The NEXA Center for Internet & Society is a research center founded at the Department of Control and Computer Engineering of

Polytechnic University of Turin The Polytechnic University of Turin ( it, Politecnico di Torino) is the oldest Italian public technical university. The university offers several courses in the fields of Engineering, Architecture, Urban Planning and Industrial Design, and is co ...

. It is an academic research center which studies the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

with a multidisciplinary approach: technical, legal and economic.

History, mission and projects

The Nexa Center for Internet & Society was founded on 26 November 2006 by professors Juan Carlos De Martin and Marco Ricolfi. Based in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

(Italy), it coordinated, among other projects,

COMMUNIA COMMUNIA is a thematic project funded by the European Commission within the eContentplus framework addressing theoretical analysis and strategic policy discussion of existing and emerging issues concerning the public domain in the digital environme ...

, the European Thematic Network on the digital public domain (2007-2011), LAPSI, the European Thematic Network on legal aspects of public sector information (2010-2012) and represents

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

in Italy. The Nexa Center also coordinates SeLiLi (Servizio Licenze Libere), a service offering advice on free licenses. A notable software project of the Center is Neubot (the network neutrality bot): a

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

Internet bot An Internet bot, web robot, robot or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity on the Internet, such as messaging, on a large scale. An Internet b ...

that gathers

network performance Network performance refers to measures of service quality of a network as seen by the customer. There are many different ways to measure the performance of a network, as each network is different in nature and design. Performance can also be model ...

data useful to investigate

network neutrality Network neutrality, often referred to as net neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering users and online content providers consistent rates irrespective of co ...

. In April 2012, the Nexa Center has launched the “Digital Revolution” undergraduate course at the Politecnico di Torino, the first full-scale teaching activity entirely planned by a member of the Nexa Center (Nexa co-director Juan Carlos De Martin), focused on Internet & Society, and involving several members of the staff of the Center, as well as prestigious guest lecturers. The Nexa Center is part of a global network of Internet and Society centers with the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, the

Berkman Center for Internet and Society The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008 ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, the Centre for Internet and Society Bangalore, the Center for Technology & Society at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) Law School, the Internet and Society Laboratory at

KEIO University SFC , also known as “Keio SFC” is a research-oriented campus of Keio University located in the city of Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. The campus currently offers three undergraduate courses and two postgraduate courses, and incorporates o ...

, the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

and The MIT Center for Civic Media. In 2013 the Nexa Center has become part of the Global Network Initiative (GNI), a multi-stakeholder international group devoted to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector. In October 2014, the Nexa Center took the role of coordinator of the Global Network of Internet & Society Research Centers. From November 2015, the Nexa Center for Internet & Society is a partner of Lumen, the project of the Berkman Center at Harvard on network transparency. The Nexa Center works with the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

, national and local governments, companies and other institutions. The aim of the center is to broaden the understanding of the main factors characterizing the Internet, their dynamics and their impact on society.

Members

The Nexa Center is run by two co-directors, a board of trustees,Board of Trustees of the Nexa Center
/ref> staff members and several fellows. Professor Charles Nesson is a member of the NEXA Board of Trustees together with another

co-director, Prof.

Yochai Benkler Yochai Benkler (; born 1964) is an Israeli-American author and the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Universi ...

, and also with other well known Italian and foreign personalities as Raffaele Meo and

Michelangelo Pistoletto Michelangelo Pistoletto (born 23 June 1933) is an Italian painter, action and object artist, and art theorist. Pistoletto is acknowledged as one of the main representatives of the Italian Arte Povera. His work mainly deals with the subject mat ...

References

and other partners) {{authority control Organizations established in 2006 Intellectual property activism Research institutes in Italy 2006 establishments in Italy

History, mission and projects

Members

See also

References

External links