Jun Kawasaki as Part of Who Owns the World? PCC Conference at The New School 2019

Summary

Jun Kawasaki at Who Owns the World Conference, convened by the Platform Cooperativism Consortium at The New School in November 2019. Kawasaki is a speaker for Town Hall 3 – Data Co-ops as a Path Toward Data Sovereignty. 

About This Town Hall: Beyond the analysis of how surveillance capitalism is extracting data and controlling our lives, this session is pointing to a way forward for the democratization of digital infrastructure. Without ownership of the platform or protocol, how do we move from Big Tech’s data extraction to data sovereignty? From “smart cities” to the healthcare sector, music streaming and beyond, data cooperatives are becoming more relevant to founders who work to democratize the Internet through cooperatively owned digital infrastructure – from social media to cloud services and beyond.

At age 17, Jun participated in the project “Q&A Now,” which was acquired by OK Wave, one of the biggest Q&A social communities in Japan. Next, he established several digital start-ups such as “Tokyo Otaku Mode.” In 2016, he established “GIFTED AGENT Co. Ltd.” to support people with developmental disabilities. At the same time, Jun started to develop a blockchain operating system while also taking on an advisory role in that sector.  In 2017, he became co-founder of “Commons Inc” and devoted himself to advancing the small, alternative, economic projects that connect people with one another.  Through “Commons Coop,” Jun now promotes experimental projects which are run on blockchain.