unis-un 2011: Wiring our world

The 35th annual UNIS-UN Conference, which is a unique collaboration between the United Nations International School (UNIS) and the United Nations, was held on March 3 - 4, 2011, in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations. The theme of the conference was "The Web: Wiring our World."

In the last decade or so, the Internet has undertaken a key role in every aspect of human life. People in all corners of the world rely on the Internet for information, entertainment, communication, business, social interaction, and virtually all other facets of human life. The benefits of the development of internet technology are many, but accompanying these benefits are numerous concerns. Regardless of whether it is viewed in a positive or negative light, the advent of the Internet has effectively revolutionized the lives of people in developed and developing countries alike.

The UNIS-UN conference concentrated on the evolving role of the Internet, and its far-reaching implications in different areas of society. The goal of the conference was to provide insight into a phenomenon that society has universally embraced without fully understanding its transformational powers. The conference examined such issues as the role of the internet in political movements; the moral and ethical questions concerning the privacy of information; the potential use of the Internet during conflicts such as cyber warfare; and on a more theoretical note, how the Internet has affected our thought process and our worldview.

unis parent, nyu journalism's clay shirky addresses unis-un

March 4, 2011

                    

NEW YORK - The second and final day of the Wiring our World UNIS - UN conference saw NYU Journalism professor Clay Shirky address hundreds of students from leading international secondary schools at a packed UN General Assembly hall. 

Shirky, 46, is a Yale graduate and onetime theater director, but splits his time today teaching digital journalism and new media courses in the Tisch School of the Arts and at the Journalism department of the Arts and Sciences college. He is also a parent of two junior school students at UNIS.

Much of Shirky’s address centered on the theme of “Cognitive Surplus,” which comes from the title of his latest non fiction book. He described the case of Facebook uniting women in India against extremist harassment and spoke of the revolutionary way that groups of people can interact among themselves and with other groups for social, cultural and political change.

“We have a medium that lets ourselves connect to each other in a way never before possible. This is the first time in history where most adults in the world are connected to the same communications grid,” he said.

He also address the criticisms of the Internet age, especially the charge that the web is more of a tool for frivolity like LOLCATS and other memes like viral videos. “That’s the easy stuff,” he said. What makes us laugh, said Shirky, is part of “the communal” Internet.

Sites for public good like Wikipedia, which he compared to the earliest printed scientific journals, exist in the Internet for “the public.” Users uploading data to a map of Kenya in order to document the ethnic violence that broke out there several years ago participated in “the civic” Internet.  The ongoing uprisings across the Arab world, created and propelled by new communication mediums like Facebook, Twitter, Audioboo, and cell phone videos of violence uploaded to YouTube, are for Shirky clear examples of this civic movement.

Ending his intriguing address, Shirky reminded the students that it is their generation to whom the adults of today turn when stumped by technology. Those students will live much more of their lives with these new mediums than those of Shirky’s generation.

“I’m old. I’ve been watching the Internet for 20 years. You guys just got here.”

By Adrian Fussell