not speak wanting to hold back information because it’s part of the release on which barney has first claim. so go for it barney. i say it again.

-then the afternoon is poker a game of skill yes unquestionably is it a game in which skill predominates over chance -what is the chance one setting about to make a game could make a game as elegant as this?

poker is a work of art an exquisite game it is education to play it who needs to be convinced of this who does not see it why do you not see it what have you got against us we’ve got nothing against you except that you won’t let us play hey forgive us we are your children growing up -on some things we think we know better and you know letting your kids grow up is learning to let them decide -it’s a sensibility of loosening up -what is the skill of poker did we pin that down i don’t think so -what does it mean for skill to predominate well what do you mean it to mean do you mean it to mean that we can’t play this game howard lederer annie duke michael bolcerek keith whyte what is this game we play -what is the core of poker -the wiki’s there all you do is press [edit] i wish i’d showd them

going back over the aftermath at the noir bar cold sitting outdoors feeling shake inside sitting with howard fern andrew fern speaks of richard lederer as the greatest english teacher her face lit up when she connected howard and annie both sitting there with their dad and back around through st. pauls alright so it seems well enough done in one way and yet was feeling down in the cold of the noir not as warm as i wanted it to be it seems it has come later

so if one can’t find happiness in a database where can you find it we live in a digital world i guess we have to find it in a second life -the other one -the one besides this -the place where we aren’t when we are where we are right now -and be so much in that moment so well tuned in that you can see down the pathways of the other. that’s the story i heard howard tell across the table from i love that man gabe kaplan somewhere the clip is on the net nbcsports.com -the four o’clock session with the blue letters of the attorney generals opinion up on the screen coming around to run the arrow on the computer issac gave me his card andrew speaking out like clarity sign up for a clinical with the berkman center to work on a declaratory judgment action with andrew bradt of ropes and gray

we talked about universities with alcohol policies but not gambling policies and noted that those who had gambling policies were against it -we struggled with the taxonomy in which we are encased as meme -poker reclaim the name see it for the elegant game it is -who are the people you are playing against in poker -who are the people you are playing with -who will sign up for a berkman clinical project to help draft a model policy for a university with respect to poker

who will help the university generate its norm -who will convene the meeting send out the invitations -who will fill the wiki in when the conference event is done

a pain within me calls

Published by nesson on April 23, 2007 in berkmania, harvard, jamaica, Kevin Wallen, poker and rhetorical space. Closed

to rise with many targets of attention yet to be drawn ineluctably to pain. do you soothe it do you stretch it do you work it out. first i pee then i shit then i take care of sammy. win or lose you pay your dues. do you give in to pain do you surrender.

attached see pics of the black law students association black and white ball sponsored by aiken gump for the benefit of children. i look at the image as i compose this picture for you to see . alex diane antonia fern and me.

whose dress is more beautiful? vote all. how can we?
aiken gump gets a double thump from me.
time for stretch and cup of tea
in the spirit of universality
life as we sometimes live it seems great to me
moment by moment one by one
all of them one present
stretch and behold

suppose there is one spirit above the rest
a spirit in us embracing
let mind go with recursion

last night in second life saw mandelbrot
after the verdict in josh wolf trial came in
beer around the table later
thanks ken and aaron, giselle and joel, mathew and becca
bits in the can with chris
waiting to come out

missed seeing tree throw out the first pitch
at the red sox yankees game
please send a link to the video

SET 88.9 fm – let the radio message follow

Published by nesson on April 22, 2007 in harvard, jamaica, Kevin Wallen, rhetorical space and SET. Closed

SET Radio 88.9 fm is up in gp kingston. the revolution has begun. feel it catching fire. on the phone i could feel excitement. inmates and officers of every color shirt. here is kevin’s report.

I woke up this morning feeling like today was going to be a great day, and it was. I went to bed last night excited to bits about what was to happen today and I can’t tell you how much I could not wait for the time when I would make it happen.

For the past three years Charley and I have been talking about the possibility of setting up a radio network within the prisons in Jamaica. We saw it as a way that we could get the message of rehabilitation and restorative justice across to the entire prison system, we saw us being able to facilitate discussions on all levels, we saw it as us creating an environment where everyone in the prison community could get together and discuss issues which are of importance to them. We were worried that if we don’t have total buy in from all the relevant parties then we would have problems but then we started having talks with the Commissioner of corrections, who with the assistance of his team helped us to strategically put things in place so that both officers and inmates would have a stake in the process. We took his advice and then went to the officers first, explain to them our thoughts on this medium and then sought their opinion. So after going on a sensitization campaign speaking to both officers and inmates we selected a compliment of ten inmates and five officers to train for the purpose of operating this radio station.

We built a radio studio with funding from CIDA we also received funding from UNESCO to provide training as well as equipment for the studio.

For the past months we have been conducting training sessions with both officers and inmates, to which they have responded quite well, however they questioned weather or not this thing was really going to happen. They did not see any antenna’s going up or anything out of the ordinary happening plus they were being asked questions by their fellow inmates about when this thing was going to happen so to put everyone’s minds at ease I decided to do a test today. Set up the equipment spread the word around the institution telling folks to tune their radios to 88.9 fm.

So today was the day to make it all happen. I told everyone that I would be at the prison at 10am to set up the equipment and that we would be on the air at 12pm. When I woke up this morning I would not wait to get to the prison so I could do this. As a matter of fact I packed up all the equipment from last night and placed them in my vehicle so this morning I could just go down and make it happen. I checked my clock every few minutes waiting for the time when I would go and pick up Wayne and then head out.

Finally it was time, jumped in the van picked up Wayne, the entire journey all I could think about was the look on everyone’s faces when they actually herd themselves and their colleagues on the radio. By the time we got there everyone was waiting on us. Within twenty minutes we were set up and ready to go. And with the flip of a switch we were live. SET 88.9 FM was a reality; Tower Street Radio was finally on the air. The excitement was too much. The environment was filled with laughter officers were coming in to make sure it was for real not to mention the inmates. At one point I looked around and for that moment there was nothing that separated anyone in that room but, they were joined together by one thing, Radio. The sense of unity was unbelievable, unity, solidarity, togetherness. In a prison, between keeper and kept, wow.
The programs which were presented were done by both officers and inmates there were no distinctions. Everyone had a role to play and they played it well. Some members from the Department of Correctional Services admin staff was there and you could see the sense of pride on their faces. In the round up discussion after the test I could not did not want to critique at that point I really wanted them to know just how proud I was of them. It was most amazing. To be on the radio for the first time and do that well is simply amazing. The name of the programs were

HEALING TIME
How can all the parties in a situation where a crime was committed heal? How can they make peace and move on.

CHAT BOUT
What do inmates care about what are some of the things that are of interest to them? When its lock down time and the lights are off and the security personnel are not in direct air shot of what is been said, what do inmates talk about?

POSITIVE CHANGE
So you have been in prison for a while, each day is a different day; things are constantly changing around you, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Do you grow or does everything remain the same? It’s a choice but we chose to make a positive change.

MY EXPRESSIONS
I don’t always say the right things and I don’t always do the right things, but every day that is my quest. As a Student Expressing Truth I want to express my self. I don’t want to tell you from my thoughts I want to express it from my being. First I become then I express my self.

jamaica is the biggest little country in the world. let’s hear it for bob marley as national hero. let’s hear it from the twins.

truth happens

Published by nesson on April 17, 2007 in harvard and rhetorical space. Closed

veritas
[]
university
[[]]
is2k7
[[[]]]

[[[[]]]]
time to move the questions off the front page
put up our agenda

university – knowledge over authority

an address to authority that speaks from university and says: this is what we want.

declare university
give it substance in the net

on thursday may 31, 2007
we ask an invited group to a meeting under chatham rules to discuss inputs and outputs and issues of connectedness.

on thursday evening, may 31, 2007
we party
food for thought dinners with a late night event

on friday june 1, 2007
we gather for a keynote and briefing by john palfrey
we honor sid verba
we break into groups and go to work

Conference Working Groups

UNIVERSITY and the RIAA
Suits brought against members of University by the RIAA bring up issues revolving around the role and identity of University and copyright. Universities are being asked to absorb financial and non-monetary costs of the record companies’ enforcement, in a way that distorts their educational mission. In the name of “intellectual property,” the academy is asked to compromise students’ privacy, limit their access to genuine educational resources, and restrict their opportunities for new creative expression. Should Universities be the Copyright Police?

The Expressed Identity of UNIVERSITY
With digital tools such as message boards, social networks, and search engines making University and its clients’ identities more public than ever, navigating the integrated media landscape for students and other members of University has become increasingly difficult. In a world where anonymous postings can have lasting effects on the professional and personal lives of students, and when University clients and their digital identities can be expressions of the University as a whole, this workshop will focus on how we begin to navigate this space and how we form the digital identity of University.

UNIVERSITY Agenda for Fair Use
The Center for Social Media at American University and documentary filmmakers wrote a report on Best Practices in Fair Use to help navigate the waters of copyrighted materials and to determine when material use can be considered Fair Use. Much like documentarians, members of University communities are often riddled with questions as they create and express their work. How can we create Best Practices in Fair Use document for Universities similar to the one created for documentary filmmakers?

Alternative UNIVERSITY Models for Scholarly Publications
The ways in which professors, academics and students and professionals release their work into the world are changing. The old models of scholarly publishing, in which most work is turned over to a publishing company just to be purchased back by the Universities from which it originated, are challenged as the printing press is replaced by digital distribution. How can Universities progress open access models of scholarly publications through repositories, modes of licensing and support of open access journals?

Open Access at UNIVERSITY – OpenCourseWare and Beyond
MIT’s OpenCourseWare, along with numerous other University-lead open access learning initiatives, has revealed the world’s thirst for open access knowledge and learning. What have we learned from previous efforts, and how and in what ways can Universities harness the potential of making their course material open access? How do we give knowledge, once put online, a sense of “life” – how do we make it “living” knowledge to be shared and developed with learners around the world?

Connecting UNIVERSITY and Localized Curricula
How can Universities contribute their specialized knowledge to teachers and educators across the world through technological tools and resources such as One Laptop Per Child, university Presidential Instructional Technology Fellowship (PITF) programs and Scratch? How can middle management structures connect University with children in developing nations, and provide materials that can be adapted and cultivated for local needs? How can we encourage local Universities to form PITF programs?

UNIVERSITY Relationship Building – Power, Funding and Transparency – Who’s the Authority, Anyway?
The relationships between University and business, philanthropy, government and other funding sources grow increasingly complex as all these entities enter into relationships that are meant to fund knowledge creation. As each party in University relationships has their own goals, what steps need to be taken to build more fruitful bonds? How do the relationships change as the mode of knowledge dissemination leans toward open access models? How is funding negotiated, and how can the integrity of the produced work be maintained?

UNIVERSITY as client. Progressing General Counsels on Intellectual Property Issues
How are General Counsels at Universities advancing academia into the digitized age and how, as lawyers for Universities, do they view intellectual property issues? In what ways do Universities and their General Counsels need to be on the cutting edge of shared resource and knowledge promotion? How does this counter the position to keep Universities from being sued?

Social and Cultural UNIVERSITY Communities Online and Off
How can University sponsored events leverage their reach, build communities and keep the conversations going after the conference ends?Using as a case study the Dred Scott conference held by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice in April, we will discuss how history relates to the present and future, and also look at how the internet and new technologies can help universities as they work to convene social and cultural gatherings (as opposed to purely academic).