Know What's News — October 2024

Introducing Silicon Flatirons x Ethics Series

Silicon Flatirons is delighted to launch our newest initiative, the Silicon Flatirons x Ethics Series, as part of our AY 24–25 programming. Led by Silicon Flatirons Senior Fellow Melanie Kay (Director, Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative Collegiate Program and Assistant Teaching Professor at University of Colorado Law School ) the Ethics Series explores ethical issues – legal and in general – associated with technology and business.

The first session in the series, Emerging Technology Ethics with Nick Bilton , kicks off October 29. Bilton, a Vanity Fair special correspondent, is a journalist and author of three books on the technology industry, including American Kingpin, which chronicles the Silk Road marketplace and the hunt for its founder, Ross Ulbricht. Bilton’s talk will examine the dynamic landscape of ethics in emerging technology, entrepreneurship, and startup culture.

Following Nick's conversation with host Melanie Kay, he will join a panel featuring local experts from relevant sectors including venture capital, social media platform engineering, and the startup community. Joshua Nunziato, PhD ( University of Colorado Boulder - Leeds School of Business ) will moderate the discussion with panelists Nicole Glaros (Venture Capital, Entrepreneur, Board Director) Adam Burrows ( Range Ventures ), Andy Sayler ( Workday ), and Noah Pittard ( Cooley LLP ).

November 13 marks the second session in the series, Building M&A Foundations: Earnouts and Ethics in Focus , to be hosted at 霍金路伟 , Denver office. The first panel will discuss Mastering Earnouts: A Strategic Guide for M&A Professionals, featuring Mark Kurtenbach and Sydnie Pennington ( 霍金路伟 ), and Carlyn Williams ( Arnold & Porter ). The second panel with Jon Fero ( SEMPLE, FARRINGTON & EVERALL, PC ), and Melanie Kay will explore M&A Ethics: Ensuring Ethical Compliance in Every Deal.

Special thanks to event sponsors, members of the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative Collegiate Program Consortium, including University of Colorado Denver Business School , University of Denver - Daniels College of Business , New Mexico State University , University of Colorado Boulder - Leeds School of Business , and University of Wyoming College of Business Center for Principle-Based Leadership and Ethics.

Learn more about the series and register for the October and November sessions. Stay tuned for more sessions to come in the spring.

Know What's Next

Startup Variety Show — October 22 | December 4

The Variety Show ranks among the best ways to engage with Colorado’s Front Range entrepreneurial community. Now in its third year, this series stitches together the startup scene, CU Boulder, innovators from the Federal Labs, as well as technologists from incumbent technology companies. The show continues on October 22 , followed by a special session on December 4 celebrating deep tech companies in the front range.

Feminist Cyberlaw Symposium: Participatory Access and Governance — November 8

CLE opportunity for equity, diversity, and inclusivity, and general credits.

In the past quarter century, cyberlaw has grown from a nascent set of ideas about how to make legal sense of the newly-arrived Internet to a wide-reaching and cross-cutting field that intersects with nearly every contemporary policy domain. Yet the massive growth of the field often has obscured the important interplay between cyberspace and the people that make it up. The symposium, held in celebration of the recently released volume Feminist Cyberlaw (Meg Leta Jones and Amanda Levendowski ), will draw together scholars to comment on the critical involvement of impacted communities in access to and governance of modern digital spaces: Meg Leta Jones , Blake Reid , Vivek Krishnamurthy , Casey Fiesler , Gabrielle Daley , Harry Surden , Margot Kaminski , Ngozi Okidegbe , Paul Ohm , and Scott Skinner-Thompson.

A rich morning of broad, intersectional conversations will broach the role of historically marginalized communities in the contexts of telecommunications networks, internet platforms, data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. Learn more .

Annual Flagship Conference — February 2–3, 2025

The event brings together a diverse group of leading experts to explore issues in technology policy. Speakers, topic, and agenda for the 2025 Annual Flagship Conference to be announced soon. Learn more .

In Case You Missed It

Privacy at the State Level: An Attorney General’s Perspective

This September Silicon Flatirons partnered with The State Center , Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy , and Colorado Attorney General's Office . Staff from across 29 different states, each from state attorney general’s offices, explored issues associated with privacy, regulation and enforcement. The event culminated with a sold-out public session at Colorado Law’s Courtroom featuring remarks from Colorado Attorney General, Phil Weiser and a panel of privacy experts. View the event recording and photo album .

Student Success

Silicon Flatirons Hosts Internship Information Lunch

This session allowed 1L and 2L students to get a jump on their summer job search. Students learned about the different Silicon Flatirons Internship opportunities and had the opportunity to talk with alumni who leveraged their involvement in Silicon Flatirons to secure the jobs that they now hold.?Speakers included Joely Denkinger , Sloane Dreyer , Kevin Nguyen , Kailey Lauter , and Sarah Rippy .

PhD Student Presents Paper at Telecommunications Policy Research Conference in Washington, DC

Silicon Flatirons sponsored CU Boulder Computer Science PhD student, Prasanth P. to attend TPRC52 and present his paper Dynamical electrospacetime model as a tool for spectrum management . The annual conference, now in its 52nd year, brought together a diverse group of researchers from academia, industry, government, and nonprofit organizations to discuss current and emerging issues in communications and the internet.

Community News

Dale Hatfield — Spectrum Policy Initiative Co-Director and Distinguished Advisor, University of Colorado Adjunct Professor

• Delivered talk to Pueblo (Colorado) Amateur Radio Club titled “The Role of Amateur Radio in the New Century – A Retrospective View.” Hatfield, who became an amateur (“Ham”) radio operator in his teens during the mid-1950s, credits this early involvement with sparking his lifelong interest in radio spectrum management. His talk in Pueblo expanded upon a speech he gave to an amateur radio group in June 2000 , just before stepping down as Chief Engineer of the FCC and returning to Boulder. In the Pueblo talk, Hatfield reflected on what he had predicted correctly and incorrectly in the 2000 speech, as well as the lessons learned from those insights.

Blake Reid — Telecom and Platforms Initiative Director, Colorado Law Associate Professor

• Panelist, Diversity in Content Moderation – Race, Internet Platforms, and Section 230 at the Berkeley Technology Law Journal / Berkeley Center for Law & Technology Symposium Race, Rights, and Innovation: Cultivating Equity in the Digital World .
• Lawrence Solum, Reid on the Limits of Copyright , Legal Theory Blog (Sept .26, 2024).

Harry Surden — Artificial Intelligence Initiative Director, Colorado Law Professor

• Paul Caron, Fordham Symposium: The Legal and Ethical Implications of ChatGPT and Other Emerging Technologies , TaxProf Blog (Sept. 16, 2024)(sympsoium features Surden's ChatGPT, Large Language Models , and Law, 92 Fordham L. Rev. 1941 (2024).

Other News

Burridge Panel to Explore Funding Innovation

Join the Burridge Center for Finance on Thursday, Nov. 7, for Funding Innovation: Private Capital Markets. Attendees will hear about capital deployment and value creation outside of the public markets through a panel discussion with industry professionals, followed by networking. Learn more and register .

Starting Blocks Customer Discovery Workshop

Transform your innovation into a successful venture in this workshop, designed for anyone motivated to bring their ideas to life, secure funding and create lasting impact.

Application deadline Oct. 25 for the next workshop Nov. 1, 8 and 15, 9 a.m.-noon. Learn more .

Lab Venture Challenge Showcases

Support the Center

Silicon Flatirons exists thanks to the generosity of our supporters and the strength of our community. We rely on their contributions to advance our mission to catalyze policymaking and innovation and to develop the next generation of tech lawyers, policy experts, and entrepreneurs.

Want to become an official supporter? Make a donation or contact [email protected] for more information about how to contribute.

Intellectual honesty is critical. Good debate and thinking require it. Thus, while we are fully funded by our generous supporters, our programming and initiatives remain staunchly unbiased and?objective.

What We Do

Founded in 1999 by Phil Weiser, Colorado’s current Attorney General, the center is a recognized leader in interdisciplinary events and programs . We serve students, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and professionals, and support the joint missions of Colorado Law on teaching, scholarship, and public service.

Although technology and innovation have evolved radically over two decades, our purpose remains the same: to convene multi-stakeholder discussions, support innovation, and develop the next generation of technology lawyers, policy experts, and entrepreneurs. Explore the center’s history .

For more about our initiatives, upcoming events, programs, publications, media, and student opportunities, visit our website at siliconflatirons.org .