NISO Plus 2021 Features International Set of Keynote Speakers

Those who attended the inaugural NISO Plus conference in Baltimore earlier this year will know that those keynote speakers set the bar very high. Amy Brand, Director of the MIT Press and co-founder of the MIT Knowledge Futures Group gave a thoughtful opening talk on The Other I-Word: Infrastructure and the Future of Knowledge, and danah boyd’s keynote on Questioning the Legitimacy of Data provided a provocative close to the conference.

How can we top that, you might ask? We are happy to say that, for NISO Plus 2021 (February 22-25, 2021), we have not two, but four impressive and knowledgeable keynote speakers, each of whom will share their perspectives on today’s most challenging information concerns.

Our opening keynote, Cory Doctorow, is a well-known science fiction author, activist, and journalist. Cory is also a special consultant to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. He holds an honorary doctorate in computer science from the Open University (UK), where he is a Visiting Professor; he is also a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate and a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science. 

Closing keynote, Zeynep Tufekci, is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in the School of Information and Library Science, with an affiliate appointment in the Department of Sociology. She is also a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Currently a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the New York Times, Dr. Tufekci is the author of Twitter and Tear Gas (Yale University Press).

In between, we will have the privilege of hearing from Margaret Sraku-Lartey, Principal Librarian at CSIR-Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (CSIR-FORIG), who also lectures in Scientific Communication for graduate students at the CSIR College of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. As a professional librarian, she is concerned about the lack of clear guidelines in the management of indigenous knowledge, and is committed to working toward the provision of standard guidelines for the management of such local knowledge, which can only be achieved through collaboration between all stakeholders. 

Our fourth and final keynote will be announced shortly but, to whet your appetite, he will be talking about one of the projects that make up the new Japan Science & Technology Agency (JST) moonshot program, which is described as “a bold new R&D program driving disruptive innovation.” 

The NISO Plus 2021 Planning Committee is thrilled to offer attendees such a wonderful lineup of keynote speakers, and hopes you’re as excited about hearing from them as we are!  Make sure of your place at NISO Plus 2021 by registering today!