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Aspen Forum 2018


2018 NEW RULES FOR THE DIGITAL ECONOMY?
AUGUST 19-21, 2018

The next administration will face difficult policy choices that will affect the pace and direction of innovation. How might a new administration think differently about issues as diverse as the future of connectivity, the tradeoff between privacy and security, incentives to invest in new infrastructure, technologies and content, and how to coordinate policies with our global partners? Would such changes be better for consumers and for economic growth generally? Speakers at the 2016 TPI Aspen Forum will look ahead to the critically important policy debates that will take place over the coming years.

For additional information, contact Jane Creel at [email protected]. Members of the press should contact David Fish at [email protected].

Sunday, August 19

  • 6:00 pm Opening Reception
    Welcoming Remarks

Monday, August 20

  • 8:30 am Keynote
    Paul RomerProfessor, New York University and Director, Marron Institute of Urban Management
  • 9:00 am Privacy, Big Data, And AI: China vs the US vs the EU?
    Julie Brill
    , Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Microsoft
    Ginger JinProfessor of Economics, University of Maryland, and former Director of FTC Bureau of Economics
    Leslie JohnAssociate Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
    Samm SacksSenior Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies
    Hal VarianChief Economist, Google
    Scott Wallsten (moderator), President and Senior Fellow, Technology Policy Institute
  • 10:15 am Antitrust Today: Whose Rules and Which Standards
    Roger Alford
    , ‎Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, US Department of Justice
    Alvaro RamosSenior Legal Director and Head of Global Antitrust, Qualcomm
    Joshua WrightUniversity Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Global Antitrust Institute, George Mason University Scalia School of Law
    Thomas Lenard (moderator), Senior Fellow and President Emeritus, Technology Policy Institute

  • 11:30 am Fireside Chat
    Bernard (Barry) A. NigroDeputy Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, United States Department Justice
    Victoria Graham, Reporter, Bloomberg Law
  • 1:00 pm Keynote: A Declaration of Accountability for Cyberspace
    Charles Rivkin, CEO, Motion Picture Association of America
  • 1:20 pm Platforms Under Fire: What Rules Apply?
    Shane GreensteinMartin Marshall Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
    Robert HahnVisiting Professor, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford University and Senior Fellow, Georgetown University, Center for Business and Public Policy
    Daphne KellerDirector of Intermediary Liability, Stanford Center for Internet and Society
    Steve TadelisProfessor of Economics, Business and Public Policy James J. and Marianne B. Lowrey Chair in Business, Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley
    Wilson WhiteDirector, Public Policy & Government Relations, Google
    Roger Noll (moderator), Professor of Economics Emeritus, Stanford University and Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
  • 7:00 pm Dinner and Concurrent Breakout Sessions
    Policy Issues in Blockchain
    David Andolfatto
    Vice President, Research Division, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
    Lisa GoldmanCounsel, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Digital Commerce, Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, United States House of Representatives
    Daniel GorfineDirector and Chief Innovation Officer, LabCFTC
    Steve HopkinsChief Operating Office and General Counsel, Medici Ventures, Inc.
    Daniel HuffCounsel, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law, United States House of Representatives
    Umair JavedLegal Advisor, Wireless and International, Office of FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, Federal Communications Commission
    Neha NarulaDirector of the Digital Currency Initiative, MIT Media Lab
    Mark O’RileyOffice of the General Counsel, Government and Regulatory Affairs, Emerging Technology Policy, IBM
    Greg RosstonDirector, Public Policy Program and Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University
    Sarah Oh (moderator), Research Fellow, Technology Policy Institute

    Spectrum: Will Dynamic Allocation Disrupt Business Models or is it Still a Chimera?

    Michelle Connolly, Professor of the Practice, Economics Department, Duke University
    David DonVice President, Regulatory Policy, Comcast
    Kathleen HamSenior Vice President, Government Affairs, T-Mobile
    Thomas HazlettH.H. Macaulay Endowed Chair in Economics, Clemson University
    Evan KwerelSenior Economic Advisor, Federal Communications Commission
    William LehrEconomist and Industry Consultant, Research Associate,  Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Michael PurdySenior Counsel, Google
    Scott Wallsten (moderator), President and Senior Fellow, Technology Policy Institute

    Digital Inclusion and the Smart City
    Mignon ClyburnFormer Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission
    Amy GlasmeierProfessor of Economic Geography and Regional Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Alfred HoProfessor of Public Administration at the University of Kansas School of Public Affairs and Administration
    Cate JohnsonProfessional Staff Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, United States House of Representatives
    Blair LevinNonresident Senior Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution
    Lauren McCarty, Counsel, Committee on House Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, United States House of Representatives
    Wallis RomzekResearch Associate, Technology Policy Institute
    Anne SchwiegerBroadband and Digital Equity Advocate, Department of Innovation & Technology, City of Boston
    John Horrigan (moderator), Senior Fellow, Technology Policy Institute

Tuesday, August 21

  • 8:30 am Fireside Chat
    The Honorable Ajit Pai
    , Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
    Leah Nylen, Chief Global Correspondent for Antitrust, MLex Market Insight
  • 9:15 am What Infrastructure Will Power the Digital Economy and How Will We Get There?
    Rebecca Arbogast
    Senior Vice President, Global Public Policy, Comcast Corporation
    Liu Duo, President
    China Academy of Information & Communications Technology
    Larry Downes
    Author and Senior Industry and Innovation Fellow, Georgetown University McDonough School of Business
    Frank Louthan
    Managing Director, Raymond James
    David Young
    , ‎Vice President, Public Policy, Verizon
    Jonathan Make 
    (moderator), Executive Editor, Warren Communications News Inc.
  • 10:45 am Tech Policy in the US, EU & China
    The Honorable Rohit Chopra
    , Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
    Chen FuTao
    Minister Counsellor for Science and Technology, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China to the United States
    Peter Fatelnig
    Minister-Counsellor for Digital Economy Policy, Delegation of the European Union to the United States
    Ambassador David Gross
     (moderator), Partner and Co-Chair, Telecom, Media and Technology Practice, Wiley Rein LLP
  • 12:00 pm Closing Luncheon: Streaming Video: Meet the Pirates
    Presentation by
    Sarah Oh, 
    Research Fellow, Technology Policy Institute
    Scott Wallsten,
     Senior Fellow & President, Technology Policy Institute
    Discussion by
    Michael Smith
    Professor of Information Technology and Marketing, Carnegie Mellon University’s H. John Heinz III College

Roger P. Alford is Deputy Assistant Attorney General for International Affairs. He is on leave from the faculty of Notre Dame Law School, which he joined in 2012, and where he is Concurrent Professor at the Keough School of Global Affairs and a Faculty Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. Previously, he practiced law with a large law firm in Washington, D.C., and was a senior legal advisor to the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Activities in Zurich. Earlier in his career, he served as a law clerk to Judge James Buckley of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and to Judge Richard Allison of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague. He completed his undergraduate studies at Baylor and earned his J.D. at New York University School of Law. He also holds degrees from Edinburgh University and Southern Seminary.

Rebecca Arbogast serves as Senior Vice President for Global Public Policy for Comcast Corporation. In this role, she is responsible for the development and coordination of the company’s public policy efforts across the corporation. Prior to joining Comcast in 2011, Rebecca served as Managing Director at Stifel Financial, where she provided advice to institutional investors on legal issues affecting communications, media and technology industries. She joined Stifel from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), where she was Chief of the International Bureau Telecommunications Division and led an office of attorneys, economists and engineers shaping the agency’s policies for international communications services. Prior to joining the FCC, Rebecca served in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and she began her legal career as a corporate attorney with Wilmer Cutler practicing international and communications law. She has taught constitutional law at Johns Hopkins School of Public Policy and global communications at American University. She clerked for Judge Fletcher on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and was a Fulbright Fellow in European Community Law. Rebecca holds a law degree from Yale Law School and a master’s degree from the University of Iowa.

The Honorable Julie Brill is Deputy General Counsel for Global Privacy and Regulatory Affairs at Microsoft. Brill served as a Commissioner of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission from April 2010 through March 2016, and prior to that was co-director of the Global Privacy and Cybersecurity Practice of Hogan Lovells. Brill worked actively on critical consumer issues, including protecting privacy, encouraging appropriate advertising substantiation, guarding consumers from financial fraud, and maintaining competition in health care and high-tech industries. She has received numerous additional national awards for her work, including the New York University School of Law Alumna of the Year Award and the Privacy Leader of the Year Award from the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Prior to becoming a Commissioner, Ms. Brill was the Senior Deputy Attorney General and Chief of Consumer Protection and Antitrust for the North Carolina Department of Justice. Brill has also been a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia University’s School of Law. She also served as an Assistant Attorney General for Consumer Protection and Antitrust for the State of Vermont for over 20 years. Prior to coming to the Vermont Attorney General’s office, Brill was an associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York. She clerked for Vermont Federal District Court Judge Franklin S. Billings, Jr. She graduated, magna cum laude, from Princeton University, and from New York University School of Law, where she had a Root-Tilden Scholarship for her commitment to public service.

The Honorable Rohit Chopra was sworn in as a Federal Trade Commissioner on May 2, 2018. Commissioner Chopra has actively advocated to promote a fair and fully-functioning marketplace through vigorous agency enforcement that protects families and honest companies from those that break the law. He is widely recognized for his expertise on America’s trillion-dollar student loan market. After the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Chopra joined the Department of the Treasury to launch the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). He then served as Assistant Director of the CFPB, overseeing the agency’s student loan agenda. The Secretary of the Treasury also appointed him to serve as the CFPB’s Student Loan Ombudsman, a new position established in the financial reform law. Chopra later served as Special Adviser to the Secretary of Education to advance the Department’s efforts to improve student loan servicing, reduce unnecessary defaults, and bolster enforcement. He was also a Senior Fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, where he focused on consumer protection issues facing young people and military families, and a Visiting Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. Commissioner Chopra is the recipient of multiple awards for his public service and contributions to the field of consumer finance. Prior to entering government, Chopra worked at McKinsey & Company, the global management consultancy, where he worked in the financial services, health care, and consumer technology sectors. He holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship.

The Honorable Mignon Clyburn was sworn in for her first term as commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission on August 3, 2009; sworn in for a second term on February 19, 2013; and served until June 6, 2018. She also served as Acting FCC Chairwoman from May 20, 2013 through November 4, 2013. While at the FCC, Commissioner Clyburn was committed to closing the digital divide. Specifically, she was an advocate for Lifeline Modernization, which assists low income consumers defray the cost of broadband service, championed diversity in media ownership, initiated Inmate Calling Services reforms, emphasized diversity and inclusion in STEM opportunities, and fought to preserve a free and open internet. Prior to the FCC, she spent 11 years as a member of the sixth district on the Public Service Commission (PSC) of South Carolina. Prior to the PSC, Clyburn was the publisher and general manager of her family-founded newspaper for 14 years, the Coastal Times, a Charleston-based weekly newspaper that focused primarily on issues affecting the African American community. She holds a B.S. in banking, finance, and economics from the University of South Carolina.

Michelle P. Connolly is Professor of the Practice in the Economics Department at Duke University. She was the Economics Director of the Duke in New York: Financial Markets and Institutions Program and the Director of EcoTeach for several years. She currently serves as the Director of the Honors Program in Economics and a member of the Duke Alumni Association Board. In 2011, Connolly won the Howard D. Johnson Trinity College Teaching Prize and was named among the top five percent of Duke University Undergraduate Instructors in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Connolly previously served as Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission in 2006-2007 and 2008-2009, and as an Economist for the International Research Function for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1996 to 1997. Connolly’s research and teaching focus specifically on international trade, telecommunications policy, media policy, education, growth, and development. She has received funding for her research from the National Science Foundation, the Duke Arts and Sciences Research Council Grants, the Spencer Grant, and the Teagle Grant. Connolly has published in numerous journals, including the American Economic Review, the American Economic Journal:  Macroeconomics, the Journal of Development Economics, the Journal of Economic History, the Journal of Economic Growth, the Review of Industrial Organization, and Current Issues in Economics and Finance. In 2011, Connolly testified before Congress and participated in a White House panel on Spectrum Issues. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Yale University, and went on to earn her M.A. and M.Phil in Economics. Connolly received her Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.

David Don serves as Vice President for Regulatory Policy for Comcast Corporation. David is responsible for developing and implementing the company’s strategies before federal agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission. David has worked extensively on the FCC’s public policy and spectrum allocation policies for almost 20 years, and he often represents Comcast in public fora examining the most relevant public policy issues of the day. David joined Comcast in 2006 from the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher where he practiced communications law. During that time, he represented clients from nearly every segment of the communications industry, including wireless and telecom companies and Internet service providers. David received a B.S. from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center with honors. He is an active member of the Federal Communications Bar Association, where he most recently served on the board of the FCBA Foundation.

Larry Downes is an internet industry analyst and speaker on developing business strategies. He serves as a project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy’s Evolution of Regulation and Innovation project, and as a research fellow with the Accenture Institute for High Performance. Downes is the author of the New York Times and Business Week business blockbuster, “Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance”, which has sold nearly 200,000 copies and was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the five most important books ever published on business and technology. He also co-authored “Big Bang Disruption” with Paul Nunes. Downes writes regularly for The Harvard Business Review, Forbes, CNET, and The Washington Post, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and business. He also has written for a variety of other publications, including USA Today, Inc., Wired, CNET, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and The New York Times. Larry Downes has held faculty appointments at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Northwestern University School of Law, and the University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where he was associate dean of the School of Information. From 2006-2010, he was a nonresident fellow at the Stanford Law School Center for internet and society. He received a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Liu Duo was appointed as the President of the China Acacdemy of Information and Communications Technology in 2016. She was the Vice President of China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR, now named CAICT) under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China in 2011-2015. Currently, she is also the Chairman of the Alliance of Industrial Internet, Vice Chairman of China Communications Standards Association, and Vice President of Internet Society of China. She has attended multiple ITU-T meetings and acted as the Vice Chairman of ITU-T Next Generation Network Study Group, Vice Chairman of ITU-T IPTV Focus Group, as well as Chairman of ITU-T IoT Global Standards Initiative. Duo mainly works on the studies of standards, policies, supervision and development strategies in terms of telecommunications network, next-generation internet, cloud computing, big data, IoT, industrial internet, telecommunications supervision, telecommunications market opening, network and information security, inter-network connection, etc. She received her B.S. from the Department of Radio of Tsinghua University and M.S. from the Research Institute of Acoustics of China Academy of Sciences.

Peter Fatelnig is Minister-Counsellor for digital economy policies at the Delegation of the European Union to the United States, residing in Washington DC. Peter’s long experience in the digital tech sector, notably in building industrial innovation strategies, helped the EU to drive forward internet innovation policies. A senior manager at the European Commission since 1998 he is committed to a positive European vision of the future internet society and economy. Before coming to Washington he managed the team leading Europe’s new Internet policy and investment initiative (flagship on ‘Next Generation Internet’). The EU Delegation was first established in Washington, DC in 1954 and now represents the European Union across the United States. It has expanded to host staff of the European Parliament Liaison Office, EUROPOL, the European Central Bank, the European Investment Bank and the European Air Safety Agency. Prior to the EU he worked on international assignments for the strategy consulting firm American Management Systems, and for the European Space Agency, in the Netherlands. Peter holds a M.A. in Communication Engineering from the University of Technology in Graz, Austria, and is a senior member of the IEEE.

Amy Glasmeier is professor of Economic Geography and Regional Planning. She runs LRISA, the lab on Regional Innovation and Spatial Analysis, in DUSP. Glasmeier is also a Founding Editor of the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, a journal which publishes multi-disciplinary international research on the spatial dimensions of contemporary socio-economic-political change. Glasmeier’s research focuses economic opportunities for communities and individuals through the investigation of the role of geographic access and the effect of locational accident on human development. She won a 2018 grant from the National Science Foundation for her Collaborative Research on Understanding the benefits and mitigating the risks of interdependence in critical infrastructure systems. Recent awards include the Fellow award from American Association of Geographers (December 2017) and the MIT Office of the Dean for Graduate Education Receipt of the Award from the “Committed to Caring” campaign (2017). She is writing a textbook on the Geography of the Global Energy Economy. Her other project, “Good Bye American Dream” traces the ideology of opportunity that undergirds America’s relationship to the poor. Through analysis of census data, popular media, and personal narratives, Glasmeier is exploring the contradictions in the most sacred of constructs by demonstrating the ephemeral nature of economic opportunity encumbered by locational accident, institutional inertia, and the unintended consequences of public policy. The work builds off of her long running Living Wage Calculator, which analyzes the minimum level of income required for individuals and families to pay for basic living expenses. Glasmeier holds a professional Masters and Ph.D. in Regional from UC Berkeley and currently serves as Associate Planning Board Member in the Town of Cohasset.

Daniel Gorfine is Chief Innovation Officer and Director, LabCFTC at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. LabCFTC is dedicated to facilitating market-enhancing financial technology (FinTech) innovation, fair market competition, and proactive regulatory excellence and understanding of emerging technologies. Daniel is also an Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center where he teaches a course on ‘FinTech Law & Policy.’ Daniel was most recently Vice President, External Affairs & Associate General Counsel at OnDeck, and previously served as director of financial markets policy and legal counsel at the Milken Institute think tank where he focused on technology-driven financial innovation, capital access, and financial market policy. Earlier in his career, Gorfine worked at the international law firm Covington & Burling LLP and served a clerkship with U.S. District Court Judge Catherine C. Blake in the District of Maryland. A graduate of Brown University (A.B.), Daniel holds a J.D. from George Washington University Law School and an M.A. from the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.

Victoria Graham is an antitrust and corporate crime reporter for Bloomberg Law in Washington, covering related news and trends within the Justice Department, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission. Victoria’s antitrust coverage also extends into private litigation matters including antitrust suits against the NCAA and employee class actions involving employer no-poach agreements. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia.

Shane Greenstein is the Martin Marshall Professor of Business Administrationand co-chair of the HBS Digital Initiative. He teaches in the Technology, Operations and Management Unit. Professor Greenstein is also co-director of the program on the economics of digitization at The National Bureau of Economic Research. Encompassing a wide array of questions about computing, communication, and Internet markets, Professor Greenstein’s research extends from economic measurement and analysis to broader issues. His most recent book focuses on the development of the commercial Internet in the United States. He also publishes commentary on his blog, Digitopoly, and his work has been covered by media outlets ranging from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to Fast Company and PC World. Professor Greenstein previously taught at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1989 and his B.A. from University of California at Berkeley in 1983, both in economics.

Ambassador David A. Gross is a Partner in Wiley Rein’s Telecom, Media & Technology Practice. He advises companies and others on international and domestic telecoms, internet, and high-tech strategy focusing on both specific markets and international organizations such as the International Telecommunication Union, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperative, and many regional organizations. Gross is the former U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy at the U.S. Department of State. He has addressed the United Nations General Assembly and led more U.S. delegations to major international telecommunication conferences than anyone in modern history. During his tenure at the State Department, Ambassador Gross had overall responsibility for the formulation and advocacy of international communications policy for the United States. Prior to this position, he served as Washington counsel to AirTouch Communications (now Vodafone) and was in private law practice. Gross received his J.D. from Columbia Law School and his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Robert Hahn is a visiting professor and former director of economics at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, Oxford University and a senior fellow at the Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy. He also is co-founder of The Behavioralist and Signol, two companies that use behavioral economics and evidence-based policy making to promote the social good. Bob worked at the American Enterprise Institute for two decades. While there, he co-founded and directed the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, a leader in policy research in law and economics, regulation, and antitrust. Previously, he worked for the U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers and was the chief economist on the White House drafting team for the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. His responsibilities included helping to design the innovative cap-and-trade system for limiting smokestack sulfur emissions. Bob also has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon University. Bob is currently conducting several economics experiments aimed at improving productivity and promoting sustainability. He also continues to do research on energy policy, Internet policy, environmental policy, government regulation and understanding the benefits of breakthrough innovations. He served as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking and is currently working with key decision makers on ways to promote evidence-based policy.

Kathleen Ham is Senior Vice President, Government Affairs at T-Mobile. She oversees the company’s work before the FCC and other governmental bodies. Prior to joining T-Mobile, Ham worked for fourteen years at the Federal Communications Commission in a number of top policy positions, including Deputy Chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. She was also the first Chief of the FCC’s Spectrum Auctions Program where she was responsible for the first PCS spectrum auctions. Ham also served on the FCC’s Spectrum Management Task Force and was involved in the Intergovernmental Advisory Committee that negotiated the reallocation of third generation (3G) wireless spectrum from government to commercial use. FierceWireless has named her one of the most influential women in wireless. Ham received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado, with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism, and her law degree from Catholic University Law School.

Thomas Hazlett holds the H.H. Macaulay Endowed Chair in Economics at Clemson University, conducting research in the field of Law and Economics and specializing in the Information Economy, including the analysis of markets and regulation in telecommunications, media, and the Internet. Hazlett served as Chief Economist of the Federal Communications Commission, and has held faculty positions at the University of California, Davis, Columbia University, the Wharton School, and George Mason University School of Law. His research has appeared in such academic publications as the Journal of Law & Economics, the Journal of Legal Studies, the Journal of Financial Economics and the Rand Journal of Economics, and he has published articles in the Univ. of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Yale Journal on Regulation, the Columbia Law Review, and the Berkeley Technology Law Journal. He also writes for popular periodicals including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Reason, The New Republic, The Economist, Slate, and the Financial Times, where he was a columnist on technology policy issues, 2002-2011. Hazlett also serves as Director of the Information Economy Project at Clemson University. Hazlett has a Ph.D. in Economics from University of California, Los Angeles.

Alfred Tat-Kei Ho is a Professor of Public Administration at the University of Kansas School of Public Affairs and Administration in Lawrence, Kansas. His research focuses primarily on budgeting and financial management, performance management, and e-government. He has published more than 50 journal articles, book chapters, and research reports in these areas, and his publications have appeared in American Review of Public Administration, Government Information Quarterly, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Public Administration Review, among others. Former community partners include the Iowa League of Cities; the Iowa Association of Counties; the city of Indianapolis, Indiana; the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma; the city of Kansas City, Missouri; the Johnson County Library Foundation in Kansas; the William T Kemper Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri; the Alfred P Sloan Foundation; the National Science Foundation; and the Asian Development Bank. He has been an editorial board member for a few journals, including American Review of Public Administration, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, and Public Performance and Management Review. He is also an elected representative of the National Council of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), and he is one of the co-chairs of the “Government Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Governance” study group at the International Institute of Administrative Sciences in Brussels, Belgium. Ho received his MPA and his Ph.D. from Indiana University (Bloomington campus). He formerly taught at Iowa State University and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis before he joined the faculty of the University of Kansas.

Steve Hopkins is General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer at Medici Ventures. Prior to joining Medici Ventures in 2016, he served as Director and General Counsel of MasterControl, a quality control software company for FDA regulated companies and President of Beckstrand & Associates, a developer and property manager of class A office properties. Steve’s background also includes time at Irell & Manella, a southern California law firm and Edwards Lifesciences, a leading heart valve manufacturer. He was also privileged to work as a judicial clerk for Judge W. Eugene Davis of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Steve studied Economics at the University of Utah and received his law degree and an MBA from the University of Chicago where he served as an editor of the Chicago Law Review. Frank Louthan is Managing Director of Telecommunications Services at Raymond James. He has been a publishing analyst in the telecommunications services sector since 1999 and joined the Raymond James telecom team in 2001.  Prior to moving to Raymond James, Mr. Louthan worked at one of Wells Fargo Securities’ predecessors, where he primarily covered rural carriers as well as early CLECs and broadband carriers that emerged in the wake of the Telecom Act of 1996.  Prior to that, Mr. Louthan covered IT services firms, and before coming to Wall Street he held operations and finance positions with Delta Air Lines.  Within the industry, Mr. Louthan has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Sub-Committee on Telecommunications and the Internet, and has been recognized in The Wall Street Journal Best on the Street survey, as well as by Forbes and Bloomberg Markets for stock-picking awards. He has also been recognized numerous times in the Thomson Reuters/StarMine Top Analyst survey, receiving the Analyst Award for Excellence and recognition for stock picking. Mr. Louthan frequently presents at telecommunications industry and regulatory conferences.  Mr. Louthan received his MBA from Vanderbilt University’s Owen School, and a B.A. degree in economics and business from the Virginia Military Institute.

John B. Horrigan is a Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute. Previously, he was a Senior Researcher at Pew Research Center, where he focused on libraries, technology, and communities as well as open data and open government. Prior to rejoining Pew Research Center in 2015, he served as research director for the development of the National Broadband Plan at the Federal Communications Commission. He is a nationally recognized expert on research into barriers to home broadband adoption and use, expertise cultivated as a consultant and in his first stint at Pew Research Center from 2000-2009. He has a PhD in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in economics and government from the University of Virginia.

Umair Javed serves as legal advisor for wireless and international issues for Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. Mr. Javed joined the Commission from Wiley Rein LLP, where he was a senior associate in the firm’s Telecom, Media, and Technology group. At Wiley Rein, Mr. Javed provided legal counsel and strategic advice to a broad cross-section of clients on domestic and international telecommunications regulation, spectrum policy, and global Internet governance. He also served on U.S. delegations to conferences and meetings of the International Telecommunication Union, including the 2016 World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly and the 2017 World Telecommunication Development Conference. Mr. Javed currently serves as Commissioner of the Consumer Protection Commission of Fairfax County and previously was a firefighter and EMT-B in Albemarle County, Virginia. He holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia as well as a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Ginger Zhe Jin is currently Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. She was on leave at the Federal Trade Commission in 2015-2017, and served as the Director of the FTC Bureau of Economics from January 2016 to July 2017. She has been Research Associate of NBER since 2012. Most of her research focuses on information asymmetry among economic agents and how to provide information to overcome the information problem. The applications she has studied include restaurant food safety, health insurance, prescription drugs, e-commerce, online reviews, regulatory inspection, scientific innovation, air quality, blood donation, intrafamilial interaction, data security and consumer protection. Her research has been published in economics, management and marketing journals, with support from the National Science Foundation, the Net Institute, and the Sloan Foundation. She is currently co-editor of Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, associate editor of RAND Journal of Economics, and guest senior editor for a special issue of Marketing Science on consumer protection. In October 2014, she co-founded Hazel Analytics, an analytics company that promotes the use of open government data. In June 2015, she co-organized the Research on Effective Government: Inspection and Compliance Workshop and co-led the effort to compile and maintain a research archive about inspection and compliance at umicra.com. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Leslie John is an associate professor of business administration in the Negotiations, Organizations, and Markets unit. She teaches the Negotiations course in the MBA elective curriculum, as well as in various Executive Education courses. In the past, she has taught the core Marketing course in the MBA required curriculum. Professor John’s research centers on how consumers’ behavior and lives are influenced by their interaction with firms and with public policy. Her work has been published in academic journals including the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Social Psychological and Personality Science, and The Journal of the American Medical Association. It has also received media attention from outlets such as The New York Times, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time magazine. Professor John holds a Ph.D. in behavioral decision research from Carnegie Mellon University, where she also earned an M.Sc. in psychology and behavioral decision research. She completed her B.A. in psychology at the University of Waterloo.

Daphne Keller studies the ways that Internet content platforms – and the laws governing them — shape information access and other rights of ordinary Internet users. As the Director of Intermediary Liability at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, she has written and spoken widely about the Right to Be Forgotten, copyright notice-and-takedown systems, cross-border content removal orders, platforms’ own discretionary content-removal decisions, and more. She has testified on these topics before legislatures, courts, and regulatory bodies around the world. In her previous role as Associate General Counsel at Google, Daphne worked on cases including Viacom, Perfect 10, Equustek, Mosley, and Metropolitan Schools; and was the primary counsel for products ranging from Web Search to the Chrome browser. Daphne has taught Internet law at Stanford, Berkeley, and Duke Law schools. She is a graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University.

Evan Kwerel has been a senior economist in the Office of Plans and Policy at the Federal Communications Commission since 1983. He has worked on broad range of spectrum policy issues and has been a proponent of market-based approaches to spectrum management. After Congress granted the FCC auction authority in 1993, he had primary responsibility for developing the FCC’s innovative simultaneous multiple round auction methodology. He has also been involved in a variety of common carrier matters, including the development of price cap regulation. From 1976 to 1982, he was an assistant professor of economics at Yale University. In 1981 he was a Brookings Economic Policy Fellow, and from 1982 to 1983, he was a senior economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Dr. Kwerel received a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

William Lehr is an economist and industry consultant. He is a research associate in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, currently working with the Communications Futures Program which is an industry-academic multidisciplinary research effort focused on road mapping the communications value chain. Previously, Dr. Lehr was the associate director of the MIT Research Program on Internet & Telecoms Convergence, and was an associate research scholar and assistant professor on the faculty of Columbia University ‘s Graduate School of Business. Dr. Lehr’s research focuses on the economics and regulatory policy of the Internet infrastructure industries. He teaches courses on the economics, business strategy, and public policy issues facing telecommunications, Internet, and eCommerce companies, and is a frequent speaker at international industry and academic conferences. He has published articles on such topics as the impact of the Internet on the structure of the communications infrastructure industries, telecommunications regulation, and the pricing of Internet services. He is currently engaged in research on the convergence of the Internet and telecommunication services and the implications for corporate strategy and public policy. In addition to his academic research, Dr. Lehr provides litigation, economic, and business strategy consulting services for firms in the information technology industries. Dr. Lehr has advised information technology companies on strategic marketing, pricing, financial planning, and competitive strategy; and government agencies in the United States and abroad on telecommunications policy matters. Dr. Lehr has prepared expert witness testimony for both private litigation and for regulatory proceedings before the FCC and numerous state commissions. Dr. Lehr holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford, an MBA from the Wharton Graduate School, and MSE, B.S. and B.A. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

Thomas Lenard is Senior Fellow and President Emeritus at the Technology Policy Institute. Lenard is the author or coauthor of numerous books and articles on telecommunications, electricity, antitrust, privacy, e-commerce and other regulatory issues. His publications include Net Neutrality or Net Neutering: Should Broadband Internet Services Be Regulated?; The Digital Economy Fact Book; Privacy and the Commercial Use of Personal Information; Competition, Innovation and the Microsoft Monopoly: Antitrust in the Digital Marketplace; and Deregulating Electricity: The Federal Role. Before joining the Technology Policy Institute, Lenard was acting president, senior vice president for research and senior fellow at The Progress & Freedom Foundation. He has served in senior economics positions at the Office of Management and Budget, the Federal Trade Commission and the Council on Wage and Price Stability, and was a member of the economics faculty at the University of California, Davis. He is a past president and chairman of the board of the National Economists Club. Lenard is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and holds a Ph.D. in economics from Brown University.

Blair Levin is a nonresident senior fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program. He serves as the executive director of Gig.U: The Next Generation Network Innovation Project, an initiative of three dozen leading research university communities seeking to support educational and economic development by accelerating the deployment of next generation networks. He also serves as an advisor to a variety of non-profits with a mission of deploying or using broadband technology to advance social progress, including Case Commons, Volo and the LEAD Commission. Levin also advises both privately held and public companies in the telecom and technology sectors. Previously, he worked with the Communications & Society Program with the Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program, following his departure in 2010 from the Federal Communications Commission where he oversaw the development of a National Broadband Plan. Levin rejoined the Commission in 2009, after eight years as an analyst at Legg Mason and Stifel Nicolaus. Levin served as chief of staff to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt from December 1993 through October 1997. During that period he oversaw, among other matters, the implementation of the 1996 Telecommunications Reform Act, the first spectrum auctions, the development of digital television standards and the commission’s Internet initiative. Prior to his position with the FCC, Levin was a partner in the North Carolina law firm of Parker, Poe, Adams and Bernstein, where he represented new communications ventures, as well as numerous local governments on public financing issues. He is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.

Frank Louthan is Managing Director of Telecommunications Services at Raymond James. He has been a publishing analyst in the telecommunications services sector since 1999 and joined the Raymond James telecom team in 2001.  Prior to moving to Raymond James, Mr. Louthan worked at one of Wells Fargo Securities’ predecessors, where he primarily covered rural carriers as well as early CLECs and broadband carriers that emerged in the wake of the Telecom Act of 1996.  Prior to that, Mr. Louthan covered IT services firms, and before coming to Wall Street he held operations and finance positions with Delta Air Lines.  Within the industry, Mr. Louthan has testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Sub-Committee on Telecommunications and the Internet, and has been recognized in The Wall Street Journal Best on the Street survey, as well as by Forbes and Bloomberg Markets for stock-picking awards. He has also been recognized numerous times in the Thomson Reuters/StarMine Top Analyst survey, receiving the Analyst Award for Excellence and recognition for stock picking. Mr. Louthan frequently presents at telecommunications industry and regulatory conferences.  Mr. Louthan received his MBA from Vanderbilt University’s Owen School, and a B.A. degree in economics and business from the Virginia Military Institute.

Jonathan Make is Executive Editor of newsletter publishing company Warren Communications News, with titles including Communications Daily. Past employers include Bloomberg News. He has a MA in media and public affairs from George Washington University, where he wrote a thesis on media coverage of media mergers, and a BA in international studies from Reed College. He is incoming president of the Society of Professional Journalists D.C. Pro Chapter, on the steering committee of the Reed College D.C.-area alumni group and active in various other journalism and volunteer efforts, and enjoys moderating panels on the media and on tech and telecom.

David Mills is Deputy Associate Director at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, DC.  He has responsibilities for the Board’s payments research and retail payments, and co-leads an internal effort within the Federal Reserve System that is looking at digital innovations in the area of payments, clearing and settlement.  David has been studying developments in digital currencies and distributed ledger technologies for several years, has contributed to international work on the topics, and led a Federal Reserve research team that produced a paper on the use of distributed ledger technology in payments, clearing and settlement.  He has published articles related to payments and monetary theory in a variety of journals including the Journal of Monetary Economics, the International Economic Review, the Review of Economic Dynamics and Macroeconomic Dynamics.  He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Pennsylvania State University and has a B.A. in Economics and Classical Languages from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Neha Narula is the Director of the Digital Currency Initiative, a part of the MIT Media Lab focusing on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Her current research interests are in cryptocurrencies and distributed systems. She has designed and taught courses at MIT on cryptocurrencies and distributed ledgers, and is a lecturer at Sloan. Neha is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Blockchain and has given a TED talk on the future of money. In a previous life, she helped relaunch the news aggregator Digg and was from 2003-2009 was a software engineer at Google. There, she designed Blobstore, a system for storing and serving petabytes of immutable data, and worked on Froogle, a shopping website, and Native Client, a way to run native code securely through a browser. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, CNBC, and Wired. She received her Ph.D. in computer science from MIT in 2015, where she worked on concurrency control for scalable distributed systems and databases.

Bernard (Barry) A. Nigro is Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at the United States Department of Justice. He previously was chair of the antitrust department and partner in a national law firm. He served as Deputy Director for the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition from 2003-05, where he received a Commendation for Superior Service awarded by the Chairman. He received his B.A. from Georgetown University and his J.D. from George Washington University Law School.

Roger Noll is Professor of Economics Emeritus at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where he directs the Program in Regulatory Policy. Noll also is a Senior Fellow and member of the Advisory Board at the American Antitrust Institute, and a member of the Advisory Board of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center on Regulation. Noll’s primary research interests include technology policy; antitrust, regulation and privatization policies in both advanced and developing economies; the economic approach to public law; and the economics of sports and entertainment. Prior to coming to Stanford, Noll was a Senior Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Institute Professor of Social Science and Chair of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. Noll has been a member of the advisory boards of the U.S. Department of Energy, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and National Science Foundation. He also has been a member of the Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and the Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy of the National Research Council, and of the California Council on Science and Technology. Noll received a B.S. with honors in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology and a Ph. D. in economics from Harvard University.

Leah Nylen is Chief Global Antitrust Correspondent for MLex. Leah reports on antitrust policy, cartels, intellectual property, conduct and private damage actions in the US. She was selected as an Abe Journalist Fellow in 2014 by the Social Science Research Council and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership for a reporting project on Japanese cartels and cartel deterrence policies. Leah has previously worked for Bloomberg, Main Justice and Congressional Quarterly, and received a M.A. from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Sarah Oh is a Research Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute. She was previously the Operations and Research Director for the Information Economy Project at George Mason School of Law. Her research interests include law and economics, regulatory analysis, and technology policy. Oh holds a Ph.D. in Economics and a J.D. from George Mason University and a B.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.

Mark O’Riley joined IBM in 1983.  Since that time, he has held a variety of sales, management and executive positions in IBM’s Public Sector and Systems Group. He is currently is on the staff in the General Counsel’s Office, Worldwide Government and Regulatory Affairs, Washington, D.C. In his current position Mark is responsible for worldwide focus on emerging technology policy, strategy and the support of strategic initiatives, including advanced computing and software platforms. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas and the American Bar Association. Mark holds a B.A. in Political Science and History from C. W. Post College, Long Island University; MPA in Finance and Planning from Atlanta University and a J.D. from George Washington University.

Michael R. Purdy is Senior Counsel for Commercial, Product and Policy at Google. Prior to Google, he was Assistant General Counsel at Intelsat, an international satellite service provider, and a corporate associate at Hogan Lovells LLP. Michael is a former U.S. Navy Reserve intelligence officer, and is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute (B.A.), Yale University (M.A.) and the University of Virginia School of Law (J.D.).

Alvaro Ramos is a Senior Legal Director and Head of Global Antitrust at Qualcomm, advising different business units on antitrust matters, handling antitrust filings (notably in relation to M&A) and dealing with investigations and litigation across the world. Prior to joining Qualcomm, he was Legal Director at Cisco in Europe and worked for more than 10 years as an external counsel representing companies on issues related to antitrust. His experience covers the whole range of antitrust including cartels, dominance (monopolization) and mergers across a range of industries, including high technology, energy, consumer goods, automotive, aviation and pharmaceuticals. Alvaro Ramos lectures in several MBA, antitrust and IP programs and often participates as a panelist in conferences and seminars. He holds an LL.M. from the College of Europe and Diploma in Economics of Competition Law from King’s College.

Charles H. Rivkin joined the Motion Picture Association of America as CEO on September 5, 2017 and became Chairman on December 6, 2017. He leads the MPAA’s global mission to advance and support one of the country’s strongest and most vibrant industries – the American motion picture, home entertainment, and television sector. Previously, Rivkin served as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs from February 2014 to January 2017. Rivkin led the bureau at the U.S. State Department responsible for managing trade negotiations, investment treaties, economic sanctions, transportation affairs, telecommunications policy, international finance, and development-related issues, as well as intellectual property rights protection. In addition, Rivkin provided guidance to the Department’s 1,600 economic officers around the world and to the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Prior to his appointment, Rivkin served for more than four years as the United States Ambassador to France and Monaco, leading a diplomatic mission that contained six constituent posts throughout France and represented more than 50 U.S. government agencies. Prior to his government service, Rivkin worked in the media sector for more than 20 years, serving as President and CEO of award-winning entertainment companies The Jim Henson Company and Wildbrain. Rivkin helped engineer the sale of The Jim Henson Company in 2000 for nearly $1 billion, and his contribution to the television landscape has influenced generations of viewers. Before joining the State Department, Rivkin was named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company. Ambassador Rivkin received his B.S. from Yale University in 1984, graduating with distinction in political science and international relations. He received his MBA. from Harvard University in 1988.

Paul Romer, an economist and policy entrepreneur, is a University Professor at NYU and director of the Marron Institute of Urban Management. Marron deepens the fundamental understanding of cities by working with civic innovators to improve urban management. He is also the founding director of the Urbanization Project at the Leonard N. Stern School of Business. The Urbanization Project conducts applied research on the many ways in which policymakers in the developing world can use the rapid growth of cities to create economic opportunity and undertake systemic social reform. Before coming to NYU, Paul taught at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. While there Paul took an entrepreneurial detour to start Aplia, an education technology company dedicated to increasing student effort and classroom engagement. To date, students have submitted over 1 billion answers to homework problems on the Aplia website. Prior to Stanford, Paul taught in the economics departments at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and the University of Rochester. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a non-resident scholar at both the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. and the Macdonald Laurier Institute in Ottawa, Ontario. In 2002, he received the Recktenwald Prize for his work on the role of ideas in sustaining economic growth. Paul serves on the board of trustees for the Carnegie Endowment for the Advancement of Teaching. He is also a member of the board of directors for Community Solutions, a national not-for-profit dedicated to strengthening communities and ending homelessness. Paul earned a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Chicago. He earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago after doing graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Queens University.

Wallis. G Romzek is a Research Associate at the Technology Policy Institute. Romzek’s research interests lie at the intersection of innovation and social and economic policy, particularly factors that shape adoption of emerging technologies and issues of privacy, data access, and storage. Romzek is completing her Ph.D. in Public Administration and Policy at American University. She currently holds an M.P.P from American University, an MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a B.A. in Mathematics from Bryn Mawr College.

Donald J. Rosenberg is executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Qualcomm Incorporated. Mr. Rosenberg reports directly to CEO Steve Mollenkopf and is a member of the company’s Executive Committee. In his role as chief legal officer, he is responsible for overseeing Qualcomm’s worldwide legal affairs including litigation, intellectual property and corporate matters. Qualcomm’s Government Affairs, Internal Audit and Compliance organizations also report to him. Prior to joining Qualcomm, Mr. Rosenberg served as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Apple Inc. Prior to that, he was senior vice president and general counsel of IBM Corporation where he had also held numerous positions including vice president and assistant general counsel for litigation and counsel to IBM’s mainframe division. Mr. Rosenberg has had extensive experience in corporate governance, compliance, law department management, litigation, securities regulation, intellectual property and competition issues. He is also a member of the China Leadership Board for the 21st Century China Center at the UCSD. He has served as an adjunct professor of law at New York’s Pace University School of Law, where he taught courses in intellectual property and antitrust law. Mr. Rosenberg received a B.S. degree in mathematics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his J.D. from St. John’s University School of Law.

Gregory Rosston is Director of the Public Policy program at Stanford University, the Gordon Cain Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and Professor of Economics (by courtesy). He teaches Economics and Public Policy courses on competition policy and strategy, intellectual property, and writing and rhetoric. Rosston served as Deputy Chief Economist at the Federal Communications Commission working on the implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and helped to design and implement the first ever spectrum auctions in the United States. In 2011, he was Senior Economist for Transactions for the Federal Communications Commission for the proposed AT&T – T-Mobile transaction. He co-chaired the Economy, Globalization and Trade committee for the 2008 Obama campaign and was a member of the Obama transition team on economic agency review and energy policy. He served as a member and co-chair of the Department of Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee from 2010 – 2014. Rosston has written extensively on the application of economics to telecommunications issues. He has advised companies and governments regarding auctions in the United States and other countries and served as a consultant to various organizations including the World Bank and the Federal Communications Commission, and as a board member and advisor to high technology, financial, and startup companies in the areas of auctions, business strategy, antitrust and regulation. Rosston received his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University and his A.B. with Honors in Economics from University of California at Berkeley.

Samm Sacks is a senior fellow in the Technology Policy Program at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS.) Her research focuses on innovation, cybersecurity, and emerging information and communication technology (ICT) policies globally, with a focus on China. She leads CSIS’s “China Cyber Outlook,” which analyzes China’s evolving ICT governance system, including data flow and privacy issues, technology sector political leadership, the build out of Chinese standards, and the global expansion of Chinese ICT companies. Before joining CSIS, she launched the industrial cyber business for Siemens in Asia, focusing on energy sector cybersecurity. Previously, she led China technology sector analysis at the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. Prior to this, she worked at Booz Allen Hamilton and Defense Group Inc., where she advised senior U.S. government officials on China’s science and technology (S&T) development. She reads and speaks Mandarin and is a frequent contributor to print and TV media, including Lawfare, the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Fortune, Bloomberg, Nightly Business Report, C-SPAN, and BBC. A former Fulbright scholar in Beijing, Ms. Sacks holds an M.A. from Yale University in international relations and a B.A. from Brown University in Chinese literature.

Michael Smith is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute. He is also a Professor of Information Systems and Marketing and the Co-Director of IDEA, the Initiative for Digital Entertainment Analytics at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds academic appointments at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Information Systems and Management and the Tepper School of Business. Smith has received several notable awards including the National Science Foundation’s prestigious CAREER Research Award, and he was recently selected as one of the top 100 “emerging engineering leaders in the United States” by the National Academy of Engineering. Smith received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering (summa cum laude) and a M.S. in Telecommunications Science from the University of Maryland, and received a Ph.D. in Management Science from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

Steve Tadelis is the James J. and Marianne B. Lowrey Chair in Business and a Professor of Economics, Business and Public Policy at Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and also served as the Associate Dean for Strategic Planning (2006-2009). Prior to starting his position at Berkeley-Haas, Steve was an Assistant Professor at Stanford University for eight years after receiving his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard. Steve also held positions as a Senior Director and Distinguished Economist at eBay Research Labs (2011-2013) and Vice President of Economics and Market Design at Amazon (2016-2017) where he applied economic research tools to a variety of product and business applications, working with technologists, machine learning scientists, and business leaders. He continues to advise Amazon part-time as an Amazon Economist Fellow. Steve’s areas of research include e-commerce, industrial organization, the economics of incentives and organizations, and procurement contracting.

Hal R. Varian is the Chief Economist at Google. Varian has been involved in many aspects of the company, including auction design, econometric analysis, finance, corporate strategy and public policy. He is also an Emeritus Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in three departments: business, economics, and information management, and a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the Econometric Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Varian has published numerous papers in economic theory, industrial organization, financial economics, econometrics and information economics. He is the co-author of a bestselling book on business strategy, Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy. He was Co-Editor of the American Economic Review and has taught at MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Michigan and other universities around the world. He received his S.B. degree from MIT and his M.A. in Mathematics and Ph.D. in Economics from UC Berkeley. Varian holds honorary doctorates from the University of Oulu, Finland and the University of Karlsruhe, Germany.

Scott Wallsten is President and Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute and also a senior fellow at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. He is an economist with expertise in industrial organization and public policy, and his research focuses on competition, regulation, telecommunications, the economics of digitization, and technology policy. He was the economics director for the FCC’s National Broadband Plan and has been a lecturer in Stanford University’s public policy program, director of communications policy studies and senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a senior fellow at the AEI – Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, an economist at The World Bank, a scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and a staff economist at the U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University.

Wilson White is a public policy & government relations senior counsel on Google’s Mountain View policy team, where he is the Global Public Policy Lead for the Android, Google Play, Payments, Communications and Hardware businesses. He also leads on the company’s global policy strategy for emerging tech issues, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality and Internet of Things. Before joining the policy team, Wilson worked on Google’s patent litigation team. Prior to joining Google, he was a patent litigator at the law firm of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP in Atlanta, Georgia and before that a law clerk to the Honorable Alexander Williams, Jr. on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. He earned his B.S. in Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University and J.D. with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law.

Joshua D. Wright is the Executive Director of the Global Antitrust Institute and holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Economics at George Mason University, Antonin Scalia Law School. On January 1, 2013, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Professor Wright as a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), following his nomination by President Obama to that position. He rejoined Scalia Law School as a full-time member of the faculty in Fall 2015. Professor Wright is a leading scholar in antitrust law, economics, intellectual property, and consumer protection, and has published more than 70 articles and book chapters, co-authored a leading antitrust casebook, and edited several book volumes focusing on these issues. Professor Wright also served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, a Senior Editor of the Antitrust Law Journal, and an Editor of the International Review of Law and Economics.  Professor Wright’s teaching and interests include Antitrust, Contracts, Law and Economics, the intersection of Intellectual Property and Antitrust, and Quantitative Methods. Wright previously served the Commission in the Bureau of Competition as its inaugural Scholar-in-Residence from 2007 to 2008, where he focused on enforcement matters and competition policy. Wright’s return to the FTC as a Commissioner marked his fourth stint at the agency, after having served as an intern in both the Bureau of Economics and Bureau of Competition in 1997 and 1998, respectively. Wright received his J.D. from UCLA in 2002, his Ph.D. in economics from UCLA in 2003, and graduated with honors from the University of California, San Diego in 1998.  He is a member of the California Bar.

Diego Zuluaga is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives, where he covers financial technology and consumer credit. Before joining Cato, Zuluaga was Head of Financial Services and Tech Policy at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. While at the IEA, he authored papers on the social value of finance, the regulation of online platforms, and the taxation of capital income, among others. His work has been featured in print and broadcast media, such as the Times,Newsweek, and the Daily Telegraph. Zuluaga is a prolific public speaker as well as a former lecturer in economics at the University of Buckingham. Originally from Bilbao in northern Spain, Zuluaga holds a B.A. in economics and history from McGill University, and an MSc in financial economics from the University of Oxford.

Registration is now closed for TPI’s 2018 Aspen Forum. We will open for 2019 registration in the new year.

Members of the press should contact David Fish at [email protected] for complimentary registration and more information.

Registration Fees:

• Corporate/Industry $2500
• Trade Associations $2500
• Government $ 500
• Academic $ 500
• Charity (501(c)(3)) $ 500

 

TRAVEL & ACCOMMODATIONS

Please note: Seats on flights into Aspen are limited and hotel rooms sell out quickly. Due to other events in Aspen scheduled for the same week as the Aspen Forum, flights and lodging are expected to be in extremely high demand. Please reserve yours as early as possible.

TPI’s Aspen Forum will be held at the St. Regis Aspen Resort. Located at the base of Aspen Mountain, the resort is within walking distance to all of Aspen’s shops, restaurants and entertainment.

A group rate has been negotiated with the St. Regis. Please note that space is extremely limited; secure your reservation now. Reservations at the St. Regis can be made online or by contacting group reservations at (970) 920-3300. Please be sure to reference Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum to receive the group rate.

If space is no longer available, please contact Jane Creel at [email protected] for alternate lodging options nearby.

The Aspen airport is located four miles from the town center; Eagle/Vail airport is 68 miles from Aspen; and the Denver airport is 220 miles from Aspen. The St. Regis Aspen Resort provides complimentary shuttle transfer for commercial air passengers arriving at Aspen Airport.

Attendees are responsible for cancellation of hotel and air transportation and any associated costs. Cancellation fees may vary.

Accommodations:

A group rate has been negotiated with the St. Regis. Please note that space is extremely limited; secure your reservation now.

Reservations at the St. Regis can be made by contacting group reservations at (970) 920-3300. Please be sure to reference Tech Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum to receive the group rate. After July 21, 2016, the group rate will only be honored based on availability.

If space is no longer available, please contact Jane Creel for alternate lodging options nearby.

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