Canada is facing a crossroad between an Internet economy that is either open and free or a walled community with restrictive access and control. As the Internet is expected to represent 7% of Canada’s GDP, we are facing tough decisions and these decisions will impact every Canadian. Glenn McKnight and Evan Leibovitch will discuss the battle for Canada’s Internet regarding the much debated issues of privacy, access, corporate control, and internet policy and accountability.
This event is a partnership between Communitech and CIGI.
Agenda
7:30am Networking continental breakfast, CIGI Campus foyer
8:00am Lecture and Q &A
9:00am Guests depart
About CIGI:
The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) is an independent, non-partisan think tank on international governance. Led by experienced practitioners and distinguished academics, CIGI supports research, forms networks, advances policy debate and generates ideas for multilateral governance improvements. Conducting an active agenda of research, events and publications, CIGI's interdisciplinary work includes collaboration with policy, business and academic communities around the world. CIGI's research programs focus on four themes: the global economy; global security; the environment and energy; and global development. CIGI was founded in 2001 by Jim Balsillie, then co-CEO of Research In Motion (BlackBerry), and collaborates with and gratefully acknowledges support from a number of strategic partners, in particular the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario.
About Communitech:
Communitech is the regional hub for the commercialization of innovative technologies supporting and building a tech cluster of nearly 1,000 companies that now generates more than $30B in revenue. A member of the Ontario Network of Excellence, which is funded by the Ontario government, Communitech supports tech companies at all stages of their growth and development—from startups to rapidly growing SMEs, to large global players—to create greater numbers of successful global businesses for Ontario and Canada.
Speakers:
Glenn McKnight, ISOC Canada
Glenn McKnight is on a number ICANN working groups including NOMCOM, NARALO Member and the Internet Academy in addition being on the CIRA Nomination Committee. Since the early 1990s he has been involved with Industry Canada's Connecting Canadians. The Durham FREENET, Capacity Building, Training And Open Source Software/Hardware Development. He Is A Member Of The IEEE Humanitarian Technology Committee, The IEEE Canada Humanitarian Committee Focused On Open Source Hardware Solutions , He is a Director Of The Foundation For Building Sustainable Communities (FBSC) For Non-Profit Foundations which is launching a E magazine focused on Women and Technology and workshops called DIY for Girls.
Evan Leibovitch, Communications Architect and Social Entrepreneur
Evan Leibovitch is a communications architect and social entrepreneur, heavily involved in advancing the interests of IT and internet users in Canada and around the world. He is co-founder of The Linux Professional Institute and CLUE, the Canadian Association for Open Source. He has also been heavily involved in advancing end-user interests at ICANN and is currently vice-chair of its global At-Large Advisory Council. He wrote more than 100 columns for ZDNet on the open source community and industry. He led a multinational 14-person delegation to the first WSIS conference, advancing open source and open standards. And in 2002 has was called one of Canada's top newsmakers by ITBusiness for his work advocating Linux and open source when it was still new to the computing world. In his non-advocacy efforts, Evan works at York University with the title of "Open Source Architect", bringing teachers and researchers into Web 2.0. He is also involved with startup called Libratiq related to academic use of ebooks.