Emerging Technologies for Community-Controlled Infrastructure
Presenters
- Nina Bianchi
Detroit Project Archive
Nina Bianchi is the principal of Detroit Project Archive, an interdisciplinary design collaborative based in Detroit. Nina's design methodology hinges on accessible, humanistic and flexible communication design and development. Nina is also a member of the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition and adjunct professor of graphic design at the College for Creative Studies. Nina’s passion for Detroit and ardent belief in design as an agent of change combine in her community-based work, including the Detroit Mini Assembly Line, Detroit Project Archive, DDJC Discotech Workshops and A People’s Guide to Detroit, to name a few.
- Joshua Breitbart
Senior Field Analyst, Open Technology Initiative
As senior field analyst for the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation, Joshua Breitbart learns how people adopt new technologies and participate in discussions of telecommunications policy. He directs this knowledge toward the initiative's efforts to strengthen broadband deployment, adoption and utilization.
Joshua was formerly the policy director for People's Production House, which provides media education in New York and Washington, D.C. Before that, he was communications director for Media Tank in Philadelphia, and from 2002-2007, was an organizer of the Allied Media Conference, based in Detroit. He has extensive experience in participatory media, having worked in print, web and video, including co-founding Brooklyn's Rooftop Films in 1998. Joshua has a B.A. in American history from Columbia University and is an alumnus of Deep Springs College.
- James Carlson
Carlson Wireless Technologies
James Carlson has spent the last two decades creating breakthrough technology that enables wireless communication solutions for rural areas worldwide. In 1990, he invented the Optaphone, a point-to-point radio that provided a wireless means of standard telephone service in isolated areas. Within a few years, thousands of Optaphones were in service around the world, from Antarctica to the jungles of Peru. In 1999, Mr. Carlson founded Carlson Wireless Technologies with a mission to bring high-speed data as well as voice services to remote and rural areas. Over the years, the company has established a reputation for reliable, mission-critical wireless voice and data products. Today, Carlson Wireless Technologies is once again on the cutting edge, with a software-defined radio that operates in the TV white spaces spectrum. Mr. Carlson majored in electrical engineering and computer science at Grand Rapids Community College in 1977 and received certification in application-specific integrated circuit design from Portland State University’s Center for Advanced Technology Education in 1997.
- Paul Fuxjaeger
Telecommunications Research Center Vienna
Paul Fuxjaeger works at the Telecommunications Research Center Vienna (also known as FTW) as a researcher in the field of decentralized wireless network architectures. He is active in several open-source projects in the field of software-radio implementations of current wireless standards. Open software-radio based wireless network stacks offer unprecedented levels of flexibility along various dimensions; e.g. they enable users and maintainers of community-driven wireless networks to prototype and test innovative ways to use and share the 'common' radio resource in order to increase efficiency and reliability of those networks. Paul majored in electrical engineering at technical university of Vienna, his research interests also include distributed online social networking architectures and associated socio-technical aspects.
- Amanda Garces
Mobile Voices Project
Amanda Garces is a former organizer for day laborers and other immigrant groups in New Jersey and Los Angeles. As an immigrant, she knows the daily struggles immigrants face and has dedicated herself to achieving social justice for immigrant families. Her commitment to the growth of organizations that support immigrant rights has prompted her to develop popular communications projects. She is the co-founder of the Mobile Voices Project in partnership with the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA) and the University of Southern California. Mobile Voices is an open source platform created with day laborers and household workers to share stories about their lives and communities directly from their cell phones. Amanda is also the former administrative controller for IDEPSCA and is currently finishing her M.A. in education leadership and change at Antioch University, Los Angeles.
Audio
- When
- Saturday, April 9, 4:00pm - 5:30pm
- Where
- Beacon Hill 2-3
map (pdf) - Track
- Technology and Innovation
Want to know how to build your own cell phone or broadband networks, or design your own software for mobile reporting? New technologies have made it increasingly possible for us to own our own systems for communication. These panelists are taking advantage of this opportunity to design and build networks that meet the needs of their communities, from rural California to urban Detroit. You will learn innovative education strategies to go from emerging technology to community-controlled infrastructure.
