Today Mozilla is hosting the second meeting of the Digital Economy Board of Advisors of the United States Department of Commerce, of which I am co-chair.
Support for the global open Internet is the heart of Mozilla’s identity and strategy. We build for the digital world. We see and understand the opportunities it offers, as well as the threats to its future. We live in a world where a free and open Internet is not available to all of the world’s citizens; where trust and security online cannot be taken for granted; and where independence and innovation are thwarted by powerful interests as often as they are protected by good public policy. As I noted in my original post on being named to the Board, these challenges are central to the “Digital Economy Agenda,” and a key reason why I agreed to participate.
Department of Commerce Secretary Pritzker noted earlier this year: “we are no longer moving toward the digital economy. We have arrived.” The purpose of the Board is to advise the Commerce Department in responding to today’s new status quo. Today technology provides platforms and opportunities that enable entrepreneurs with new opportunities. Yet not everyone shares the benefits. The changing nature of work must also be better understood. And we struggle to measure these gains, making it harder to design policies that maximize them, and harder still to defend the future of our digital economy against myopic and reactionary interests.
The Digital Economy Board of Advisors was convened to explore these challenges, and provide expert advice from a range of sectors of the digital economy to the Commerce Department as it develops future policies. At today’s meeting, working groups within the Board will present their initial findings. We don’t expect to agree on everything, of course. Our goal is to draw out the shared conclusions and direction to provide a balanced, sustainable, durable basis for future Commerce Department policy processes. I will follow up with another post on this topic shortly.
Today’s meeting is a public meeting. There will be two live streams: one for the 8:30 am-12:30 pm PT pre-lunch session and one for the afternoon post-lunch 1:30-3:00pm PT. We welcome you to join us.
Although the Board has many more months left in its tenure, I can see a trend towards healthy alignment between our mission and the outcomes of the Board’s activities. I’m proud to serve as co-chair of this esteemed group of individuals.