Ethan Zuckerman

Fellow, The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law; Founder, Global Voices

BIG IDEAS

• The Next Billion
  In the next five years, a billion people will log onto the Internet for the first time. They're from Nigeria, China, India, Brazil, and they're building the content of the new 'net, posting photos, videos, and blogs. What are the opportunities and threats of this increasingly polyglot, multicultural, global network, and how can people from developed nations navigate this emerging new world?
• The World is Talking. Who's Listening?
  Citizen media is changing the world of journalism, turning the news from a lecture into a conversation. In some nations, this conversation is challenging government monopolies on information and creating debates on taboo issues in the absence of a free press. With individuals around the world raising their voices, how is mainstream media amplifying - or silencing - new voices? How will these voices challenge how we think about globalization, democratization, environmentalism and other multinational issues?
• The Internet is NOT Flat
  Ten years ago, 70 million people used the internet. There are more than 1.2 billion people online today, and that number is still growing. As projects like One Laptop Per Child come to fruition, we can imagine a future where it's possible to talk to almost anyone, anywhere in the world.
  
  Which raises a question: what will we say to one another?
  
  Ethan Zuckerman offers a tour of the globalized internet, looking at ways in which Internet users around the world are connecting with one another... and frequently misunderstanding each other. Along the way, we meet Nigerian spammers, Saudi feminists, Tunisian mapmakers, and Chinese gold-farmers, as well as the tools and guides necessary to navigate this growing new world.
• Activists as Lead Users
  Lead users push tools in directions their manufacturers never intended, finding innovative uses to solve their unique problems. Activists are lead users in the Web 2.0 space, using tools intended for sharing photos and organizing parties to lead street protests and expose dictators. The tools of Web 2.0, while designed for mundane uses, can be extremely powerful in the hands of digital activists, especially those in environments where free speech is limited.

SNAPSHOT BIO

Ethan Zuckerman is an activist, academic and engineer whose work focuses on technology in the developing world. In 2004, he co-founded Global Voices, an award-winning international citizen media network. Global Voices maintains an online newsroom, which reports from over 100 nations via weblogs and a translation network that publishes content in 12 languages. Global Voices offers trainings in citizen medium podcasting and videocasting throughout the developing world, and runs an advocacy project that supports free speech online. Ethan became a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School in January, 2003. His work at Berkman focuses on the impact of technology on the developing world. His current projects include a study of global media attention, research on the use of weblogs and other social software in the developing world, and the use of web 2.0 technologies by activists.

Prior to his work at Harvard, Ethan was involved with founding several internet start-ups. He helped co-found Tripod, an early pioneer in the web community space. Ethan served as Tripod's first graphic designer and developer, and later as VP of Business Development and VP of Research and Development. After Tripod's acquisition by Lycos in 1998, Ethan served as General Manager of the Angelfire.com division and as a member of the Lycos mergers and acquisitions team. Ethan then went on to found Geekcorps, a non profit group that provided technology assitance to governments and companies in the developing world.

Ethan graduated from Williams College with a BA in Philosophy in 1993. In 1993-4, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Legon, Ghana and the National Theatre of Ghana, studying ethnomusicology and percussion.

Ethan was given the 2002 Technology in Service of Humanity Award by MIT's Technology Review Magazine and named to the TR100, TR's list of innovators under the age of 35. In 2004, Ethan was named a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum.

He lives the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts with his wife Rachel. He serves on the boards of regional and international organizations that focus on technology and education, including on the sub-boards of the Open Society Institute's Information Program and US Program.

A Closer Look at Ethan

FOCUS AREAS
What's on Ethan's current research agenda?

Anonymity - How do we allow people who need to be anonymous - whistleblowers, activists - to stay so online while addressing legitimate concerns about terrorism and security? What's anonymity good for and why is it worth fighting for?

Xenophilia - What are the motivations that encourage people to pay attention to events outside of their home countries? What's the importance of international news in economic, security and cultural spheres? What makes some people well-positioned to build bridges between different cultural corners of the world?

Collective Joint Projects - Japanese and American teens work together on subtitling cartoons and release the results on the internet. Gamers from throughout the world join forces on an Icelandic webserver to pilot virtual spacecraft. How do shared projects make it possible for people to bridge linguistic and cultural differences?

Incremental infrastructure - The future of infrastructure in the developing world isn't huge World Bank-funded projects; it's small, scalable infrastructure deployed by entrepreneurs, who make modest investments and use the profits to expand their networks. How will this shape power, transport and telecommunications in emerging markets around the globe?

African innovation - Determined to make technology work in their own unique situations, Africans are repurposing - hacking - technology in novel, innovative and inspiring ways. From inventions as low-tech as a bicycle-powered knife sharpener, to as high tech as long-distance wireless networks, African hackers demonstrate that developed nations have no monopoly on innovation and that the unique challenges of the developing world can inspire novel and widely applicable solutions.

ENGAGEMENTS
How have other organizations utilized Ethan's expertise, and what's ahead on his schedule?

Speaking engagements in the past have included Pop!Tech, Idea Festival, PUSH, Les Blogs, ETech, NetSquared, Al-Jazeera Forum, TTI/Vanguard, UNITAR, FAO, World Bank, World Economic Forum, Highlands Forum. Ethan regularly consults to Open Society Institute, Dutch development agency Hivos, and the US Agency for International Development on issues of technology and development, and to Reuters, Al Jazeera, the BBC and the US government on international citizen media. He has advised the governments of several African nations, and to their international donors about telecommunications policy.

Upcoming speaking engagements include a keynote at the Ontario Libraries Association, a session at ETech, and a discussion at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy.

SPHERE OF INFLUENCE
Who shapes Ethan's thinking and inspires his work?

Most of Ethan's work on media is following in the steps of Johan Galtung, who outlined the fundamental problems of media attention in 1965. He leans heavily on Kwame Appiah's work on Cosmopolitanism for his understanding of the generation of web users who build bridges between peoples, languages and cultures. He is deeply influenced by the ideas of John Perry Barlow, Howard Rheingold and Stewart Brand in thinking about intercultural relationships in cyberspace - much of his thinking attempts to problematize their work. Jay Rosen, Dan Gillmor and Joi Ito help frame his thinking about the current role of citizen media.

RECOMMENDED READING
What's on Ethan's must-read list?

In his own words . . .

"Let Their People Come" by Lant Pritchett, the smartest thing I've read on immigration in a long time
"Globalization and its Enemies" by Daniel Cohen, who makes more sense than French economists generally do
"Infotopia" by Cass Sunstein and "The Wealth of Networks" by Yochai Benkler are shelved together so they can argue, silently, perpetually
"Pattern Recognition", William Gibson, who seems to see my future more clearly than I can
"Cosmopolitanism" by Kwame Appiah

MIND FUEL
Which blogs, web sites, and industry events does Ethan tap into to feed his mind and fuel his creativity?

Ethan is a regular at TED and Pop!Tech - he blogs both conferences, and relies on them to refresh his thinking annually. He is also a big fan of ETech, Idea Festival, and any other conference that allows smart people to speak for long periods of time. (Down with panels! Up with long speeches!)

He reads a couple dozen websites each day, including Foreign Policy's Passport blog, Jan Chipchase's brilliant blog on technology and culture, Marc Lynch on the arab world, and many of the bloggers in the Global Voices orbit - Afrigadget, Meskel Square, Kenyan Pundit, Mohammed Nanabhey, Saudi Jeans. Ethan leans heavily on his colleagues at the Berkman Center and at Global Voices for inspiration, and gets enormous mind fuel from his blog readers, who often send great stories his way. He is an addicted del.icio.us user and often uses other people's bookmarks as his path into new subjects and ideas.

OUTREACH
What are Ethan's pressing questions, and on which topics does he seek your feedback?

What do we need news to do for us as citizens?

How do we get people to pay attention to issues throughout the world, not just issues we already know about?

How do we encourage responsible and civil conversation while protecting anonymity for people who really need it?

How do we rebrand Africa as a place of hope and opportunity, not one of dysfunction and poverty?