On April 28, Pew Internet Director Lee Rainie will participate in a public-interview session at FutureWeb with Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, and Danny Weitzner, leader with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The event will kick off FutureWeb activities. Lee will also give a keynote on the future of the internet and host open Q&A interview sessions with danah boyd, a social networks researcher with Microsoft and Harvards Berkman Center; Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Doc Searls; electronic privacy expert Marc Rotenberg; and Bob Young, a founder of Red Hat and Lulu.

FutureWeb, which runs April 28-30, brings people from all walks of life together at the same space as the global WWW events in the spirit of cooperation and support for the positive evolution of the Web as it advances in its influence over every aspect of our social, political and economic futures. Leaders from Google, the Web Science Trust and Web Foundation, eBay, NTIA, the US Executive Office of the President, Microsoft, EPIC, the Internet Society, Red Hat, Lulu, the Mozilla Foundation and more will discuss the probable evolution of the Web and what it will mean for our social, political and economic future.

The mission of sponsoring organization IMAGINING THE INTERNET is to explore and provide insights into emerging network innovations, global development, dynamics, diffusion and governance. The Center is based at Elon University’s School of Communications and is a mostly volunteer effort financed by the university, with added support from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.