Internet and Community: What does the future hold and what lies ahead in the next decade?

At the DuPont Summit on Science and Technology in Washington on December 4, 2009, Nigel Cameron, FRSA, President and CEO of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technology, led a panel discussion on how our lives are impacted by the Internet. 

The panel was inspired by a recent blog post, Matthew Taylor, who wrote: “The web is changing culture, relationships and organisations. Its effects are real and important. Sometimes they are good and sometimes not. The exaggerated claims of those who say the internet is inherently a destroyer of organisations and hierarchies or that it is bound to lead to greater democracy and collaboration are an unhelpful distraction from the important study of the internet’s real impact on real lives.”

The Panel:
Nigel Cameron, Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies
Erik Fisher, Arizona State University
Michael R. Nelson, Georgetown University
Jules Polonetsky, Future of Privacy Forum
Erica Newland, Center for Democracy and Technology

The panel touched on privacy issues, the Smart Grid, cloud computing, and the impact of new technology on society.  For speakers’ abstracts please visit: http://www.psocommons.org/dupont_summit/2009/schedule/6/

Our thanks to Paul Rich, FRSA, of Policy Studies Organization for comping registration for RSA Fellows and for hosting this outstanding conference.  Details of the rest of the days’ proceedings are available on the website of the Policy Studies Organization.