Brad Smith – Moving Technology to the Cloud: Who’s on Point?

Posted on 12. Apr, 2010 by PNN Editor in Events, Technology, University

As computing services move from desktops into “the cloud,” new challenges arise in privacy, security, online safety, interoperability, transparency, and intellectual property. Who bears responsibility for addressing these challenges? Do cloud service providers need to step up to new responsibilities? Do we need new government action? Do consumers and others need to contemplate new responsibilities?

Brad Smith, Senior Vice President, Legal and Corporate Affairs for Microsoft, will discuss the topic of Moving Technology to the Cloud – Who’s On Point? at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, April 12, 2010 in 101 Sherrerd Hall on Princeton University campus. A reception immediately following 3rd floor atrium. The event is open to the Princeton community.

Brad Smith is Microsoft’s general counsel and senior vice president, Legal and Corporate Affairs. He leads the company’s Department of Legal and Corporate Affairs (LCA), which has just over 1,000 employees and is responsible for the company’s legal work, its intellectual property portfolio, and its government affairs and philanthropic work. He also serves as Microsoft’s corporate secretary and its chief compliance officer.

Since becoming general counsel in 2002, Smith has overseen numerous negotiations leading to competition law and intellectual property agreements with governments and with companies across the IT sector. He has helped spearhead the growth in the company’s intellectual property portfolio and the launch of global campaigns to bring enforcement actions against those engaged in software piracy and counterfeiting, malware, consumer fraud, and other digital crimes. As software has migrated online and into a computing “cloud,” one of LCA’s current principal goals is to help establish the legal foundation for this next generation of technology.

Smith has played a central role in ensuring that Microsoft fulfills its corporate responsibilities. In recent years Microsoft has consistently ranked in the top 2 percent of the S&P 500 for corporate governance scores. During Smith’s tenure, the company’s citizenship programs have reached 280 million people in 110 countries through technology training programs that help individuals develop the skills needed to obtain jobs. Smith has also helped advance several significant diversity and pro bono initiatives, both within Microsoft and in the broader legal profession.

Directions and Location of Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University:

The Center for Information Technology Policy moved to its new home in September 2008 and is now located on the third floor of Sherrerd Hall, previously known as the ORFE Building.

This new glass building is located between the Mudd Library and the Wallace Social Science Building on Shapiro Walk. We are not located directly on a street but are between Prospect and William and Olden and Washington.

You can find their building with the campus map or Google Maps.

Contact information:
Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University
305 Sherrerd Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
citp@princeton.edu
(609) 258-9658

About the Center for Information Technology:

The Center for Information Technology Policy uses Princeton’s unique strengths to promote an informed public discussion of digital technologies. The Center is a nexus of expertise in technology and engineering, public policy, and the social sciences on campus. In keeping with the strong University tradition of service, the Center’s research, teaching, and public programs address digital technologies as they interact with policy, markets and society.

Center participants come from Princeton departments including Computer Science, Economics, Electrical Engineering, Sociology, and the University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The Center hosts events such as a lecture series, workshops, conferences, and informal lunchtime discussions. It produces both leading research and practical demonstrations of issues at the crossroads of technology and policy.

Rapidly changing technology requires attentive and insightful analysis, so the Center strives to be both nimble and rigorous. Members of the Center frequently have a public role in elucidating and reconciling the sometimes orthogonal interests of different policy prescriptions — in Congressional testimony, the press, and publications that bridge between academy, industry, and government. For instance, privacy and security are both widely discussed issues on the Internet, but too often the rhetoric about each takes place without considering the other. Likewise, these debates typically lack the type of deep technical understanding that would benefit policymakers.