Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University

Organization: The Berkman Center at Harvard University studies the nature of the Internet and its interaction with society. Its research has produced several successful organizations such as Creative Commons and StopBadware.org. One of its top priorities is to research repressive Internet censorship in regimes like Iran and China. These countries censor searches about freedom of speech and democracy, persecute online activists, and block sites like The New York Times. As the first step in fighting censorship, the HerdictWeb project takes a crowdsourced approach to detecting incidences around the world.

Role: I was one of the only two high school students from the entire U.S. to be selected for a summer internship by Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. I spent six weeks over summer 2009 in Cambridge working on the HerdictWeb project. Using Java Servlets on Apache Tomcat, I built ``publish-and-subscribe'' functionality to rapidly disseminate information on Internet censorship to people who can make a difference, like journalists, academics, and governments supporting global democracy. I was mentored by Harvard Law Professor Jonathan Zittrain, who recommended my work.