BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Edinburgh Futures Institute - ECPv6.15.20//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Edinburgh Futures Institute
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/London
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20220327T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20221030T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20230326T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20231029T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20240331T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20241027T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20250330T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20251026T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20260329T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20261025T010000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251022T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251022T173000
DTSTAMP:20260502T080209
CREATED:20250915T124929Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250915T125019Z
UID:10000290-1761148800-1761154200@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:The Future of Free (and Who Will Pay for It)
DESCRIPTION:Who bears the cost of free in our AI-accelerated world? The foundational promise of open source software and open content licensing — that knowledge and code should be freely accessible to all — faces a significant challenge in the age of artificial intelligence. AI has put a huge strain on both the “libre” and “gratis” aspects of free culture\, but of these twin pressures\, the cost aspect is the one currently pressing down the hardest. As AI systems increasingly rely on vast datasets scraped from the open Web\, open repositories\, wikis\, forums\, and other commonly (and commons-ly) available works\, the infrastructure costs of supporting these free resources are growing exponentially. What was once sustainable through volunteer labor and modest hosting fees now requires massive computational resources\, bandwidth\, and storage to serve both human users and the voracious appetites of large language models. \n\n\n\nThis talk examines the emerging tension between the philosophical ideals of open access and the economic realities of AI-driven demand\, lensed through the experiences we’ve had to date managing programmatic access to content from Wikipedia. The presentation will: \n\n\n\n\nReview the landscape of current approaches to this challenge\, from rate limiting and API monetization to corporate payment programs\n\n\n\nDig into the details of the approach we’ve taken to date at the Wikimedia Foundation in our attempt to balance these opposing forces\n\n\n\nConsider whether these solutions preserve or undermine the democratic promise of open knowledge\n\n\n\nIndulge in speculation regarding possible futures that could result from the choices we make to support free in this newly expensive environment\n\n\n\n\nSpeaker Biography\n\n\n\n\n\nLane Becker\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLane Becker is the President of Wikimedia LLC\, a commercial subsidiary of the Wikimedia Foundation\, the non-profit organization that stewards the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Wikimedia LLC runs Wikimedia Enterprise\, a software platform for organizations that wish to reuse Wikimedia content on their own sites & services. \n\n\n\nPreviously\, Lane was a strategist for 18F\, a recently-shuttered consultancy inside the Technology Transformation Services division of the US government\, working to modernize government digital services. While there\, Lane started and ran 10x\, a federal venture-style fund to invest in technology products and services that benefit the American public. Prior to 18F\, Lane worked for the nonprofit Code for America as their Head of Product. \n\n\n\nBack in his start-up days\, Lane cofounded Adaptive Path\, a pioneering user experience design firm\, acquired by Capital One Bank to serve as their innovation lab; Measure Map\, an online analytics tool acquired by Google that became the face of Google Analytics; and Get Satisfaction\, an online customer service tool acquired by the social media firm Sprinklr. He has worked with the Institute for the Future as a research affiliate in their Governance Futures Lab and also coauthored a book on continuous innovation practices entitled “Get Lucky: How to Put Planned Serendipity to Work for You and Your Business.” \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nImportant notice: If you have any questions regarding accessibility\, please contact us at ctmf@ed.ac.uk
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/the-future-of-free-and-who-will-pay-for-it/
LOCATION:Room G.07\, Informatics Forum\, The University of Edinburgh\, 10 Crichton Street\, Newington\, Edinburgh\, EH8 9AB\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Wikimedia-Talk-with-Lane-Becker-1_Jordan-Watson.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20230927T113000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20230927T130000
DTSTAMP:20260502T080209
CREATED:20230920T082355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240711T105251Z
UID:10000089-1695814200-1695819600@efi.ed.ac.uk
SUMMARY:The Violence Prevention Forum: A Dialogical Approach to Multi-Sectoral Engagement to Prevent Violence in South Africa
DESCRIPTION:We are very pleased to extend an invitation to you to join us for a talk by Dr Chandré Gould\, hosted by the Edinburgh Futures Institute in partnership with Moray House College of Education. Chandré is a senior research fellow in the Justice and Violence Prevention Programme at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa. She has thirty years of research and advocacy experience addressing all forms of violence and its prevention. Since 2015\, Chandré has convened and led the Violence Prevention Forum\, a national dialogue platform for researchers\, government officials\, development partners\, the private sector and NGOs to develop a sustainable basis for using and generating evidence to inform the prevention of violence in South Africa. The collaborative and multi-sectoral approach to violence prevention is very relevant to those working and studying in fields such as public policy\, public health\, justice and policing\, and will have resonance with anyone seeking to understand how a collective undertaking and long-term partnership is utilised to address a significant societal challenge. \n\n\n\nGuest speaker\n\n\n\n\n\nDr Chandré Gould\,  Institute for Security Studies\, South Africa\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nConvener of the Violence Prevention Forum (www.violence-prevention.org). Author and editor of books and numerous papers on crime and criminal justice in South Africa; biological weapons control; South Africa’s apartheid chemical and biological weapons programme; small arms control and human trafficking. \n\n\n\nLinkedin \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProgramme\n\n\n\n11:20 -11:30 Tea and coffee on arrival11:30 -13:00WelcomePresentation by Dr Chandré GouldCollective discussion13:00Close
URL:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/event/the-violence-prevention-forum-a-dialogical-approach-to-multi-sectoral-engagement-to-prevent-violence-in-south-africa/
LOCATION:Room G.07\, Informatics Forum\, The University of Edinburgh\, 10 Crichton Street\, Newington\, Edinburgh\, EH8 9AB\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Public Services,Talk/Discussion
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://efi.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/nadine-shaabana-DRzYMtae-vA-unsplash-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR