My good friend Morgan Ames is putting on a really great afternoon conference in a few weeks at Stanford University, Designing for Freedom: Values in Communication Technologies. It’s a critical examination into how communication technology designers build certain values into their products and how users react to these products. 

Morgan will be speaking on the panel about her dissertation research on OLPC (One Lap Top Per Child) along with two other panelists, Batya Friedman, Jenna Burrell, and Mark Warschauer. And Fred Turner will be moderating the panel!

So get out of the office for a few hours and meet all the awesome people who are coming together for this! If you are in the Bay Area you should come! I will be there so let me know if you end up coming - would love to chat! 

Designing for Freedom: Values in Communication Technologies

Monday, May 17, 2010, 3pm-5:30pm
Stanford UniversityMendenhall Library, McClatchy Hall, Stanford University
Reception following, Free and Open to the Public

Communication technologies have long been heralded as the harbingers of unprecedented freedoms, including the promise of decoupling expression from physical constraints and political scrutiny. These promises are not accidental: many organizations, from private corporations like Google to open-source software projects like One Laptop Per Child, specifically build their machines and software to embody these values. When we account for the sundry cultures of designers and users, what are the implications of these technologies for society and free expression? The 2010 Rebele First Amendment Panel will explore the ways in which the design and use of communication technologies can help or hinder freedom of expression. We will discuss the process by which technologies come to embody and symbolize values, how values are negotiated by various groups as the technology goes into use, and the implications of these processes for free communication. 

This panel brings together three pre-eminent scholars at the forefront of this research area: Batya Friedman,Mark Warschauer, and Jenna Burrell. These scholars draw from myriad disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies, communication, education, information science, and computer science. Batya Friedman, Professor at the University of Washington and Co-director of the Value-Sensitive Design Research Laboratory, has provided a methodological framework for studying values in the design of technologies and offers a designer’s perspective on the integration of values into technology. Mark Warschauer, Professor at University of California, Irvine and Founding Director of its Digital Learning Lab, is a leading scholar of technology in education, the digital divide, and technology and development. Jenna Burrell, Assistant Professor at University of California, Berkeley, has analyzed technosocial practices in post-colonial countries, particularly Africa. Organizer Morgan Ames will join these scholars by discussing her recent work on the values that families create around communication and media technologies and her upcoming dissertation research on the social meanings of the One Laptop Per Child project. Associate Professor Fred Turner will moderate the discussion.