Berkeley Amsterdam Cybersalon: Cities as Digital Communities September 27, 2006

The modern metropolis is about to get wired. Open, low-cost or free access to digital networks is no longer a dream, but is happening in major cities around the globe, thanks in part to the Digital Sister Cities Initiative, which started right here in San Francisco. Want to know how this is going to revolutionize the world?

Come find out from some of the folks who are making it happen:

Joaquin Alvarado, director, San Francisco State University's Institute for Next Generation Internet, and cofounder of the Digital Sister Cities Initiative
Brendan Tuohy, Secretary General of Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Ireland
Chris Vein, CIO of San Francisco, and key architect of many SF digital initiatives
Marleen Stikker, founder, Digital City Amsterdam; director, media lab Waag Society
Martin Varsavsky, CEO of FON, enabling the largest wifi community in the world
TBA, Paris
TBA, Toronto
Esme de Guzman Vos, founder of Muniwireless.com, the portal for news and information about municipal wireless broadband projects.

This Cybersalon is part of Picnic ’06, an annual cutting-edge media conference celebrating creative genius. Cross Media Week Foundation, the nonprofit sponsor of the conference, was founded by Marleen Stikker (see above) and Bas Verhart, a Dutch media entrepreneur and CEO of Media Republic, a leading digital media and entertainment company.

DETAILS: Picnic ’06 runs from Sept. 27 to the 30th (see www.crossmediaweek.com) and kicks off with the Cybersalon. Cybersalon attendees get a discount ticket price (500 euros) to Picnic ’06. To register, go to here and type in the access code: 649251. For hotel information, check out weekendhotel.com, and for travel, KLM seems to have the lowest fares at the moment. Feel free to contact me if you need any advice. Even though this is billed as a picnic, I’d bring rain and cold weather gear….the Netherlands is pretty far north, compared with the Bay Area.

Sylvia Paull
Cybersalon host
whoisylvia@aol.com
510.527.0450

Official Website: http://www.berkeleycybersalon.com/