I gave this talk at the Blockstack Decentralizing the World Tour in Hong Kong earlier this month:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEx5hTl1LlA

Today at SXSW, we are launching a Wi-Fi network + advocacy campaign called We Heart WiFi.  Fred and Albert both have posts up about it this morning. Over the coming weekend, folks at SXSW will be able to hop on to one of our free “Super Wi-Fi” hotspots.  The “super” part is that each of these hotspots is connected to the internet backbone not by cable, but by another high-speed wireless link, operating in the “open” or “unlicensed” frequencies (meaning that anyone who wants to can use them).  These link back to a gigabit fiber connection (which is apparently higher bandwidth than the official sxsw WiFi network). The point we’re trying to make is that awesome things are possible when we open up our airwaves for innovation.  “Open spectrum” — or sections of our “wireless real estate” that anyone can build in, is a huge economic driver.   The fact that any person or company can build equipment (chips, laptops, phones, washing machines) and networks that run in open frequencies leads directly to massive innovation and broad choice. I like to think of it as a sky full of lego blocks:

The reason this is interesting is that the bulk of our airwaves are reserved for exclusive use — either by government actors, or by corporations (like AT&T and Verizon) that have purchased the rights from the government. We do this to encourage investment in infrastructure (by granting a monopoly), to avoid interference, and to raise money for the government (through up front fees). Of all of these reasons the last one is the most troubling — as we are consistently tempted to sell out our future to bring in some cash now. Part of our job — and I still don’t think we’ve done it well enough yet — is to make it really clear how massive the opportunity in the open approach is.  The same way that there are game changing dynamics in open systems like Wikipedia, Firefox and Android.  There is still more to be done there, and I’ll do some follow up posts on that. So for now: if you’re in Austin, please enjoy some Super WiFi on us.  If you’re watching from home, please join in with call to support the FCC in opening up more spectrum for innovation.

It's really hard for me to comprehend what happened in NYC last night. Everyone I know is safe and sound, and the overall death toll is amazingly low given the severity of what happened.  But man, what a hit the city took.  The aftermath is going to be long and painful. I was also blown away yesterday by the difference between the coverage of the hurricane on TV and the coverage on social media.  I spent all day with family mostly watching local (in Boston) TV coverage -- and then later in the evening I switched to following on twitter.  It blew me away how much more real the stories coming from twitter felt.  And it actually made me mad, somehow, at the TV networks.  Maybe that's now fair, but it's how it made me feel last night. On a positive note, I'm so proud to see a lot of activity around #hurricanehackers - an ad-hoc group of techies (led by Sascha Costanza-Chock from the MIT Center for Civic Media) that have been working nonstop all weekend to use tech & information to support the relief effort (including systematizing responses to help requests sent in to #sandyaid, and making a crowd-sourced timeline of events).  If you're technically minded and looking to help, checking in w/ hurricane hackers is a great way to do it. As hard as it has been to watch something like this happen to my home city from a distance, it's at least somewhat comforting knowing that the infrastructure we have in place is making helping out easier, from wherever we are. // photo of flooded East Village by jesseandgreg on instagram, via BuzzFeedAndrew.