Tech Policy Leaders

Beverly Parenti (@thebev) is co-founder and Executive Director of The Last Mile—a nonprofit focused on providing education and training inside prison that can result in gainful employment upon reentry, thereby reducing recidivism and helping redirect spending from prisons to education.

• The critical need for programming to not only train inmates on technical skills, but also help them find redemption through their work.
• How The Last Mile grew from an entrepreneurship training program into a program that includes software engineering as a central component.
• How policymakers can begin to develop similar programs to help train inmates in their local detention facilities.
• The Last Mile's revolutionary inmate training method that is spreading nationwide.

Resources:

The Last Mile

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens

Beverly Parenti (@thebev) is co-founder and Executive Director of The Last Mile—a nonprofit focused on providing education and training inside prison that can result in gainful employment upon reentry, thereby reducing recidivism and helping redirect spending from prisons to education. 

Resources:

The Last Mile

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens

Yondi K. Morris-Andrews (@YondiMorris) is a founding partner of Knight, Morris & Reddick Law Group (@KMRLawGroup). She specializes in various practice areas including corporate, entertainment, and real estate transactions. With her corporate clients, Mrs. Morris-Andrews works mostly with start-up companies, offering them advice on how to form as an entity, while drafting and negotiating contracts on the company's behalf. Morris-Andrews offers creative solutions for her entrepreneur clients, and is able to guide them as they grow from the start-up phase to experienced businesses. She has been hired by her clients to act as general counsel, handling any needs that might arise from the day-to-day responsibilities of running a business.

For her entertainment clients, Morris-Andrews drafts and reviews contracts including licensing, agent and artist agreements, and will negotiate deals on her client's behalf. Ranging from an independent play writer to a talent management company, Morris-Andrews assists her clients in whatever their legal needs might be.

Another area of great interest to Morris-Andrews is real estate; representing clients in the buying and selling of both residential and commercial properties. Morris-Andrews works closely with clients and agents on her deals, and as a Chicago native, has insight regarding various neighborhoods and what her clients should consider when buying or selling their home.

Morris-Andrews is also a co-founder of KMR Legal Staffing.

Morris-Andrews earned her B.A. from Spelman College and J.D. from the Northwestern University School of Law.

In this episode we discussed:

• KMR Law Group's amazing story about how they started and the road ahead.
• How to choose a business structure.
• Intellectual property pitfalls every startup should look out for.

Resources:

Knight, Morris & Reddick Law Group, LLC

KMR Law Group on Facebook

KMR Law Group on Instagram

KMR Legal Staffing

Year of Yes: How to Dance it Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes

Wunderlist

Yondi K. Morris-Andrews (@YondiMorris) is a founding partner of Knight, Morris & Reddick Law Group (@KMRLawGroup). She specializes in various practice areas including corporate, entertainment, and real estate transactions. With her corporate clients, Mrs. Morris-Andrews works mostly with start-up companies, offering them advice on how to form as an entity, while drafting and negotiating contracts on the company’s behalf. Morris-Andrews offers creative solutions for her entrepreneur clients, and is able to guide them as they grow from the start-up phase to experienced businesses. She has been hired by her clients to act as general counsel, handling any needs that might arise from the day-to-day responsibilities of running a business.

For her entertainment clients, Morris-Andrews drafts and reviews contracts including licensing, agent and artist agreements, and will negotiate deals on her client’s behalf. Ranging from an independent play writer to a talent management company, Morris-Andrews assists her clients in whatever their legal needs might be.

Another area of great interest to Morris-Andrews is real estate; representing clients in the buying and selling of both residential and commercial properties. Morris-Andrews works closely with clients and agents on her deals, and as a Chicago native, has insight regarding various neighborhoods and what her clients should consider when buying or selling their home.

Morris-Andrews is also a co-founder of KMR Legal Staffing.

Morris-Andrews earned her B.A. from Spelman College and J.D. from the Northwestern University School of Law.

In this episode we discussed:

Resources:

Knight, Morris & Reddick Law Group, LLC

KMR Law Group on Facebook

KMR Law Group on Instagram

KMR Legal Staffing

Year of Yes: How to Dance it Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes

Wunderlist

John Bergmayer (@bergmayer) is a Senior Staff Attorney at Public Knowledge, specializing in telecommunications, Internet, and intellectual property issues. He advocates for the public interest before courts and policymakers, and works to make sure that all stakeholders--including ordinary citizens, artists, and technological innovators--have a say in shaping emerging digital policies.

In this episode we discussed:

• a brief history of net neutrality, what it means and how we got to where we are today.
• what "zero rating" is and how it affects media diversity, competition and consumers.
• how Comcast's Stream TV may violate one of the promises Comcast made in exchange for the FCC's approval of its merger with NBC/Universal in 2011.
• the factors the FCC will use to determine whether Comcast's "Stream TV" violates the FCC's net neutrality rules.

Resources

Public Knowledge

Public Knowledge's FCC Complaint Regarding Comcast's Stream TV Service

Google Inbox

The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff

The Deal of the Century by Steve Coll

John Bergmayer (@bergmayer) is a Senior Staff Attorney at Public Knowledge, specializing in telecommunications, Internet, and intellectual property issues. He advocates for the public interest before courts and policymakers, and works to make sure that all stakeholders--including ordinary citizens, artists, and technological innovators--have a say in shaping emerging digital policies.

In this episode we discussed:

Resources

Public Knowledge

Public Knowledge's FCC Complaint Regarding Comcast's Stream TV Service

Google Inbox

The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff

The Deal of the Century by Steve Coll

Lateef Mtima is a Professor of Law at the Howard University School of Law. After graduating with honors from Amherst College, Professor Mtima received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where he was the co-founder and later editor-in-chief of the Harvard BlackLetter Journal.

He is admitted to the New York and Pennsylvania bars and has practiced intellectual property, bankruptcy, and commercial law, including a decade in private practice with the international law firm of Coudert Brothers.

Currently a member of the Advisory Council for the United States Court of Federal Claims, Professor Mtima has held the post of Distinguished Libra Visiting Scholar in Residence at the University of Maine School of Law, is a past President of the Giles S. Rich Inn of Court for the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and was a member of the founding Editorial Board for the American Bar Association intellectual property periodical Landslide.

Professor Mtima is the Founder and Director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice, an accredited Non-governmental Organization Member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

In this episode, we discussed

• How intellectual property laws and policies can affect social justice outcomes.
• The FCC's net neutrality rules and what's at stake for diverse content producers if the DC Circuit Court of Appeals strikes the rules down.
• The state of play of the law regarding how the NCAA compensates student athletes.

Resources

Howard University's Intellectual Property Law Program

Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice

Intellectual Property, Entrepreneurship and Social Justice by Lateef Mtima (2015)

Diversity in Intellectual Property, Edited by Irene Calboli and Srividhya Ragavan (2015)

Lateef Mtima is a Professor of Law at the Howard University School of Law. After graduating with honors from Amherst College, Professor Mtima received his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where he was the co-founder and later editor-in-chief of the Harvard BlackLetter Journal.

He is admitted to the New York and Pennsylvania bars and has practiced intellectual property, bankruptcy, and commercial law, including a decade in private practice with the international law firm of Coudert Brothers.

Currently a member of the Advisory Council for the United States Court of Federal Claims, Professor Mtima has held the post of Distinguished Libra Visiting Scholar in Residence at the University of Maine School of Law, is a past President of the Giles S. Rich Inn of Court for the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and was a member of the founding Editorial Board for the American Bar Association intellectual property periodical Landslide.

Professor Mtima is the Founder and Director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice, an accredited Non-governmental Organization Member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

In this episode, we discussed

Resources

Howard University's Intellectual Property Law Program

Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice

Intellectual Property, Entrepreneurship and Social Justice by Lateef Mtima (2015)

Diversity in Intellectual Property, Edited by Irene Calboli and Srividhya Ragavan (2015)

Susan Walters is the Senior Vice President of the California Emergency Technology Fund a non-profit that focuses on closing the digital divide in California. She was previously the Regional Director of Community Relations for Citibank in Greater Southern California. Prior to Citibank she operated a small consulting practice in corporate social responsibility. The work focused on building strategic partnerships between nonprofit organizations and corporations, strategic planning, communications and marketing. She has worked in myriad areas ranging from telecommunications policy, disability access to multimedia projects. Examples of her work include designing a highly successful technology job training program for low income adults and youth, creating a brand strategy for a buy local food campaign and marketing programs to reach emerging markets.

Her firm's clients included: AOL, Verizon, Microsoft, Independent Television Service (ITVS), San Francisco Giants, Freddie Mac Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the FoodRoutes Network.

In this episode we discussed

• the homework gap.
• the history of the FCC's Lifeline program.
• how to expand Lifeline to make high-speed Internet more affordable.

Resources

California Emerging Technology Fund

Internet for All Now

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride