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Announcing Nordic Techpolitics in Cooperation with PdF

BY Bente Kalsnes | Monday, June 6 2011

Think a few seconds about this: The Nordic countries are top ranking in the world when it comes to internet access and broadband speed, number of smart phones in the population and some of most active users of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Tech trends catch on easily in the Nordic countries; Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland - almost like a living tech lab.

Now it’s time to share what we’ve learned with the rest of the world and figure out how we can improve: We’re inviting you to the Nordic Techpolitics conference in Oslo, September 2, in partnership with Personal Democracy Forum in New York. Organized by Origo.no, a social publishing platform, and Friprog, a governmental open source resource center, both based in Norway, we want to explore the Nordic model of Techpolitics.

What are the similarities and the differences when it comes to how technology is impacting Nordic societies, politics, governance and media, and what can other countries learn from it?

We’ve all heard of Spotify, Skype, the mobile browser Opera. They are all tech giants with Nordic origin. And of course the controversial Pirate Bay. After Wikileaks we’ve also learned that Sweden and Iceland have the most liberal freedom of speech legislation, which was why Julian Assange were based in both those countries for a while. Iceland has started the “Modern Media Initiative, and aims to be “a haven for freedom of information, speech and expression”. The Norwegian Prime Minister has 110.000 fans on Facebook, the Swedish Prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has only 2461 – why the difference? Norway will test online election this year, and the election system is based on open source, will it work?

These are some of the questions we will raise and here are some of the confirmed speakers who will do it together with us:

· Jeff Jarvis, auther, blogger, teacCUNY, US

· Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry, Personal Democracy Forum, US

· Birgitta Jonsdottir, Member of Parliament, Iceland

· Petter Bae Brandtzæg, researcher Sintef, specialicing on Facebook, Norway

· Nils Mulvad, data journalism, Journalism School, Årshus, Denmark

· Astrid Haug, community manager, Berlingske Tidende, Denmark

· Jon Worth, EU-blogger with a strong interest for the Nordic countries, UK

· Jon Wessel Aas, lawyer, Norwegian Broadcasting Cooperation, International Commission of Jurists

· Pia Jøsendal, semantic web/open data specialist, Computas, Norway

· Torgeir Waterhouse, IKT-Norge, Norway

· Anne Ebbing, communication advisor, Advice Digital, Denmark

· Eirik Bergesen, online political satire, Opplysningskontoret, Norway

· Anders Waage Nilsen, MediArena, new business models in media, Norway

Hope to see you in Oslo on September 2!

News Briefs

RSS Feed wednesday >

Summer Olympics to Stream Live From the UK — For Some

The BBC announced its plans yesterday to broadcast its live Olympics coverage of London's Summer games to PCs, mobile-devices and Internet-connected televisions, Reuters reported.

With a free Olympics application for Apple and Android phones, the BBC says it will be offering up to 24 live streams and video highlights clips, and plans for over 2,500 hours of live programming ... that is only available to viewers in the UK. NBC also plans to stream online, but the majority of free viewing of the Olympics will only be available to existing cable TV subscribers.

GO

yesterday >

CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" Will Have Some Tech-Politics Commentators

This should be interesting: CNN nightly news program Erin Burnett OutFront is out with its list of political commentators for the general election. Some of the names are familiar in Internet-politics-land. The gang includes Upworthy's Maegan Carberry, who was previously director of communications at Rock The Vote; Sasha Issenberg, who ventures into our corner of the political world frequently while documenting the new science of political campaigns for Slate; and Ben Smith, veteran political blogger turned BuzzFeed's top politics editor.

GO

Copyright Fights Heat Up Again Around Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) today re-released part of a previously leaked February 2011 draft of the U.S. proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact on his KeepTheWebOPEN website, as he joined calls by advocacy groups to make the currently ongoing deliberations about the treaty more open.

The United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam are all involved in negotiating the agreement, which include provisions about intellectual property and copyright that will play a role in the developing global online economy. A 12th round of negotiations on the deal is now under way in Dallas, Texas. Issa is encouraging users to use his MADISON platform to comment on the document, which the website Knowledge Economy International obtained and released in March 2011.

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House Republicans Relaunch Speaker.gov

House Speaker John A. Boehner's office on Tuesday pulled the wraps off of the Speaker's overhauled web site just in time for a major policy speech about House Republicans' stance on any debt limit negotiations in the coming year. GO

We're All Journalists, Indeed: Obama Campaign Guests Checked Mobile Phones at the Door

Zeke Miller at Buzzfeed, studiously reading pool reports from President Barack Obama's recent campaign fundraisers, catches something: the Obama campaign, per Washington Post pooler David Nakamura, appears to be collecting mobile phones from event attendees at the door, and storing them in plastic bags. At least, that was the case at a Monday event in New York City.

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Americans Don't Elect to Use Americans Elect; 3rd Party Hits Wall?

Is Americans Elect, the third ballot line cum party that hoped to use the Internet to nominate a centrist ticket for president in 2012 dead? It certainly looks that way. But before anyone starts writing the post-mortem, remember that it has ballot lines in half the states--and those could be used by renegade factions in 2012, or possibly in 2014 to run candidates for Congress. GO

Lori Compas, Netroots Challenger to Wisconsin Senate Republican Scott Fitzgerald, Posts Irreverent YouTube Riposte, And It Takes Off

Lori Compas, a Democrat who's challenging Wisconsin state Senate Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) in the state's June 5 recall election, had a rather unusual Mother's Day this year: She spent at least part of the day making a YouTube video with her family. GO

Romney Campaign Targets Obama's Barnard Commencement Speech With Google Ads

New York City area web users looking for details about Barnard College's Commencement Ceremony, where President Barack Obama gave the Commencement Address earlier this afternoon, are also likely to have encountered a targeted ad calling out "Obama's Wasteful Spending" on Mitt Romney's website, as Emily Schultheis from Politico first reported. While she suggested it was targeted at only the zip code where the college is located on Manhattan's Upper West Side, it also showed up on a search for a zip code located in Queens, while accessing the Internet from Lower Manhattan. But it did not show up for an Internet user located outside the New York area. GO

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