Hello meshies! mesh is back for its fifth exciting year and it’s bigger than ever!
Stuart MacDonald kicked off the first day of #mesh10 with a huge thank you to all of the sponsors, volunteers, and fellow organizers – without you, this conference could not be possible!
Media Keynote: Chris Thorpe
Chris Thorpe, Developer Advocate for the Open Platform at The Guardian, took the stage for the first keynote of the day. Thorpe described the “mutualization” of news as the guiding principle of the Guardian’s work in extending their open API to build businesses with the people who use their content.
Top Tweet: mesh Presenter @JayRosen_nyu provided context and tweeted- “#mesh10 The Guardian’s “mutualization of news” http://jr.ly/3t8f is explicated by @jaggeree: Means putting the “co” in, as in co-reporting.”
Chris Thorpe talking with Mathew Ingram
Photo Credit: Mike McNaulty, as uploaded to media.meshconference.com
Society Keynote: Joseph Menn
Next up was Joseph Menn, author of “Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who are Bringing Down the Internet”, who entertained mesh attendees with his incredible stories of espionage and internet security. Even though some attendees thought Menn’s talk had “idea density too rich with awesomeness to extract nuggets”, here are our top three favourite Menn quotes:
“I don’t think I’ve met a top computer security guy yet that hasn’t done something bad as a teenager”
“…it’s not like the mob’s saying ‘We gotta open an online division'”
[On his own personal security] “In the unlikely event I get wacked, it’ll at least raise awareness”
Joseph Menn talking with Rob Hyndman
Photo Credit: Mike McNaulty, as uploaded to media.meshconference.com
The afternoon was packed with workshops and panel sessions that allowed attendees to ask questions and engage with our speakers. Here are some highlights:
Special Session: TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin on “Our Digital Future”
As TVO’s The Agenda continued their series on the future of digital, their session discussed one of the top themes of the day at mesh: the evolution of online privacy. @TheAgenda examined this issue looking at Facebook privacy questions and the growing concern amongst parents on how to monitor their children’s online activity. Click here to watch past videos from the Our Digital Future series. The session aired tonight at 8 p.m. on TVO!
Privacy in the Age of Facebook with Dr. Ann Cavoukian, David Fraser and David Fewer
This panel tackled the growing debate over Facebook privacy settings and featured Dr. Ann Cavoukian from the Office of the Commissioner of Privacy for Ontario (@embedprivacy). Key takeaways from the panel included the importance of opt-in versus an opt-out policy for privacy settings and that the power for change lies within the hands of the 500 million users of Facebook.
Top Tweet: @michaelocc: Worth re-posting: http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/ – will auto-audit your Facebook privacy sessions for you and highlight issues. #mesh10
Dr. Ann Cavoukian, David Fraser & David Fewer
Photo Credit: mesh Live iPhone App, as uploaded on media.meshconference.com
More Excitement: The mesh Prize
mesh had an exciting first today – Teehan + Lax announced the recipient of the first ever mesh Prize of $40,000 to Pixels to Products, who announced plans to conduct research and develop reports and a database about the size and scope of the Canadian digital community! Congratulations to Justin Kozuch, and we look forward to seeing your results at mesh11!
That’s it for day one! See you all tomorrow!!
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Edelman is a founding sponsor of mesh and a proud supporter of Canada’s largest web 2.0 conference. Blog posts and Twitter updates are brought to you by @lauraroni and @melissaretty from Toronto’s @edelmandigital team. Edelman is the largest independently-owned communications firm in the world. For more information, check out Edelman.com