The Internet and Innovation - Why Network Architecture Matters

New America Foundation
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

The Internet intersects life at work, home, and vacation through our interaction with email, the World Wide Web, or Google. But beneath these layers is network architecture that defines how data transfers from one point to another and this has a direct impact on the innovation of new applications.

Associate Professor at Stanford Law School, Dr. Barbara van Schewick will discuss key lessons from her book Internet Architecture and Innovation. Using her expertise in economics, management science, engineering, networking and law, van Schewick shows how alternative network architectures can create very different economic environments for innovation. The Internet's original architecture was based on four design principles - modularity, layering, and two versions of the celebrated but often misunderstood end-to-end arguments. This design, van Schewick demonstrates, fostered innovation in applications and allowed applications and services like e-mail, the World Wide Web, E-Bay, Google, Skype, Flickr, Blogger and Facebook to emerge.

Changes to the open Internet, such as introducing prioritization into the network architecture, can have profound impacts; even, threaten the future of Internet innovation.

This event is co-sponsored by the New America Foundation, Free Press, and Public Knowledge.

Opening Remarks
Sascha Meinrath
Director, Open Technology Initiative
New America Foundation

Featured Speaker
Barbara van Schewick
Associate Professor of Law, Stanford Law School
Director, Center for Internet and Security, Stanford Law School
Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

Panelists
Gigi B. Sohn
President, Public Knowledge

S. Derek Turner
Research Director, Free Press

Sascha Meinrath
Director, Open Technology Initiative
New America Foundation

To RSVP for the event:
http://www.newamerica.net/events/2010/the_internet_and_innovation

For questions, contact Stephanie Gunter at (202) 596-3367 or gunter@newamerica.net

For media inquiries, contact Kate Brown at (202) 596-3365 or brown@newamerica.net