iConference 2012 | Keynote Speakers

The iConference has a tradition of inviting learned and provocative thought-leaders to provide their perspective on issues facing the information field. We are pleased to announce that Ron Deibert and Geoffrey Nunberg will deliver the keynote addresses at iConference 2012 in Toronto.

Ron Deibert is professor of Political Science, and director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary research and development hothouse working at the intersection of the Internet, global security, and human rights. Deibert is a co-founder and a principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative and Information Warfare Monitor projects.

Deibert was one of the founders and (former) VP of global policy and outreach for Psiphon Inc. Deibert has published numerous articles, chapters, and three books on issues related to technology, media, and world politics. He has been a consultant and advisor to governments, international organizations, and civil society on issues relating to Internet censorship, surveillance and information warfare.

Deibert presently serves on the editorial board of the journals International Political Sociology, Security Dialogue, Explorations in Media Ecology, Review of Policy Research, and Astropolitics. He is on the advisory boards of The Watson Institute for International Studies’ InfoTechWarPeace project (Brown University), Access Now, and Privacy International; he is also a member of the board of directors of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.

Deibert was awarded the University of Toronto Outstanding Teaching Award (2002), the Northrop Frye Distinguished Teaching and Research Award (2002), and the Carolyn Tuohy Award for Public Policy (2010). He was a Ford Foundation research scholar of Information and communication technologies (2002-2004).

Deibert’s Keynote Abstract

“What was once a domain characterized by openness and the free exchange of ideas, cyberspace is being re-shaped by technological changes, a growing underworld of cyber crime, a burgeoning cyber security industrial complex that feeds a cyber arms race, and an increasingly intense geopolitical contest over the domain itself.

“Together, these driving forces are creating a kind of ‘perfect storm’ in cyberspace that threats to subvert it entirely either through over-reaction, the imposition of heavy-handed controls, or through partition and cantoning.

“To restore cyberspace as an open global commons will require a multi-layered strategy, from the local to the global.

“Drawing from the research and other activities of the Citizen Lab, Deibert discusses the ‘Coming Perfect Storm in Cyberspace’ and what is to be done to prepare for it.”

Visit the Citizen Lab website to learn more about Deibert.

Geoffrey Nunberg is an adjunct full professor at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley. His linguistics research includes work in semantics and pragmatics, text classification, and written-language structure; he also works and writes on the social and cultural implications of new technologies.

Nunberg has written scholarly books and articles on a range of topics, including semantics and pragmatics, information access, written language structure, multilingualism and language policy, and the cultural implications of digital technologies. His books include The Years of Talking Dangerously (2009), Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show (2006), Going Nucular (2004), and The Way We Talk Now (2001).

Nunberg does a recurring feature on language for National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air,” is the emeritus chair of the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and has served as an expert witness in numerous high-profile court cases, including the American Library Association's legal challenge of the Children's Internet Protection Act, which mandates the use of Internet filtering software in all libraries that receive the e-rate subsidy.

Until 2001, Nunberg was a principal scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, working on the development of linguistic technologies.

Nunberg’s Keynote Abstract

Title: A Word Whose Time has Come: A Brief History of ‘Information.’

“It's the name we've given to the age itself, to its dominant technologies, to the economy and professions that have grown up around them, to a basic divide between the sectors of society, to the fundamental organizing principles of physics and biology, and by-the-by, to a clutch of new university faculties dedicated to congealing it all into a coherent field of study. Behind it all is the assumption that the stuff sitting on our hard drives is the same stuff that constitutes the basis of life, the source of our material wealth, and the oil that ensures the healthy functioning of free societies. Is "information" the first principle of postmodernity, or is this all just a colossal, if handy, play on words -- what William James was getting at when he wrote, "Whenever we have made a word to denote a certain group of phenomena, we are prone to suppose a substantive entity existing beyond the phenomena, of which the word shall be the name"? In this talk, I'll briefly review just how we got here, lexically speaking.”

Visit the UC Berkeley website to learn more about Nunberg.