Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Public Policy
Union
Square Sessions - June 15, 2006, 10:00 AM - New York City
About Sessions
A couple
of times a year Union Square Ventures brings together a small group for a day
long conversation about ideas or events that could change the course of the information
technology industry. We call these conversations Union Square Sessions.
Last
fall the conversation was about peer production, the engine that drives eBay,
Skype, Craigslist, Flikr, Del.icio.us, and many other innovative web
services. We had a
great group of participants and an energetic discussion. We tried to summarize some of the insights in a series of blog
posts on our site.
Union Square Sessions, June 2006 - Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Public Policy
For the last 30 years information technology
venture capitalists and the entrepreneurs they backed were largely insulated
from the impact of public policy. Today, however, proposed telecommunications
and consumer privacy legislation, and case law interpreting outdated
intellectual property law has a big impact on the opportunity for start up
companies.
Sessions June 2006 will
try to address these questions:
1)
Will
the current direction of US
public policy, including proposed legislation, recent regulatory actions, and
enforcement efforts around intellectual property, consumer protection, and
antitrust help or hurt innovation?
2)
Are
there a set of principles that should guide policy makers to maximize the
probability of a balanced policy that will encourage innovation
3)
Will
ill advised public policy dampen innovation or just change the locus of that
innovation in the way it has online gambling? In other words, is it innovation
that is at risk or national competitiveness and healthy financial markets that
are at risk?
Our goal
with this event is bring the voice of the venture capital community into this
debate at a critical moment when policy is unsettled and change is possible.
The format will be a moderated discussion. There will be no speakers, or
panels. Rather, we will expect the active participation of everyone who
attend.
Participants
Click here to see a list of confirmed participants
Agenda
10:00 Framing the Discussion (more)
10:30 Intellectual
Property – Does the current regime help or hurt innovation in the digital
economy? (more)
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Legislation
/ Regulation – What is the potential impact of proposed
telecommunications legislation and regulatory actions on
entrepreneurship and venture capital? (more)
3:00 What would a balanced legal and regulatory framework look like? (more)
4:00 Adjourn
Logistics
Date - June 15th, 2006
Time - 10AM-4:00PM
Location - Wolman Hall, 65 West 11th Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY
Acknowledgements
All of us
at Union Square Ventures have been thinking about the relationship between
innovation and public policy for our entire careers. During that time we have
worked with many bright people who have shaped our thinking – too many over too
many years to recall much less mention.
We are
grateful for Yochai Benkler’s introduction to The Information Society Project
at the Yale Law School and its Access to Knowledge Conference.
Even though the scope of this Sessions event is much narrower, we have taken advantage
of a lot of the work they have done to assemble lists of resources and to
identify subject matter experts.
We are
also grateful to the Berkman Center for their very useful web site and their advocacy of innovation on the web.