The Microsoft Law and the Information Society Project
Building on our success with the Microsoft Program in Safe Computing, the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy (CILP) recently inaugurated the Microsoft Law and the Information Society Project. The overall purpose of the program is to raise the level of public and scholarly discussion of issues central to law and the information society, including such topics as computer science and the Humanities, the online practices of young people, and intellectual property law, digital technologies, and the knowledge economy.
The unifying topic for 2007-2008 will be Education, Culture and the Knowledge Economy. This broad topic will catalyze fruitful connections between the Microsoft Law and the Information Society Project and other ongoing CILP initiatives dealing with the connections between technology, economy and culture from an interdisciplinary perspective. Cross-disciplinary dialogue between law and other fields dealing with technology and the information society from the perspective of cultural and educational concerns is underdeveloped in Canada and globally. We see the Microsoft Law and the Information Society Project as an opportunity to fill this gap in public discussion and scholarship.
Examples of topics falling within the 2007-2008 theme include examinations of the challenges that the knowledge economy presents for education policy, for immigration policy, for the understanding of the development of youth online sub-cultures, for the commercial and non-commercial exploitation of indigenous knowledge and culture, and for the respect and transformation of intellectual property laws widely conceived. These examinations will take place both through a variety of discussions (both formal and informal) with concerned groups and through resulting scholarly analyses.
This year’s program will consist of a major symposium on Education, Culture and the Knowledge Economy planned for June 6, 2008, and a speaker series on Law and the Information Society throughout the academic year.
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