Yahoos, Hoyas, and global values

Posted April 12th, 2007 at 7:26 am by Michael Samway, VP & Deputy General Counsel

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Few places like a university campus buzz with such contrasts of relentless skepticism and unbridled hope, outward curiosity and elevated self-absorption, elegant theories and gritty realities. Georgetown University, boasting students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries, is a school alive with the energy of student and faculty discourse and scholarship on today’s most vexing international topics.

I felt the energy there earlier this year while leading a discussion on Yahoo! and global values in a graduate seminar on ethics and international business at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. The students asked tough and direct (and not unsurprisingly, diplomatic) questions about Yahoo!’s application of values-based decision-making in our global business operations, showing a sophisticated understanding of technology and human rights issues.

Back on our own buzzing campus, headquarters to a company with hundreds of millions of global users and offices in nearly 25 countries, we too have been actively engaged with issues that arise at the intersection of international human rights and the Internet. I’ve blogged a few times now on Yodel Anecdotal about our involvement in the broad-based dialogue focused on creating a set of global principles and operating procedures regarding freedom of expression and privacy.

Over the past six months, while traveling back and forth to Washington, D.C. for meetings with human rights groups, for rounds on Capitol Hill, and to present at the State Department, I also met with Georgetown leaders to discuss partnership opportunities in the area of technology and global values. And now, as a further step in our engagement on business and human rights issues, we’re announcing a $1 million gift to Georgetown University to establish a Yahoo! International Values, Communications, Technology, and Global Internet Fellowship Fund.

The fund will support the education and research activities of an annual Yahoo! Fellow in Residence and two Junior Yahoo! Fellows who will study the link between international values and Internet and communication technologies. Georgetown will choose the Yahoo! Fellows from candidates in the corporate, government, academic, and civil society sectors with an interest in markets like Brazil, Russia, India, and China. We’ll remain actively involved in the work of the Yahoo! Fellows, partnering with Georgetown in seminars, research, publications, conferences, and other engagements with students, faculty, policy-makers, and the public.

This initiative will complement the Yahoo! International Journalism Fellowship we established last year through a similar gift to Stanford University’s John S. Knight Fellowships program. The Stanford fellowship focuses on journalists from press-restrictive countries, with the first fellow coming from Pakistan and next year’s fellow coming from Zimbabwe. The first Yahoo! Fellow at Georgetown will start in the fall of 2007.

Georgetown’s global reach and location in Washington, D.C., its prestigious School of Foreign Service, its reputation for international leadership, and the regular access it provides its students and faculty to legislative, judicial, and executive decision-makers, make it uniquely central in the debate on human rights and technology. We’re excited about the productive possibilities for Internet users globally offered by a Yahoo!-Georgetown partnership.

Michael Samway
VP & Deputy General Counsel

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