 Hello everybody. My name is Jan Gerlach. I'm a senior public policy manager at the Wikimedia Foundation, which is the non-profit based in San Francisco, California that hosts and operates Wikipedia and other projects of free knowledge. We are meeting here today with Andres Laura and Julio from ISUR, a fellow member organization of the Global Network of Centers who study internet and society. And we're meeting via video feed today because we couldn't meet this year at the global IGF in person. The Network of Centers has established this lovely tradition of meeting in person at several global events, one of them being the IGF. And since we couldn't meet there, we've decided to hold these series of video chats. And I'm so glad today that we can actually still meet like this. And I'm very excited to hear about your work at ISUR. And maybe I'll just start with you, Andres. Could you tell us a little bit about what you do at ISUR, what ISUR actually is and what your work is, and also what you're excited about for the future? Sure. Thank you, Jan, for the invitation. So my name is Andres Lombana-Bernudes. I am a research associate at the ISUR Center. This is the Internet and Society Center for the Universidad del Rosario. In Spanish, it reads as Center de Internet y Sociedad de la Universidad del Rosario. I am also a faculty affiliate at the Vermont Klein Center, and I am very happy to see the ISUR Center grow. As a research associate, I have had the opportunity to work in different projects at this center and help to build it. Also with Julio and other people at the Universidad del Rosario. So in short, the ISUR Center is an interdisciplinary research and training space that focuses on the social challenges and opportunities created by technological transformation. Our focus is mostly on human rights, technological empowerment, and democratization of knowledge and information in Colombia and Latin America. Our center welcomes students and researchers interested in consolidating academic training and advocacy projects that address technological development from a social and human perspective connected to the vision of the global south. By the way, ISUR has the word south in its name, so it's also a kind of a pun, and we emphasize that global south perspective. Very fitting. As I see the future of ISUR, we have many projects and lines of research that my colleagues will address in a moment, but the future that I see for ISUR is a future of creating like this new internet models, business models, new ways of connecting people, particularly people who has difficult conditions, vulnerable populations in the global south, particularly Colombia, where you see like almost half of the population that cannot connect to the internet yet. So we are reimagining other ways of connecting. I think we have to think in local, local scale, not massive, but connecting the local with the global in ways that are more equal, less asymmetrical and powerful. So I see the ISUR having a great kind of intervention in that space. Thank you. That sounds wonderful, especially as you described the situation around connectivity, for instance, that really resonates with me and seems to really make your mission also very, very pressing, right. And I have, of course, heard about your work in different contexts already when we've met before. But I do sort of wonder how you envision this, your work locally being part of a larger network of centers, how you feed your work locally into that more global work that others are doing as well. Is there, is there something that you can share about that? Absolutely. ISUR has that vision, it's shaped by the vision of the network of centers where we started to create it. I was a fellow at the Roman Klein Center, I started conversations with other people who had created other centers also with Julio. And we have several projects that actually articulate the network, right. We see a lot of potential doing this mobilization of resources of human resources, technology and funding. We have a project where we are collaborating with the Nordic Center, for instance, around the future of work and youth and innovation, and also a project on Aplatam that is connected to the network of connect thousands, a network in the south that is looking at youth and learning skills and doing comparison work between countries. I think that's very productive and I think the future of the research on the internet is actually looking at that diversity of appropriation, of diversity of experiences. The only way to be able to understand really how it looks the internet in the different contexts is to have a possibility of comparing different countries and the network of centers. A great resource for that. Wonderful, wonderful. So, so exciting. I really, really like this work and I'm so impressed. Maybe Julio, I can, I can throw it over to you. I've been a long term member and colleague at ISUR and it's so great to see you here today again. Maybe you can talk to us a little bit about what you there what your role is. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation at this space. It's really grateful to see you again. I am a worker in ISUR. ISUR was an idea of Andres four years ago with Sandra Cortesi and Karolina Watero here in Colombia. Andres started to work in this idea, particularly in the impacts of the new technologies in our bodies and in our minds and our relationships. Because in Colombia, in general, there are a root of a technology solution is we want to work in the in this kind of approach of technology about our relationships, the changes in our society. So, you said that the new technologies. You have an agenda of work that I tried to present briefly. We are working in media information literacy, the UNESCO initiative. We are working in media information literacy, and we are working now with indigenous population and women and women in Colombia, particularly is interesting. We are working to work with Wikipedia in indigenous language with some communities in Colombia. We are working to in a democratization of knowledge. We are, we are working, for example, in a credit commons movement. This year we, we work in the organization in Colombia of the Global Congress on intellectual property and public interest. Unfortunately, we, we must to, to postpone to 2021, but we are working in access to knowledge and the problems on intellectual property relations with their relation with access to knowledge. We are working to in open science and open access with university. We are working in the UNESCO initiative of how to think the agenda in access to knowledge and open science. We are working to in, in, in training of judges in Latin America with colleagues with the, the, the celli, Augustina El Campo in Argentina, and the colleagues of Brazil and Mexico. We are working with UNESCO to in, in, in a box of tools in training of judges in a free expression. UNESCO has been present to in, in the Internet Governance Forum, local Colombian Internet Forum and regional LACA-YEF and Global Initiative. And we are working now to in, in, in surveillance and privacy in, in one group in ISUR is working in, in, in these, in these problems. This is a very broad, very broad. Yes, yes. There was four years, very fructive. Yes, yes, yes, very prolific, very, yeah, I'm so impressed. I, of course, working at the Wikimedia Foundation, I'm of course, very, very happy about the work that you've doing on that you've been doing on Indigenous languages. And so around using Wikimedia there. I encourage everybody to read those reports that are public as well. And maybe now to, to the third person for me who are joining us today, Laura, so great to meet you. Can you tell me a little bit, since I've never met you, can you tell me a little bit about what your role is in these projects and in these? Hi, John. Hi, Julio Andres. My name is Laura Palacios. I am research assistant at ISUR. I'm working since July. My first role is try to support the different project that we have. I just want to add something about the things that Andres was speaking about appropriation and digital inclusion strategies. We are working in a collaborative work with communities in the north coast of Colombia, with the community, Guaduan, Senú. The principal work that we are doing is creating a collaborative dialogue so we can provide tools to them in the strategies that they have to prevent the COVID-19. So this is an important work that we are talking about because they don't have just impact in this Colombian community. The last week we can see that also the work that we are doing have an impact in the community, Guadu, but they are in Venezuela. So that's the first thing that Julio is talking about. And also we have the things that we are working with Wikimedia. That is just important for Colombian people and also for the community while doing Venezuela. Wonderful. Laura, maybe it's important it did work with the Red De Comunicaciones del Pueblo. The network of communication of Guadu people. Please. Yes. We have an important. I agree with me. Yes. In Guadira, Colombia, they have different organizations that are part of the Red Comunicaciones. They have different organizations that produce and they also are community. I don't know how to say communicadores. Communicators. Communicators and the thing that is important here, that is the impact that they have in the region. Because they have a lot of 20 organizations of different communities in Colombia, not just Guadu. They have another indigenous community that they have an important work so they can reply the message that we have for them. One thing that was important of this project is related to the, I don't know how to say, empowerment of the rights that we can not just teach to them is work with them. So that is really important for us. Wonderful. So you really, you work all together really what I'm hearing is really spans from actual research, but also applying those things and giving people the tools to to to use their rights across across the country. But also maybe the region right as you've mentioned collaborations with other groups in Latin America. Now I'm wondering, is there a, is there a thing that you, is there a project or a piece of your work that you would like to invite others in the network to join you with I've heard that you already work with the Nordic Center for instance. Are there other things that where you would like to extend an invitation, maybe for 21 for the next year that where you would would appreciate the support maybe also from from other groups in the network of centers could be anything of course. Yeah, perhaps something that we would like to learn more about it is how to create this fellowship programs, because it would be nice to have also a fellowship program at ISUD or residence program. This this kind of connections with the outside world of the university right and bringing people in to the center to develop their projects use it as a platform but also to learn together so I think that there are like several centers in the network that has done that from the Vermont Klein Center of course but also like the Humboldt Center I think there are like many things that we can learn from from those experiences. That is actually an excellent point and I think in conversations with other centers I have heard similar about similar interests like maybe sort of a learning call or something or or how do we set up these fellowships or how do we make them work even across centers right maybe there's maybe there's a lot of potential for interchange between between different centers and and bring in sort of fresh minds from elsewhere. But also of course equipping those minds with knowledge about the local context right. Yeah, wonderful. So, you've said that a lot of a lot of things have sort of been postponed to to the next year unfortunately due to the pandemic. Has has COVID. Of course it has but has it affected your work in ways beyond going remote how big is your center is it decentralized from the very beginning or have you always had one one office where you've worked together. How does this work at Eastwood. We are working in a very decentralized mode because we have a participants in the school from the other faculties. And we are working really in many fronts. For example, we are working in the in the in the European directive of property rights and influence and we are trying to think in the impact in Latin America of the of the role of the intermediate in internet intermediaries. In, for example, a free expression. Because the European directive about intellectual property. Assigned to the intermediaries or the internet one role in the in the field trial of contents in internet in Latin American standards of free expression. This is very problematic then we are working with economist in this in this problem. And in our, our role is very decentralized to see the internet problems, since interdisciplinary approach. Okay, so so the switch to to being remote also wasn't that big of a problem to you I mean it's not great for anybody right but. And through the internet government forum, Columbia internet government forum. We are trying to involve to involve other people from other universities in in Columbia to work in in our problems. Wonderful. And how many people are at Eastwood all together. Maybe 12 people, the core, the core because we have study is that means from the great and graduate studies, we have collaborators. Now we are starting a first experience in the science collaborative in collaborative science with your yeast with your yeast, then yesterday Laura know we have maybe 15 students from international relationships from biology from your student for from law from anthropology interested in this first work on a collaborative science. Then we have people that but the core we are 12 maybe. Very impressive how much you do with with only 12 people. So great. Well I see that we are already a time unfortunately, but it's been so great to hear and learn more about these are. I'm a big fan as you know, and it was so great to meet you all today thank you so much for taking your time. And I will see you soon. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.