Wednesday April 7th, 2021, 10:00am EDT
“Developing an Actionable Risk Management Framework Tool to Mitigate Cybersecurity Threats in Financial Inclusion”

On Wednesday April 7^th the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information will be holding a webinar of its Digital Financial Services Observatory project.  This webinar will cover this history of the DFSO, the work that the DFSO has accomplished over the last two years on Cybersecurity, and most importantly, how the DFSO is currently working to develop an actionable risk management framework web tool for mitigating threats in financial inclusion.  

• Eli Noam, Professor of Finance and Economics and Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility, Columbia University Business School
• Keith Bowie, Cybersecurity Expert and Associate Research Scholar, Digital Financial Services Observatory, Columbia University
•  Michael Wechsler, Associate Research Scholar, Digital Financial Services Observatory, Columbia University
• Jason Adam Buckweitz, Executive Director, Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, Columbia Business School
• Leon Perlman, Research Scholar, Columbia Business School

Thursday April 1st, 2021, 12:00pm-1:00pm EDT
Anindya Ghose
Professor of Technology and Marketing at NYU
“Using Mobile Technologies to Improve Business and Society”

Anindya Ghose is the author of TAP: Unlocking the Mobile Economy which was a double winner in the 2018 Axiom Business Book Awards and has been translated into five languages. Ghose’s work primarily discusses the machinations and effects of Internet and electronic systems on social economic impact. In 2014 he was named by the MBA student blog Poets and Quants as one of the “Top 40 Professors Under 40 Worldwide” and by Analytics Week as one the “Top 200 Thought Leaders in Big Data and Business Analytics”. In 2017 he was recognized by Thinkers50 as one of the Top 30 Management Thinkers globally most likely to shape the future of how organizations are managed and led in the next generation. In 2019, he was recognized by Web of Science citation Index in the top 1% of researchers selected for their significant influence in their fields over a 10 year period.

This presentation will analyze how mobile communications technologies shape consumer behavior, based on nine forces that operate separately and in combination. One application are mobile health platforms.  Ghose will report on a large-scale field experiment.

Thursday March 4th, 2021, 12:00pm-1:00pm EST
Robert Metcalfe
Professor of Innovation, University of Texas-Austin
“Pathologies of Connectivity”

Bob Metcalfe has been an internet pioneer since its inception, and the inventor of ethernet, one of the core inventions that enabled the internet.  He went on to found the multibillion-dollar networking company 3Com, now part of HP. He received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. 

Metcalfe will discuss the single most important new fact about the human condition, that we are now all connected. Connectivity has its own rules — e.g. “Metcalfe’s Law” — and its dimensions of disruptions, pathologies, and paradoxes. And now comes the ‘augmented video mobile gigabit Internet of Things’, adding another acceleration. This is a join event with the International Media Management Academic Association.

Monday, March 1st, 2021 12:00-1:00pm ES
CITI Fellows program: Lisa George, a CITI Fellow and Associate Professor of Economics at Hunter College.
“Polarization & Persuasion: Evidence from Media Research”

In 2016 entrepreneur Mostafa M. El-Bermawy wrote in Wired that “the global village that was once the internet was has been replaced by digital islands of isolation that are drifting further apart each day.” What does the research tell us about the extent and impact?

Thursday, February 4th, 2021 12:00-1:00pm EST
Chris W. Anderson
Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds
“Quantifying Values: Metrics, Objectification, and the Shifting Ground of Newsroom Norms“

Chris Anderson is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds and a member of the board of advisors at the Tow Center, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He studied journalism, politics, and how the production of public knowledge is being transformed in the digital age. His most recent publication is Apostles of Certainty: Data Journalism and the Politics of Doubt (Oxford University Press), which tells the intertwined history of data journalism and the social sciences in the United States

Prior to teaching at the University of Leeds, he was an Associate Professor of Media Culture at the City University of New York. This is a join event with the International Media Management Academic Association.

Monday, February 1st, 2021 12:00-1:00pm EST
CITI Fellows program: All-Fellows roundtable.
Reprise of the discussion initiated by Nadine Strossen’s, presentation January 4 “The paradox of free speech in the digital world.”

Private-sector censors are not restricted by the First Amendment; to the contrary, they are shielded by it. Worse yet, government officials pressure the companies to limit expression in ways that governments themselves could not lawfully do. No matter how strictly courts curb government censorship, we won’t enjoy meaningful freedom of speech if cancel culture and the platforms’ speech restrictions proceed unchecked.

How then do we rein in, if at all, violent and racist speech, disinformation and similar threats to civil society without undermining what are generally accepted as fundamental rights?

Thursday January 21st, 2021, 12:00pm-1:00pm EST
Lawrence Lessig
Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School
“The Business Model of Democratic Culture”

Lawrence Lessig is a noted academic and activist. He has been a thought leader on cyberspace law, intellectual property, spectrum, and electoral reforms. His books in the media field include “Code and other Laws of Cyberspace”; “The Future of Ideas”; “Free Culture”; “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.” Lessig has been described by another pathbreaking legal scholar, Richard Posner, as “the most distinguished law professor of his generation.”  Lessig was the founder of Creative Commons, which aims to make creative work freely and easily available.  He has long been a supporter of open source/open access/net neutrality. In 2016, he was a candidate for President of the United States, running for the Democratic Party’s nomination. This is a join event with the International Media Management Academic Association.

Monday, January 4th, 2021 12:00-1:00pm EST
CITI Fellows program: Nadine Strossen, John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law, Emerita at New York Law School
“The paradox of free speech in the digital world”

The protection of free speech has never been so strong – or so weak. On the one hand, American courts have strongly and consistently resisted government censorship. On the other hand, unprecedented numbers of speakers are being silenced through sweeping non-governmental censorship – by private platforms seeking profit maximization, and by private groups pressuring these companies to limit controversial voices. 

Such private-sector censors are not restricted by the First Amendment; to the contrary, they are shielded by it. Worse yet, government officials pressure the companies to limit expression in ways that governments themselves could not lawfully do. No matter how strictly courts curb government censorship, we won’t enjoy meaningful freedom of speech if cancel culture and the platforms’ speech restrictions proceed unchecked. Free speech advocates must hence refocus their efforts. 

Prof. Strossen will outline several possible options, and welcome ideas and feedback from the CITI Fellows.

Tuesday, December 1st, 2020, 10:30am EST
“The Impact of Auctions on Wireless Market Dynamics”

The webinar will provide an empirical analysis of the impact of auctions on market dynamics.  Speakers will address European experience in 4G – there, low band auctions have allowed larger incumbents to win more spectrum and increase market shares, but the same is not true for higher band auctions for capacity spectrum.  The webinar will also discuss how package bidding appears to facilitate increased ex post concentration of spectrum holdings.  The impact of concentration in spectrum markets and retail markets on investment will also be discussed. Finally, the webinar will address the extent to which government intervention can be effective to ensure competition