A2K2 Conference April 27-29 at Yale Law School

Information technology scholars and activists from around the world will come together for a three-day conference titled “Access To Knowledge 2” (A2K2) Friday, April 27, through Sunday, April 29, at Yale Law School, 127 Wall Street. The conference is hosted by Yale Law School's Information Society Project (ISP), which is celebrating its tenth anniversary.

The conference is a follow-up to last year’s first and very successful “Access To Knowledge” (A2K) Conference, conceived by Yale Law School’s ISP as a way of building an intellectual framework for access to knowledge and fostering coalitions between diverse groups. The Access To Knowledge social movement champions human rights, human development, and the public interest as the focal points of innovation and information policy.

“The A2K2 conference will be a pivotal event, mobilizing the A2K coalition of institutions and stakeholders that crystallized at the first landmark conference,” said ISP Executive Director and Lecturer in Law Eddan Katz. “It will deepen our understanding of access to knowledge issues and help us set the agenda for policy and advocacy.”

Plenary panel sessions throughout the weekend will focus on “A2K as a Social Movement,” “Mobilizing Industry,” “Mobilizing Governments,” “Mobilizing Technologists,” and “Mobilizing Civil Society.” Policy panels will be structured towards tangible legal and technological solutions and collaborative strategies, covering such topics as “Internationalized Domain Names,” “Traditional Knowledge and Genetic Resources,” “Broadband Wireless in Developing Countries,” and “Education in the Digital Age.”

Yale Law School Professor Jack Balkin, founder and director of Yale Law School’s ISP, and Yale Law School Professor Yochai Benkler will deliver the keynote addresses.  More than 100 distinguished experts will participate on the panels, including policymakers such as David Gross, Ambassador and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy; industry leaders such as Andrew McLaughlin, head of Global Public Policy for Google; academics such as Pamela Samuelson, professor at the School of Information and Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley; world-renowned scientists such as Wei Mao of the Computer Network Information System at the Chinese Academy of Sciences; technologists such as Jon Hall, founder of Linux International; and civil society leaders such as Jamie Love of Knowledge Ecology International.

The A2K2 Conference is sponsored by The MacArthur Foundation, Microsoft and the Ford Foundation. It is open to the public at a cost of $250. Non-Yale students pay $100; Yale students and faculty may attend free of charge.