Huval speaks at F2C

Terry Huval spoke at an important national conference March 30th on “The Battle of Lafayette.” He was accompanied by Jim Baller in a session titled “The Fight for Local Freedom to Connect.” F2C, Freedom to Connect was focused on developing effective ways to combat the increasing erosion of our freedoms online. The basic idea was that we should regard the freedom to communicate as a primary right and regard the freedom to connect–to electronic networks–as one of our era’s battlegrounds to maintain those rights.

The F2C conference is one of those events that is designed to affect the way people think about a topic. Every so often a conference will exist at a happy intersection of just the right subject, historical moment, and participants and as a result will become legendary events in the field they cover–or sometimes in the field the discussion creates. F2C aimed to become one of those events and it was sponsored by “technorati” and the roster of speakers and attendees included some of the heaviest hitters in fields ranging from network design, to electronic freedoms, to developing connected communities. That is to say, it is an impressive forum in which to have a major session focused on Lafayette’s battle to determine our own future. This is evidence that Lafayette is “on the radar screen” nationally, evidence almost as potent as USAToday’s endorsement of our project.

I held off posting on this a bit, convinced, considering the type of conference that it was, that eventually someone would post coverage that I could share with readers. Fast Company, the prestigious entrepreneur magazine, has done just that in a summary of the session (they also have summaries of the others as well, a number sound really interesting).

As a bit of lagniappe, I offer you the following photos from flikr that I googled up: Huval speaking, Huval fiddling with the conference musician. Looks like a Cajun fiddler can have a good time even in Washington.

Long story short: this is a very good thing. There are loud ways to have national influence (like the USAToday article) and quiet ways. This is a premier quiet way. It’s nice to see our guys have the bases covered.