February 18 to 23 I traveled to Orlando, Florida (USA) for the HIMSS trade show. As much as I have enjoyed the magic of Orlando parks in the past, this was a pure business trip. I am an EU citizen (Spain) living in the UK, and I took a direct flight from London to Orlando. I had recently renewed my passport and ESTA, so I should be able to enter the USA without a problem right?
INTERVIEW with JORGE CORTELL, curator
By Airida Rekštytė – November 4, 2016
According to your profound theoretical education (sic) it will not be difficult to present us in short your intentions for organizing this event.
When did the idea of making this exhibition occur and what inspired it?
I have spent years as activist defending free software and online privacy, and opposing censorship.
During a dinner with the director of an event that focuses on those themes (the Internet Freedom Festival, also known as Circumvention Festival), I told him how it would be a nice challenge to try to convey the main messages of the Festivals themes into an art exhibition.
Tuesday March 1 I had a conversation with Dr. DJ Patil, the First White House Chief Data Scientist, at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.
He was interested in discussing ways in which the White House can help healthcare technology companies like mine. The first issue I raised was my concern over the FBI’s request for Apple to decrypt a suspected criminal’s iPhone.
My position in this issue is well known: weak encryption means weak security for ALL of us, so nobody can request weak security for security’s sake.
On Thursday, coming back home from a meeting, I run into the Million Masks March. While I assume I agree with most of their anti-system protests (the truth is I did not bother to read them), I think their choice of Guy Fawkes as an “icon”, even if a graphical one as proposed by the comic/movie “V for Vendetta”, is a very stupid one. Just read about what that historical figure had in mind and judge for yourself.
This past winter I met Sandy and James from Open ITP in New York, and Pepe from Valencia. They were organizing the Circumvention Tech Festival to be held in Las Naves, Valencia (Spain) March 1-6.
They invited me to give a talk, which was eventually scheduled for March 4th at 3pm. I titled the talk “When privacy does not mean the same to you and me”. It was meant to generate debate, to expose other people’s points of view, rather than to be a unidirectional speech.
On Monday, February 9, I attended a Bitcoin – Blockchain event with my wife at law firm Latham & Watkins in New York, organized by Hedgeable.
Over 100 bitcoin enthusiasts, investors, journalists, lawyers, and entrepreneurs networking over food and beverages, with demos from:
and a round table of Bitcoin innovation experts:
Since I have already started researching the application of the block chain technology for healthcare, it was quite a useful event.
