Brian Kahin

An Associate Fellow at the Technology Policy & Research Initiative, Brian is also Digital Economy Fellow at OECD’s Directorate of Science, Technology and Innovation and Senior Fellow at the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA). He is writing a book on the intersection of digital economics and public policy that draws on a career in government, industry, and academia.

Brian was founding director of the Information Infrastructure Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (1989-97), the first academic program to address the economic and policy implications of the emerging Internet.  He served as Senior Policy Analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1997-2000), where he was responsible for issues in information technology, intellectual property, and the Internet.  He chaired interagency working groups on Internet governance, database protection, and the digital economy (for the National Economic Council).  He was subsequently deeply involved in patent policy in both Europe and the U.S., initially as an academic and then as CCIA Senior Fellow working with leading high-tech firms.

Brian has taught at Harvard (Kennedy School), Maryland (College Park), Michigan (Ann Arbor), Colorado (Boulder), and Washington (Evans School of Public Policy and Governance).  He has edited ten books on the Internet and the digital economy, including Standards Policy for Information Infrastructure (with Janet Abate) Understanding the Digital Economy (with Erik Brynjolfsson), and Advancing Knowledge and the Knowledge Economy (with Dominique Foray).  He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.