Berlin Symposium on Internet and Society

Exploring the Digital Future

We would like to thank all attendees for participating in the 1st Berlin Symposium on Internet and Society which took place at the end of October 2011. Together with national and international scientists we celebrated an extraordinary inauguration of the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society and succeeded in bringing together thoughts and ideas within the first Symposium in Berlin.

The symposium consisted of three elements:

The Research Symposium, taking place on October 26th and 27th, was a transdisciplinary academic conference which brought together researchers who are committed to work in the area of Internet and Society. Presentations and workshop discussions followed the leitmotiv to find the most interesting and prudent research questions. The workshops addressed questions about Internet governance, global constitutionalism, Internet innovation and information, and media law. Many international scholars across academic and professional fields shared their transnational perspective on societal opportunities and challenges of the internet.

The Inauguration on October 25th marked the official beginning of the new Institute for Internet and Society in Berlin which is named after the naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt. At the evening ceremony the scientific board and the board of trustees were announced. In a symbolic act David C. Drummond, Senior Vice President at Google handed over the new Institute’s logo to our four research directors.

The Open Science Forum on October 28th was designed based on a diverse and innovative format. In accordance to approaches of transdisciplinary research networks it was the intention to reconsider the questions of societal impacts of digitalisation with researchers and stakeholders from industry, politics and civil society interest groups. Various transdisciplinary working sessions took a closer look at real world problems of the information society.

Follow-Up

The exchange of perspectives during the symposium and the discussions in the workshops yielded an enormous output of ideas, remarks and new questions. Over the past weeks we’ve screened a lot of them and prepared an extensive paperwork to follow up on this event. Please find the documentation for each workshop and research topic by using the sidebar on the left. Additionally you will find an overview of the Symposium Draft Papers here

This follow-up is also meant as an invitation for further debates and participation. We will thereby help to set the research agenda and facilitate the emergence of joint projects among Internet & society scholars.

You can find a list of all workshops held below. If you click on the links, you will find a more detailed description of the workshops as well as a draft paper.