{"id":7752,"date":"2009-02-24T09:29:52","date_gmt":"2009-02-24T09:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/e-commerce\/freedom_to_connect.html"},"modified":"2009-02-24T09:29:52","modified_gmt":"2009-02-24T09:29:52","slug":"freedom-to-connect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/e-commerce\/freedom-to-connect.html","title":{"rendered":"Freedom to Connect"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently had a chance to sit down with David Isenberg and discuss his Freedom to Connect<\/a> (F2C) conference which takes place March 30 & 31, 2009 in Washington DC. He reminded me the price for the conference goes up $100 on February 28 so you need to act quickly.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/span> David kindly offered readers of this blog $100 off if they register at this URL<\/a>. So until 2\/28 it’ll only cost you $395, then after that, when the list price goes up to $595, your discount will still be $100.<\/p>\n

There are a number of new speakers announced who join already-announced speakers such as the CIO of San Francisco, the CTO of Seattle, the Chief Technologist of the FCC, and the visionaries of Lafayette LA and Burlington VT municipal networks.<\/p>\n

Here are some of them:<\/p>\n

1) Kevin Werbach was co-leader of President Obama’s FCC Transition Team. He also produces the high-powered, well-respected SuperNova tech conference, and he authored the 1999 FCC report entitled, “Digital Tornado.”<\/p>\n

Kevin will discuss his experiences on the Obama FCC Transition and the prospects for the new FCC.<\/p>\n

2) Dan Gillmor, director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He’s also Kauffman Professor of digital media entrepreneurship. The Knight Center is working to help create a culture of innovation and risk-taking in journalism education, and in the wider media world. Dan will interview Kevin Werbach.<\/p>\n

3) Billy Ray, CEO, Glasgow (KY) Electric Power Board, In the mid-80s, Billy was spurred by energy crisis #2 and an unresponsive cableco to create a broadband network for the citizens of Glasgow KY. By 2001 it was serving 75% of Glasgow’s households at less than 60% of the U.S. average price. Today Ray is building FTTH and thinking about how fiber can asuage the need for new electric power plants. More<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4) Andrew C. Revkin is the New York Times science reporter on the “beat” of global climate disruption. He travels the world, witnessing first-hand changes that may indicate bigger changes to come. He’s surfing the edge of Internet reporting on his blog dotEarth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5) L. Aaron Kaplan will discuss how Vienna Austria’s community-built, community-owned, 500-device, 30-km diameter, Wi-Fi mesh network, free-of-charge to its users has achieved financial sustainability. More<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It seems like a great event. Here are more details:<\/p>\n

F2C 2009:The Emerging Internet Economy<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

All eyes are on the economy. The Obama Administration has declared the Internet a keystone.<\/p>\n

F2C 2009 presents the people of the Internet who:<\/i><\/div>\n