Program or Be Programmed author Douglas Rushkoff proposes that we fork the Internet, and he's convening a summit on the subject. Contact will be held October 20, 2011 at the Angel Orensanz Center in New York City. From Rushkoff's description, it sounds like it will be conference/unconference hybrid: there will be scheduled speakers, but attendees will also be able to convene meetings at the event.
We've highlighted a few projects that aim to create a create government-less Internet before. This isn't a new idea for Rushkoff either. In this CNN piece he suggested the creation of a new Internet that would work a bit more like FidoNet.
Here's Rushkoff's proposed list of subjects:
TECHNOLOGYBUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
- Can we build an alternative Internet that can't be turned off?
- Alternatives to top-down registries and corporate-controlled access
CULTURE
- New net-based currencies and transaction networks
- Net-enabled Local Activism and Job Creation
GOVERNMENT
- Arts networking initiatives
- Decentralized social networking platforms
MEANING
- Proxy voting to expert friends
- open source democracy
- "Filter Bubbles" and how to prevent them
- What Factors Facilitate Collective Intelligence?
- The Reclamation of Public Space
"Contact will hope to revive the spirit of optimism and infinite possibility of the early cyber-era, folding the edges of this culture back to the middle," Rushkoff writes. That sounds a little too utopian and nostalgic, but this is an important event. I also like the slogan: "Content was never king. Contact is."