Archive for July, 2008

iSummit and Free Culture 2008

July 24, 2008 at 11:47 pm · Filed under Community, Conference, News, Research ·Tagged , ,

While Singapore is bracing itself for the local launch of Creative Commons (ok, perhaps I’m exaggerating a bit, but it is an important milestone), Sapporo is getting ready to welcome the largest international annual event of the Creative Commons and related communities: the iSummit. This year we are organizing for the first time a research workshop during the iSummit, the First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture (or Free Culture 2008 for short), whose detailed program can be found on the Commons Research Wiki I set up for this purpose. All submissions to the workshop were peer-reviewed and the extended abstracts (in some cases also full papers) are published on the wiki.

If you’ve already registered for the iSummit, then good for you, I think you’re in for a treat. If not, then hmm… tough luck, I think registration is closed now but there will be plenty to follow online, through the iSummit website (see link above), the icommons main community website, the research wiki (see above) and even on Second Life (for more info on how to follow the proceedings and get involved remotely  keep checking the main iSummit website. So, here goes, all the info you need in a short post, as I need to get my slides ready for Sapporo! That, and a million other things as usual, but I won’t complain here, this is meant to be a joyous post after all.

Leave a Comment

CC Singapore launch is nigh!

July 24, 2008 at 11:28 pm · Filed under Community, Conference, News ·Tagged , ,

More great news this week. Creative Commons Singapore will finally launch localized versions of the CC licenses, and the official launch event will take place this Sunday, July 27, at the School of Art, Design and Media of NTU (map), at 1:30pm. Make no mistake, this is not just about the licenses and not just for lawyers. This is the first opportunity to promote a wider dialogue on the value of intellectual property and how digital distribution and Creative Commons are changing the game, giving more power and options to both established, ‘old-school’ creators of new media content as well as the millions of amateurs and pro-ams who post music, video, text and photos on the Social Web. So, do make the long trip to NTU and join us in our effort to get Singapore on the CC bandwagon. 

The event will take place under the auspices of ISEA 2008, a huge digital arts event and conference taking place in Singapore this year, and although the conference is for registered participants only, the CC launch (and the ensuing panel on copyright) will be open to the public. Just come to the ADM School at NTU and you will be guided from there, to find the exact venue. I do not know for sure which room the event will take place in and what the capacity will be, so if you want to get a seat it might be wise to come a bit early. 

More specifically, the launch of the Singapore CC licensing suite will take place at 1.30 to 1.45 pm, and will be graced by the presence of Creative Commons father (and for all who know him, an awesome speaker), Lawrence Lessig. The launch will be followed by a panel on Copyright and the Creative Commons, organized by CAPTEL and the CC Singapore team (which includes yours truly). The panel will end at 3:15 pm, at which point we will have to leave the premises probably as the rest of ISEA is, as I already mentioned, not open to the public (unless you have a ticket). Lessig will give a keynote later in the day for the ISEA conference, but to attend that you would need to have a ticket for the day for ISEA – you may be able to get one from their website if you want to get more Lessig (and I’m told the entire ISEA conference will be extremely interesting, so it’s probably worth it anyhow. 

See you there!!!

Comments (3)

New home :)

July 24, 2008 at 10:41 pm · Filed under News, Personal ·Tagged

So, here is me coming out about my new (professional) home… just this week I joined the Communications and New Media Programme at the National University of Singapore. Those who care to read this blog will know that I came to Singapore about 2 years ago, with a visiting appointment at the School of Information Systems of Singapore Management University. The time at SMU was great, intensive and very productive. It helped me launch the CC-Monitor project and make a few contributions to the research and practice of commons-based peer production.

Given that I quite liked Singapore and needed to find a more long-term home for my work with a good fit with my research interests I came in touch with the folks at CNM, then one thing led to another, and now I’m sitting at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, my new home away from home. It’s quite a change, to be sure, and my roots are still in CS/IS, but as the Internet becomes increasingly “social”, getting more involved with the social sciences feels like a natural progression. CNM in particular is a unique place that blends computer science and the social sciences in its mission to promote the study and development of communications and new media. 

I could go on and on about all the interesting new possibilities that this move is opening up, but I will leave it at that for now and move on to more news… this blog hasn’t seen updates in a while and there’s a lot to share…

Leave a Comment