The Law and Technology Committee (elTek) of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore is hosting ‘Consilience’, a conference where contemporary issues of critical relevance in the field of law and technology are addressed. Past editions of the conference have engaged with a vast spectrum of cutting edge issues such as “Legal Aspects of Business Process Outsourcing”, “Biotechnology and the Law” and “Free and Open Source Software" drawing in on the rich experience of luminaries like Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia (Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission of India), Mr. R. Ramraj (MD and CEO, Sify Technologies Ltd.), Mr. Richard Stallman (Founder – GNU Project). Last year's conference, the theme for which was "Internet Intermediary Liability in India", has been hailed to have made a rich contribution to the evaluation of status quo and the future trajectory of intermediary liability in India by bringing in diverse perspectives from the academia, the industry and other important stakeholders. Some of the keynote speakers at the Conference were Ms. Wendy Seltzer (Founder, Chilling Effects Clearhouse and Fellow, Berkman Centre for Internet and Society), Mr. Gavin Sutter (Lecturer, University of London ) and Mr. Sunil Abraham (Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore). Details and conference videos from last year's conference are available at http://www.consilience.in/.
The 2011 edition of Consilience will focus on the theme of privacy and how it affects individuals and organisations. Consilience 2011 thus seeks to explore the interface between privacy and technology, the effect technology has on our understanding of privacy, and how technology shapes the contours of privacy and is in return shaped by privacy. Specific dimensions that the conference will engage with include privacy in the context of e-commerce transactions, social networking sites, upcoming gadgets, its equation with the State (with a special focus on the upcoming Unique Identity number project). Updates regarding the schedule of the conference will be posted on http://www.consilience.in/.