IP: IPI News

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>From: "Tim Smith" <tim@stencilgroup.com>
>To: "Dave Farber" <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>
>
>FYI, CNN's take on the IPI
>
>Latest Internet Policy Group Sprouts In Washington
>April 12, 1999: 4:52 p.m. ET
>By Robert MacMillan, Newsbytes
>http://www.cnnfn.com/digitaljam/newsbytes/129140.html
>
>  WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A. (NB) -- As the Internet becomes more popular in the
>American public, it tends to gather bills and lobby groups like barnacles.
>The latest of these, the Internet Policy Institute (IPI), was announced
>today.
>The IPI's working group is chaired by Kimberly Jenkins, the chairman and
>founder of Highway 1, a group known to the political technology followers in
>Washington as the non-profit corporation that casts itself as a "nonpartisan
>resource on information technologies" for federal, state and local
>government.
>Jenkins told Newsbytes the group has not yet "gotten down to the nitty-
>gritty" on particular issues on which it will focus, but said that it will
>analyze economic policy, law and regulation. Some preliminary discussion
>points may include intellectual property, state issues and general legal
>frameworks. IPI is designed in a similar frame to Highway 1, in that IPI is
>supposed to provide "high-quality analysis, research, education and outreach
>on a full range of economic, social and policy issues affecting and affected
>by the global development and use of the Internet."
>In an initial IPI statement, the group said its founding money came from
>America Online Inc. [NYSE:AOL], the Nasdaq exchange, the Morino Institute,
>MCI WorldCom [NASDAQ:WCOM], Network Solutions Inc. [NASDAQ:NSOL], the
>Potomac KnowledgeWay and the World Information Technology and Services
>Alliance.
>The Potomac KnowledgeWay, itself another non-profit "educational"
>organization located outside of Washington in Herndon, Va., hired the
>Washington Advisory Group, a science and technology consulting firm, to
>handle the proposal for the IPI.
>"This is the right idea at the right time," Jenkins said. "In less than a
>decade the Internet has grown from a network used primarily by university
>researchers and computer hobbyists to a thriving communications medium that
>links more than 100 million individuals worldwide. With the policy makers of
>both the United States and many of the major industrialized nations focusing
>an increasing amount of attention on the Internet, it has become critical to
>bring the global thinking, research and debate on these issues together in
>one central location."
>The IPI's working group -- it's nerve center -- includes Jenkins; NASDAQ
>President Alfred R. Berkeley; Virginia Polytechnic Institute for Information
>Systems Vice President Earving L. Blythe; Microsoft Corp.'s Research
>Assistant Director Jack Breese; Network Solutions Chairman Michael A.
>Daniels; Esther Dyson, the chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned
>Names and Numbers (ICANN); George Mason University President Alan G. Merten;
>University of Maryland, College Park President Dan Mote; Johns Hopkins
>University Vice Provost for Research Theodore O. Poehler; Freedom Forum Vice
>President of Technology and Programs Adam C. Powell III; MCI WorldCom Chief
>Policy Counsel Jonathan Sallet; Washington Post Co. President and CEO Alan
>G. Spoon; and AOL Senior Vice President for Global and Strategic Policy
>George Vradenburg III.
>Noting that the working group and the seed capital sources represent several
>companies and other groups with very specific high-tech agendas on the Hill,
>Jenkins said that "we are taking great pains to make sure that the funding
>comes from diverse sources."
>
>Copyright © 1999 CNN America, Inc.
>
>_________________________________________________________
>Tim Smith
>The Stencil Group - an interactive marketing consultancy
>tim@stencilgroup.com
>415-552-0586
>http://www.stencilgroup.com
>