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Monthnotes for March 2019

By Peter Bihr
In work
6 Min read
M

This installment of monthnotes features the wrap-up of a fellowship, updates on a PhD program I’ll be supervising for, a ThingsCon event, and an anniversary. Enjoy.

If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have limited availability but am always happy to have a chat. I’m currently doing the planning for Q3 and Q4 2019.

The Waving Cat turns 5

The Waving Cat just turned 5 officially. Which is still mind blowing to me. It’s been quite the ride, and 5 incredibly productive years.

In this time I’ve written 3 book-ish things and many reports, co-published multiple magazine-ish things and a proper academic paper. Co-chaired some amazing conferences like ThingsCon, Interaction16, UIKonf and more. Worked on strategy, policy and research across a pretty wide range of industries and clients from global tech to non-profit to governments. Was on a number of juries, and mentored a bunch of teams. Was a Mozilla Fellow. Launched a consumer trustmark. Helped kickstart a number of exciting projects including ThingsCon, Zephyr Berlin, Dearsouvenir and the Trustable Technology Mark. Spoke at about 40 events. Wrote, contributed or was quoted in about 60 articles.

So yeah, it’s been a good 5 years run. On to the next round of adventures.

(By the way, that anniversary is the company’s; the website & blog go way, way further back. All the way to like 2005.)

Wrapping up my Mozilla Fellowship

With the end of February, my Mozilla Fellowship officially wrapped up. (That is, the active part of the fellowship; Mozilla makes a point of the affiliation being for life.)

Technically this fellowship was about launching ThingsCon’s Trustable Technology Mark (which got so much great media coverage!) but it was so much more.

I’m glad and grateful for the opportunity to be warmly welcomed into this fantastic community and to meet and work with so many ambitious, smart, caring and overall awesome people.

Nothing could symbolize this better than the lovely ceremony the team put together for Julia Kloiber’s and my farewell. Unicorn gavels and flower crowns and laminated “for life” cards and bubbly were all involved. Thank you! ?

OpenDott is nearly ready

The collaboration with Mozilla isn’t ending anytime soon. OpenDott.org is a paid PhD program in responsible tech that is hosted by University of Dundee in collaboration with Mozilla and a host of smaller orgs including ThingsCon, and that I’ll supervising a PhD for.

I’m not logistically involved in this stage but my understanding is that the final paperwork is being worked out with the 5 future PhDs right now: The last YES’s collected, the last forms being signed, etc. Can’t wait for this to kick off for real, even though I’ll be only marginally involved. I mean, come on – a PhD in responsible tech? How awesome is that.

ThingsCon

The new ThingsCon website, thingscon.org, is by now more or less up and running and complete. Just in time for a (for ThingsCon somewhat unusual) event in May: A small and intimate unconference in Berlin about responsible paths in tech, economy, and beyond. Details and how to apply here.

Zephyrs: going fast

We’ve been making our ultimate travel pants under the Zephyr Berlin brand for about 2 years now. I’m not sure what happened but we must have landed on a relevant recommendations list or two as we’ve been getting a pretty sharp spike in orders these last few weeks. This is fantastic and a lot of fun. But the women’s cut is almost out now. We don’t know if/when we’ll produce the next batch, so if you’re looking to score one of those, don’t wait too long.

The Newsletter Experiment, continued

As I’ve mentioned in the last monthnotes, over in my personal(ish) newsletter Connection Problem I started an experiment with memberships. The gist of it is, I publish about 100K words a year, most of which are critical-but-constructive takes about tech industry and how we can maximize responsible tech rather than exploitation. You can support this independent writing by joining the membership.

It’s all happening under the principle of “unlocked commons”, meaning members support writing that will be available in the commons, for free, continuously. You can learn more in the newsletter archive or on this page. It’s an exciting experiment for me, and hopefully the output is something that’s useful and enjoyable for you, too.

AI, ethics, smart cities

I was invited to Aspen Institute’s annual conference on artificial intelligence, Humanity Defined: Politics and Ethics in the AI Age. It’s a good event, bringing (mostly US based) AI experts to Germany and putting them onstage with (mostly German) policy experts to spark some debate. I’ve been to this since it started last year and enjoyed it. This time, my highlight was some background on the European High Level Group on AI Ethics Guidelines shared there by one of the group’s ethicists, Thomas Metzinger. He made a convincing case that this might be the best AI ethics doc currently, globally (it’s going to be published next week); and that it has glaring, painful shortcomings, especially as far as red lines are concerned – areas or types of AI applications that Europe would not engage in. These red lines are notably absent in the final document. Which seems… a shame? More on that soon.

I’m just mentioning this here because there are a few exciting projects coming up that will give me an opportunity to explore the intersection of smart cities, policy, AI/machine decision learning and how insights from creating the Trustable Technology Mark can lead to better, more responsible smart cities, tech governance, and applied AI ethics. More on that soon.

What’s next?

This week I’ll be at the Internet Freedom Festival (IFF) in Valencia, Spain. Then later in the month I’ll be teaching for a day about trustable tech at Hochschule Darmstadt at the kind invitation of Prof. Andrea Krajewski. Otherwise it’s drafting outlines, writing some project proposals, and lots of meetings and writing.

If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have limited availability but am always happy to have a chat. I’m currently doing the planning for Q3 and Q4 2019.

Have a great April!

Yours truly,
P.

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Monthnotes for January 2019

By Peter Bihr
In work
3 Min read
M

January was a month for admin, planning, and generally getting sorted. There was lots of admin, taxes, year planning, to take care of. I also tried to get my hands dirty by digging into machine learning some more and ran some experiments with deep fake generation (the non-sleazy kind, obviously); so far with little success, but some learning nonetheless. And the WEF featured ThingsCon and the Trustable Technology Mark!

If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have very limited availability but am always happy to have a chat. I’m currently doing the planning for Q2 and Q3 2019.

Trustable Technology Mark

The Trustable Technology Mark launched to lots of media attention. But still it was a pleasant surprise when the WEF called about an interview as part of a new program about the role of Civil Society in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. ThingsCon and the Trustable Technology Mark featured in the report by WEF (deep link to the PDF) that was just released in Davos and that kicks off that program. Thanks for featuring us! This blog post has all the links in an overview.

Throughout the month also lots of chats about the Trustmark and how it might be relevant for other areas. This month including AI, too!

ThingsCon

As we continue to further integrate the existing teams and infrastructures between Germany, Netherlands and Belgium into a larger European operation, we had some fiddling to do with the ThingsCon website. Going forward, thingscon.org is the place to follow.

Tender

I put together a small team and a tender for a super interesting public administration bid that my company was specifically invited to participate in. ?

The Next generation

Was happy to hosted a student group of IT security and entrepreneurship to give them a deep dive into trustable tech, tech ethics, and alternative business models (there’s not just the VC/hyper-growth model!)

PhD in Responsible Tech

OpenDott.org is a paid PhD program in responsible tech that is hosted by University of Dundee in collaboration with Mozilla and a host of smaller orgs including ThingsCon, so I’m involved in this, which is a true joy. This week we’re running a workshop to plan out the details and logistics of the program, and to help select the 5 PhDs from the pool of applications.

A Newsletter Experiment

Over in my personal(ish) newsletter Connection Problem I started an experiment with memberships. It’s all happening under the principle of “unlocked commons”, meaning members support writing that will be available in the commons, for free, continuously. You can learn more in the newsletter archive or on this page. The gist of it is: I publish about 100K words a year, most of which are critical-but-constructive takes about tech industry and how we can maximize responsible tech rather than exploitation. By joining the membership you can support this independent writing.

A huge thank you to those who signed up right away and for all the kind words of support. It’s been humbling in the best possible ways.

If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have very limited availability but am always happy to have a chat. I’m currently doing the planning for Q2 and Q3 2019.

That’s it for January – have a great February!

Yours truly,
P.

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Monthnotes for October 2018

By Peter Bihr
In conference, digital rights, work
5 Min read
M

This month: Mozfest, a Digital Rights Cities Coalition, Trustable Technology Mark updates, ThingsCon Rotterdam.

If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have very limited availability but am always happy to have a chat. I’m currently doing the planning for Q2 2019.

Mozfest

Mozfest came and went, and was lovely as always. It was the 9th Mozfest, 8 or so of which I participated in — all the way back to the proto (or prototyping?) Mozfest event called Drumbeat in Barcelona in, what, 2010? But no time for nostalgia, it was bustling as always. The two things that were different for me that one, I participated as a Mozilla Fellow, which means a different quality of engagement and two, M and I brought the little one, so we had a toddler in tow. Which I’m delighted to say worked a charm!

A Digital Rights Cities Coalition

At Mozfest, the smart and ever lovely Meghan McDermott (see her Mozilla Fellows profile here) hosted a small invite-only workshop to formalize a Digital Rights Cities Coalition — a coalition of cities and civil society to protect, foster, promote digital rights in cities. I was both delighted and honored to be part of this space, and we’ll continue working together on related issues. The hope is that my work with ThingsCon and the Trustable Technology Mark can inform and contribute value to that conversation.

Trustable Technology Mark

The Trustable Technology Mark is hurtling towards the official launch at a good clip. After last month’s workshop weekend at Casa Jasmina, I just hosted a Trustmark session at Mozfest. It was a good opportunity to have new folks take a look at the concept with fresh eyes. I’m happy to report that I walked away with some new contacts and leads, some solid feedback, and an overall sense that at least for the obvious points of potential criticism that present themselves at first glance there are solid answers now as to why this way and not that, etc etc.

Courtesy Dietrich, a photo of me just before kicking off the session wearing a neighboring privacy booth’s stick-on mustache.

Also, more policy and academic partners signing on, which is a great sign, and more leads to companies coming in who want to apply for the Trustmark.

Next steps for the coming weeks: Finalize and freeze the assessment form, launch a website, line up more academic and commercial partners, reach out to other initiatives in the space, finalize trademarks (all ongoing), reach out to press, plan launch (starting to prep these two).

The current assessment form asks a total of 48 questions over 5 dimensions, with a total of 29 required YES’s. Here’s the most up-to-date presentation:


ThingsCon Rotterdam

Our annual ThingsCon conference is coming up: Join us in Rotterdam Dec 6-7!

Early bird is just about to end (?), and we’re about to finalize the program. It’s going to be an absolute blast. I’ll arrive happily (if probably somewhat bleary eyed after a 4am start that day) in Rotterdam to talk Trustable Technology and ethical tech, we’ll have a Trustmark launch party of some sort, we’ll launch a new website (before or right there and then), and we’ve been lining up a group of speakers so amazing I’m humbled even just listing it:

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino, Cennydd Bowles, Eric Bezzem, Laura James, Lorenzo Romanoli, Nathalie Kane, Peter Bihr, Afzal Mangal, Albrecht Kurze, Andrea Krajewski, Anthony Liekens, Chris Adams, Danielle Roberts, Dries De Roeck, Elisa Giaccardi, Ellis Bartholomeus, Gaspard Bos, Gerd Kortuem, Holly Robbins, Isabel Ordonez, Kars Alfrink, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, Janjoost Jullens, Ko Nakatsu, Leonardo Amico, Maaike Harbers, Maria Luce Lupetti, Martijn de Waal, Martina Huynh, Max Krüger, Nazli Cila, Pieter Diepenmaat, Ron Evans, Sami Niemelä, Simon Höher, Sjef van Gaalen.

That’s only the beginning!

Here’s part of the official blurb, and more soon on thingscon.com and thingscon.nl/conference-2018

Now, 5 years into ThingsCon, the need for responsible technology has entered the mainstream debate. We need ethical technology, but how? With the lines between IoT, AI, machine learning and algorithmic decision-making increasingly blurring it’s time to offer better approaches to the challenges of the 21st century: Don’t complain, suggest what’s better! In this spirit, going forward we will focus on exploring how connected devices can be made better, more responsible and more respectful of fundamental human rights. At ThingsCon, we gather the finest practitioners; thinkers & tinkerers, thought leaders & researchers, designers & developers to discuss and show how we can make IoT work for everyone rather than a few, and build trustable and responsible connected technology.

Media, etc.

In the UK magazine NET I wrote an op-ed about Restoring Trust in Emerging Tech. It’s in the November 2018 issue, out now – alas, I believe, print only.

Reminder: Our annual ThingsCon report The State of Responsible IoT is out.

What’s next?

Trips to Brussels, Rotterdam, NYC to discuss a European digital agenda, launch a Trustmark, co-host ThingsCon, translate Trustmark principles for the smart city context, prep a US-based ThingsCon conference.

If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have very limited availability but am always happy to have a chat. I’m currently doing the planning for Q2 2019.

Yours truly, P.

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Monthnotes for September 2018

By Peter Bihr
In travel, Trustmark, work
2 Min read
M

It’s fall time. But while the days are starting to get shorter, productivity is up. Let’s dive right in.

ThingsCon & the Trustable Tech mark

Lots of progress on the Trustable Tech mark we’re launching under the ThingsCon umbrella.

We just had a lovely two day workshop at Casa Jasmina, Torino’s open source smart home of the future (a project by Bruce Sterling, Jasmina Tesanovic and Davide Gomba).

A warm welcome at Casa Jasmina, and a ThingsCon haiku by Dries de Roeck

There I also spoke, together with Michelle Thorne at Magic Monday, Casa Jasmina’s IoT meetup. Which was extra fun, because 3 years ago we were the first speakers at that meetup, and the first guests at CJ.

Here’s the slide deck:

We also signed up the first official academic/policy launch partner for the trustmark, one of the globally leading internet & society institutes. It’s super exciting. More on that soon.

In related news, we’ll soon have a business master class from ThingsCon, so keep an eye on our social media and website. Also, the big annual ThingsCon Conference that this year takes place at Rotterdam. Super Early Bird tickets are still up I believe this weekend, end Early Bird through October. It’s going to be amazing and you really don’t want to miss out on this one.

Media, etc.

Over on ReadWrite, I wrote an op-ed about the RiOT Report. Reminder: Our annual ThingsCon report The State of Responsible IoT is out.

What’s next?

Mozfest London (Oct), ThingsCon Business Masterclass (Nov; more soon), ThingsCon Rotterdam (Dec).

If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have very limited availability but am always happy to have a chat.

Have a great October.

Yours truly, P.

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Monthnotes for April 2018

By Peter Bihr
In IoT, media, media coverage, Trustmark, work
2 Min read
M

Media & Trustmark

Some nice media action in April around the ThingsCon trustmark for IoT.

Offscreen Magazine kindly invited me to contribute a piece about IoT and how we can create IoT in a more responsible way. (Also, trustmark shout-out!)

The Wall Street Journal‘s cybersecurity newsletter (paywalled) did an indepth interview with me about the trustmark. Some more info about that interview over on thingscon.com.

Mozilla’s Internet Health Report featured our trustmark report from last fall.

And if you read German, I started a column over on Netzpiloten.de with a piece on risks and chances of IoT, and the role a trustmark has to play: Das IoT—Gefahren und Chancen im Internet of Things. (Full disclosure: I was project lead at Netzpiloten from 2007 to 2010, and Dearsouvenir GmbH is a joint venture between The Waving Cat GmbH and Netzpiloten AG.)

In an effort to make it easier to follow the trustmark project’s progress I also started a regular trustmark update over on ThingsCon.com (ThingsCon Trustmark Update 04/2018).

And last but not least, my co-fellows Julia Kloiber, Jon Rogers and I are also listed in the Mozilla Fellowship directory—Mozilla supports the development of the trustmark through my fellowship. (Full disclosure: My partner works for Mozilla.)

Miscellaneous ThingsCon

Also, ThingsCon is part of an EU grant proposal consortium which required a lot of paperwork. (That’s a good sign, right?)

We also had two ThingsCon Salons in Germany and some more action over in the Netherlands, both of which are easier to follow over on ThingsCon.com.

What’s next?

Between these things and lots and lots of research and conversations that will be shaping the development of the trustmark for the next few months, April was pretty packed.

I’ll be heading to Antwerp for a ThingsCon Salon and a workshop with Dries de Roeck tomorrow, and to first NYC then Toronto in June for conferences and meetings.

If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have very limited availability but happy to have a chat.

And on that note, I’m off for a last round of calls and off to the airport in the morning.

Have a great May!

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Monthnotes for February 2018

By Peter Bihr
In work
2 Min read
M

What happened in February? I’m a little short on time today so let’s keep it short and sweet:

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The National IoT Plan in Brazil has been published by the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES)—and it’s so good to see our ThingsCon & Mozilla Trustmark for IoT report picked up there.

I’m very, very happy (and to be honest, a little bit proud, too) that this report just got referenced fairly extensively. To learn more context, here’s Brazil’s National IoT Plan, concretely in Action Plan / Document 8B (PDF). (Here’s the post on Thingscon.com.)

This is exactly the kind of outsized impact I always strive and hope for.

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We’re headed for a social media winter. I think we’re arriving in the post-social media era. It’s going to be interesting to see what’s next. My money is on small, private groups (think Whatsapp chats).

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Less formal media: For somewhat more off-the-cuff, more personal takes and pointers come join my semi-personal newsletter, Connection Problem.

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More formal media: For the first time in a long time, I have some things to advocate for (responsible IoT, trustmarks, etc.) and a story to tell. So I’m looking to improve my media presence beyond the occasional, fairly random interview or article. Still figuring out how to best go about it. Any pointers are welcome!

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If you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, please get in touch.

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That’s it for today. Have a great March!

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Monthnotes for January 2018

By Peter Bihr
In IoT, policy, work
5 Min read
M

January isn’t quite over, but since I’ll be traveling starting this weekend, I wanted to drop these #monthnotes now. A lot of time this month went into prepping an upcoming project which is likely to take up the majority of my time in 2018. More on that soon.

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Capacity planning: This year my work capacity is slightly reduced since I want to make sure to give our new family member the face time he deserves. That said, this year’s capacity is largely accounted for, which is extra nice given it’s just January, and it’s for a thing I’m genuinely excited about. That said, I think it’s important to work on a few things in parallel because there’s always potential that unfolds from cross-pollination; so I’m up for a small number of not-huge projects in addition to what’s already going on, particularly in the first half of the year. Get in touch.

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On Sunday, I’m off to San Francisco for a work week with the good folks at Mozilla because reasons and a number of meetings in the Bay Area. (Full disclosure: my partner works at Mozilla). Last year I’ve done some work with Mozilla and ThingsCon exploring the idea of a trustmark for IoT (our findings).

Image: commons (SDASM Archives)

Should you be in SF next week, ping me and we can see if we can manage a coffee.

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IoT, trust & voice: More and more, I’m coming around to the idea that voice is the most important—or at least most imminent—manifestation of IoT regarding user data. Voice, and how it relates to trust, is what I’ll be focusing on a lot of my work in 2018.

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User profiling in smart homes: Given my focus on voice & trust in IoT this year, I was very happy that Berlin tech & policy think tank Stiftung Neue Verantwortung invited me to a workshop on user profiling in smart homes. It was all Chatham House rules and I don’t want to dive into specifics at this point, but smart homes and voice assistants are worth a deep dive when it comes to trust—and trustworthiness—in IoT.

Connected homes and smart cities

Not least because (as I’ve been hammering home for a long time) the connected home and the smart city are two areas that most clearly manifest a lot of the underlying tensions and issues around IoT at scale: Connected homes, because traditionally the home was considered a private space (that is, if you look at the last 100 years in the West), and embedded microphones in smart homes means it’s not anymore. And smart cities, because in public space there is no opt-out: Whatever data is collected, processed, and acted on in public space impacts all citizens, if they want it or not. These are fundamental changes with far reaching consequences for policy, governance, and democracy.

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Worth your time: A few pointers to articles and presentations I found worthwhile:

  • Kate Crawford’s talk on bias in AI training data is ace: The Trouble with Bias [Youtube].
  • TechCrunch has a bit of a top-level explainer of GDPR, Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation that goes into effect in May this year. It’s being widely lauded in Europe (except by the usual suspects, like ad-land), and been unsurprisingly criticized in Silicon Valley as disruptive regulation. (See what I did there?) So it came as a pleasant surprise to me that TechCrunch of all places finds GDPR to be a net positive. Worth 10 minutes of your time! [TechCrunch: WTF is GDPR?]
  • noyb.eu—My Privacy is none of your Business: Max Schrems, who became well-known in European privacy circles after winning privacy-related legal battles including one against Facebook and one that brought down the US/EU Safe Harbor Agreement, is launching a non-profit: They aim to enforce European privacy protection through collective enforcement, which is now an option because of GDPR. They’re fundraising for the org. The website looks crappy as hell very basic, but I’d say it’s a legit endeavor and certainly an interesting one.

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Writing & thinking:

  • In How to build a responsible Internet of Things I lay out a few basic, top-level principles distilled from years of analyzing the IoT space—again with an eye on consumer trust.
  • On Business Models & Incentives: Some thoughts on how picking the wrong business model—and hence creating harmful incentives for an organization to potentially act against its own customers—is dangerous and can be avoided.
  • I’ve been really enjoying putting together my weekly newsletter together. It’s a little more personal and interest-driven than this blog, but tackles similar issues of the interplay between tech & society. It’s called Connection Problem. You can sign up here.

I was also very happy that Kai Brach, founder of the excellent Offscreen magazine kindly invited me to contribute to the next issue (out in April). The current one is also highly recommended!

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Again, if you’d like to work with me in the upcoming months, please get in touch quickly so we can figure out how best to work together.

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That’s it for January. See you in Feb!

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The Waving Cat