Aaron Swartz Day was founded, in 2013, after the death of Aaron Swartz, with these combined goals:
To draw attention to what happened to Aaron, in the hopes of stopping it from happening to anyone else.
– This includes clarifying that, although Aaron was a hacker, he didn’t hack MIT.
To provide a yearly showcase of many of the projects that were started by Aaron before his death.
– SecureDrop
– Open Library
To provide a yearly showcase of new projects that were directly inspired by Aaron and his work.
A few Aaron-inspired examples from this year’s event include:
– The Pursuance Project (by Barrett Brown & Steve Phillips)
– Open Archive (by Natalie Cadranel)
– Jason Leopold’s Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) activism (article from 2013)
Happening right now is a livestream from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. PST of “intimate virtual talks,” including a special presentation by members of Brazil’s Aaron Swartz Institute starting in just a few minutes. You can also playback video for talks that happened earlier today.
Other speakers include:
- Scifi novelist/technology activist Cory Doctorow (11 a.m.)
- Signal user support engineer/project manager Riya Abraham (11:30 a.m.)
- EFF executive director Cindy Cohn (12)
- EFF Certbot director of engineering Alexis Hancock (12:20)
- Internet Archive’s Brewster Kahle (12:40)
- Anaconda CEO Peter Wang (1)
- The Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Kevin O’Gorman (speaking on SecureDrop at 1:30)
