Online/Virtual Event

Thursday, January 27th 2022 from 4:00pm to 5:00pm

See a recording of this webinar here.

What is the decentralized web, why is it important, and where is it along the path of development? What are the problems the decentralized web seeks to solve? Who are the players working to realize this vision? Why is the Internet Archive, a library, a leader in the decentralized web movement?

Find the resource guide to this session here.

About The Presenters

Wendy Hanamura is the Director of Partnerships at the Internet Archive, one of the world’s largest digital libraries. She helps to steward the DWeb community that now encompasses ten global nodes of technologists, policymakers, artists, and activists all working to build a better web.

Brewster Kahle has spent his career intent on a singular focus: providing Universal Access to All Knowledge. He is the founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive. This online library now preserves 99 petabytes of data—the books, Web pages, music, television, and software of our cultural heritage, working with more than 800+ library and university partners to create a digital library, accessible to all.

Mai Ishikawa Sutton, Founder & Editor, COMPOST Mag, an experiment in new forms of collaboration, payment, and creative publishing. COMPOST available both over the World Wide Web and the DWeb.

Paul Frazee, Founder of Beaker Browser, a peer-to-peer Web browser built on the Hypercore protocol.

About This Series

The World Wide Web started with so much promise: to connect people across any distance, to allow anyone to become a publisher, and to democratize access to knowledge. However, today the Web seems to be failing us. It’s not private, secure, or unifying. The internet has, in large part, ended up centralizing access and power in the hands of a few dominant platforms.

What if we could build something better—what some are calling the decentralized web?

In this series of six workshops, “Imagining a Better Online World: Exploring the Decentralized Web,” we’ll explore the ways in which moving to decentralized technologies may enhance your privacy, empower you to control your own data, and resist censorship. Join us to hear from experts in the leading peer-to-peer technologies, from identity to data storage. We’ll see demonstrations of how decentralized tech is being used in publishing, data management and preserving cultural assets. Learn how the decentralized web might yet create systems that empower individuals by eliminating central points of control.

This series is a partnership between Internet Archive, DWeb, Library Futures, and Metropolitan New York Library Council.