Recent & Upcoming Events
May 2, 2024, 11:00am-12:00pm
CITI-IMMAA Seminar: Dr. Jonas Fohr and Florian Schmitt, Strategic management Consultants at Suedwestrundfunk (Germany)
"Understanding Today to Plan for Tomorrow: How a German Public Service Media Company Applies Strategic Foresight to Prepare foro Tomorrow"
Organized by Uwe Eisenbeis, Stuttgart Media University
Link to register: https://cglink.me/2ca/r71039
April 4, 2024, 11:00am-12:00pm
CITI-IMMAA Seminar: John Sargent, Former CEO Macmillan Publishers and Executive Vice President of Holztbrinck Publishing Group
"The Economics and Management of Online Book Publishing"
Organized by Eli Noam, Columbia University
Link to register: https://cglink.me/2ca/r71038
March 19, 2024, 11:00am-12:30pm
The WTO's Digital Trade Negotiations in the Wake of its 13th Ministerial Conference
Register at https://cglink.me/2ca/r72086
The World Trade Organization is struggling to respond to the proliferation of national restrictions and trade barriers in the global digital economy. The largely failed 13th Ministerial Conference that concluded on March 2, 2024 barely managed in its last hour to extend the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions until 2026. The 90-member Joint Service Initiative launched in 2017 has been unable to finalize a negotiating text even after dropping or indefinitely pausing work on its most important but contentious issues. These include: barriers to cross-border data flows, forced data localization, forced disclosure of source code, the non-discriminatory treatment of digital products, and online platforms, among others. A key factor in this downsizing of ambitions was the US government’s extremely contentious October 2023 decision to reverse its longstanding push for strong disciplines on such items. If the negotiations ultimately produce a result, it may be more the kind of minimalist trade facilitation agreement favored by China rather than the sort of ambitious liberalization deal previously championed by the United States.
What are the prospects for global digital trade negotiations in the years ahead? What would a minimalist outcome mean for the growth of territorial borders on global flows, and Internet fragmentation? Would the sidelining of inclusive multilateral institutions further strengthen the trend toward a spaghetti bowl of varying minilateral trade deals that exclude much of the developing world? Is a sharper geopolitical clash between diverging models of digital capitalism becoming likely?
This webinar assembles a panel of leading experts on global digital trade policy to consider these and other questions. As always, the panelists’ conversation will be followed by an open dialogue among all webinar participants.
Introduction of the topic
Eli Noam is Paul Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility, Emeritus, and Director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia Business School.
Moderator
William J. Drake is Director of International Studies at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School.
Panelists
Mira Burri is Professor of International Economic and Internet Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lucerne. She is the principal investigator of the ‘Trade Law 4.0’ project, and was previously a senior fellow at the World Trade Institute, University of Bern. She is the co-author of The Classification of Services in the Digital Economy and the editor of Trade Governance in the Digital Age and Big Data and Global Trade Law. (Switzerland)
Anupam Chander is the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and Technology at Georgetown Law School. He was previously the Director of the California International Law Center and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis. He is the author The Electronic Silk Road: How the Web Binds the World in Commerce, and the co-editor of Data Sovereignty: From the Digital Silk Road to the Return of the State. (USA)
Martina F. Ferracane is a Research Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and academic manager of the Digital Trade Integration Project. She acts regularly as a consultant for several organizations, including the United Nations, the World Economic Forum and the World Bank. Martina also founded and manages FabLab Western Sicily and was listed in Forbes30U30 for her work with an innovative startup. (Italy)
March 12, 2024, 10:00am-12:35pm (Washington, DC)
Research Roundtable: AI Governance - Overcoming the Problems of AI: Regulation & Alternative Approaches
Sponsored by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) of Japan
Eli Noam and Jason Buckeweitz presented their paper: Overcoming the Problems of Artificial Intelligence in the United States: Regulation and Alternative Approaches
March 7, 2024, 11:00am-12:00pm
CITI-IMMAA Seminar: Xavier Oliver, Former President of Tiempo BBDO Advertising Agency and Professor fo the IESE Business School
"The Paradox of the Content Consumer"
Organized by Mercedes Medina, University of Navarra
Link to register: https://cglink.me/2ca/r71036
January 23, 2024, 11:00am-12:30pm
The UN Cybercrime Convention Negotiations: Implications for Human Rights and Internet Openness
Register at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/un-cybercrime-convention-negotiations-implications-for-human-rights-tickets-794617230527
In December 2019, the UN General Assembly approved on a 79-60 vote (with 33 abstentions) a resolution calling for the negotiation of a comprehensive international convention on cybercrime. Sponsored by Russia with support from China, Iran and other like-minded countries, the resolution established an Ad Hoc Committee (AHC) charged with elaborating a text. The AHC held six sessions in 2022 and 2023 and will have a concluding session from January 29 to February 9, 2024 in New York. The draft treaty will then be taken up by the UN General Assembly in September.
The treaty’s ardent proponents maintain that existing intergovernmental mechanisms like the 2001 Budapest Convention on Cybercrime are inadequate, and that a stronger and more broadly scoped UN mechanism is needed to tackle the evolving landscape of cybercrime. The treaty’s critics counter that the draft text is far too expansive (and indeed goes beyond cybercrime), criminalizes an arbitrary laundry list of speech and behavior, undermines multiple civil liberties, unduly constrains technology providers and users, and promotes extraterritorial surveillance and mutual law enforcement procedures that could extend the reach of repressive policing. Other governments have taken various positions along the continuum between these polar stances.
Convened a week before the final AHC negotiation, this webinar assembles a panel of leading analysts and participants in the cybercrime treaty debate in order to illuminate the state of play. We will assess the major issues with the draft text, the international coalitions and bargaining dynamics that are shaping the process, and the possible scenarios for a negotiated outcome in the months ahead. As always, the panelists’ conversation will be followed by an open dialogue among all webinar participants.
Introduction of the topic
Eli Noam is Paul Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility, Emeritus, and Director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia Business School.
Moderator
William J. Drake is Director of International Studies at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School.
Panelists
Nick Ashton-Hart is the Senior Director for Digital Economy Policy at APCO Worldwide. He participates in the UN cybercrime convention negotiations as the Head of Delegation of the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, a coalition of over 150 companies. Nick also participates in other international organization processes, including as a member of UK delegations to the International Telecommunication Union. (USA)
Katitza Rodriguez has been the Global Privacy Policy Director of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation since April 2010. In 2018, CNET named her one of the top 20 most influential Latinos in tech. Previously, Katitza directed the international privacy program at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. (USA)
Tatiana Tropina is Assistant Professor in cybersecurity governance at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University. She is a co-chair of the Freedom Online Coalition Advisory Network, and has held various leadership position at ICANN community. Previously, Tatiana was a senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law. (Netherlands)
February 1, 2024, 11:00am-12:00pm
CITI-IMMAA Seminar: Luisa Ribeiro, Chief Financial Officer and member of the Executive Board at Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP)
"How Public Service Media can Manage in the Age of Streaming and Online?"
Luísa Ribeiro combines research and managerial experience. On the academic side, she holds a PhD in Finance from the Faculty of Economics of Porto. Having completed executive training courses at Insead, IMD, and Hult Ashridge, she has delved into fundamental research on the evolution of business models within the television industry. Her academic pursuits have included a focused examination of the impact of digital platforms on traditional television business structures.
On the mangerial side, she serves as the Chief Financial Officer and member of the Executive Board at Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP). RTP is the Portuguese public service media organization responsible for 8 television channels, 7 radio stations, and an online platform for live content .
She oversees the following areas as her direct reports: finance, planning and control, human resources, engineering and information systems, commercial operations (covering linear, radio, and online advertising, as well as national and international distribution), procurement, and an RTP Production Center.
Previously, she was a manager at a financial software house and a Partner at a venture capital fund where she played a key role in initiating a portfolio of IT and MedTech companies. She was on the founding team of the telecom and IT venture subsidiary of Sonae, the largest Portuguese conglomerate, and participated in numerous mergers and acquisitions.
Throughout her academic journey she conducted in-depth studies on the audio-visual sector, with published work exploring the cable television industry, advertising dynamics, and media management. She served as a board member of the European Media Management Association (emma).
January 11, 2024, 11:00am-12:00pm
CITI-IMMAA Seminar: Dr. Christopher Bauer, CEO, DuMont Group (Germany)
Market and Institutional Challenges in Leading the Transformation of a German Regional Publisher into a Digital Asset Holder – Dumont Group as a Case in Point
Dr. Christoph Bauer is the Group CEO of DuMont, a leading media company in Germany, with its foundation going back to 1620. At DuMont, he has initiated and leads the transformation journey towards profitability and has set the company on a growth trajectory for becoming a digitally driven company. Through his entrepreneurial strategy, he is leading the transformation agenda along three business units: content (regional media activities), data (business information services) and technology (marketing technology software as a service), ensuring both, profitable growth and resilience.
Dr. Bauer holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration, and studied at University of Mannheim, Arizona State University and University of Oldenburg. Since the advent of the Internet in the mid-1990s, he has been a pioneer in the digitization of media companies and business models of all genres. He has over 20 years of experience in the media industry, with executive positions at Bertelsmann, NZZ, Ringier, AZ Medien.