I wear several hats: entrepreneur, activist, science fiction writer, and campaigning journalist. Like education, vocation isn't a discrete silo, but rather a spectrum of activities in service of a larger cause and vision. The cause and vision that I've made my own is to fight for a free, open infrastructure for the information society. Therefore, the opportunity to be a Visiting Senior Lecturer at The Open University seemed like a natural fit for me.
I’m a strong believer in liberalizing copyright laws to allow for free sharing of all digital media, and I am a frequent public speaker on these issues. My beliefs and ideas led me to co-found the free software peer-to-peer file-sharing company Opencola with John Henson and Grad Conn. I have also worked as European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights group in the United States, for four years, helping to establish the Open Rights Group before leaving the EFF to pursue writing full-time in 2006.
I’m particularly interested in research focusing on the ‘Information Society’. Especially focusing on how we benefit from technology without being disadvantaged or ‘betrayed’ by it.
'Interacting with various people within The Open University and seeing the way that the research dovetails with the teaching is great, it is a great feeling to be sharing ideas about new technology and informing the new generation of technologists.' Cory Doctorow, Visiting Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology
To me the term 'Information Society' means a society where everything we own is made out of networked computers. In the Information Society, where we put networked computers in our bodies (for example pacemakers and robotic limbs) and put our bodies into networked computers (for example cars and houses with networked PCs running elements of the home) we need to ensure that the design brief for these devices is to respect their owners, to serve their owners.
We must attend to how our IT regulations will fail, and not merely how they will work. The way we respond to the problems created by computers and networks will prefigure and constrain the answers to every other problem of the Information Society. These are the wheels and levers of the modern age, and I have found in the OU a faculty that is alive to that truth, animated by it, and active in it. I am proud beyond measure to join their number.
Interacting with various people within The Open University and seeing the way that the research dovetails with the teaching is great. It is rewarding to be sharing ideas about new technology and informing the new generation of technologists.
Cory Doctorow is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the weblog Boing Boing and writes frequently for a number of titles including Popular Science, The Guardian, Wired and New York Times Sunday Magazine.