Welcome to Tech Talk. Bye.

Welcome to CDT's Tech Talk, where we dish on tech and Internet policy while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. I'm Brian Wasilowski, and it's time to talk tech. The Center for Democracy and Technology and the R Street Institute have been partnering on bipartisan events for a while. And this summer, we added the delegation of the European Union to The US to create a truly amazing summer series. We had three events in the series covering Transatlantic tech trends. That's a hard one to say. Democracy in the digital age and the future of work. Joining me to look back on this amazing series of great policy convenings are Sasha Moss from R Street. Welcome, Sasha. Thank you, Brian. And Jesse Spector from the EU delegation. Welcome, Jesse. Thanks, Brian. You are my, partners in this, co conspirators, co creators. What do we wanna call ourselves? Partners in crime. Partners in crime. Not that kind of like liability at this point for saying that. Oh, yeah. It's not it's over. You can say anything you want right now. So it's okay. First question, Sasha. Remind me, of course, I know the answer to this, but why don't you tell everyone why, we started partnering when CDT and Arcey started working together around these events and social gatherings at South by Southwest something like three or four years ago. Yeah. Three or four years ago. I was still on the hill at the time. I think We did this before you were in our street. Even joined. Yeah. Wow. Alright. Well, thanks for taking the baton. Anytime. I remember vividly the email.

Yeah. And I love it just, you know, to to add to that because we got to meet people. I mean, CDT for folks who are so surprised, maybe, you know, we're center left ish, our street maybe center right ish. Meeting people on the other side of the aisles really matters and doing so in settings that aren't necessarily always your formal ones or across like, a boardroom table type thing is really helpful. So, lots of great things have come from that and we've actually worked on a lot of great policy issues. So that's great. Fantastic journey and friendship. Absolutely. We talk about each other's cats a lot now. Jesse, EU delegation, you came to the fun you wanted in. Why did the EU delegation of The US wanna be a part of this amazing partnership?

We did. Well, aside from aside from the cat gossip that I'm also excited about. Now we, we joined in. We actually jumped into the South by Southwest pool was how this all started. Mhmm. With our first appearance there two years ago, we created this EU at South by Southwest Southwest house. We had our whole venue. And this was new for us. I'd only ever attended the conference, so but I knew it to be this dynamic convening of parties and, and policies and industry and international flare and all of these things. So I wanted in, but I didn't quite know how to do it. And so that, I believe, Brian, is actually how we got connected. I started talking to other people in town that had been to South By before and kind of, helped to be my my my guide through this mess that is South By. And it was fantastic. We had a really great, inaugural appearance there two years ago, so much so that we were back there this year and just, you know, going from strength to strength. And then I was really looking for ways to harness that energy, beyond Austin because it is a very unique thing that happens out there, but there's no reason why we can't have those same multistakeholder bipartisan conversations here in DC. So, that was how I believe we started talking about ways to do that. And

lo and behold, that gave birth to this, tech summer series that's been keeping us busy the last few months. And I forgot that, we actually recorded some episodes of Tech Talk from the EU house at Southby. You you were kind enough to give me a closet there. That was really nice. I took our studio in there. It worked out well. No. I'm just kidding. You were very kind to give us space and had some fascinating entrepreneurs there from Europe. It's true. And closets are at a premium. It's about five. That is true. Clear here. It's bigger than the hotel room I ended up with. So that is all fine. Alright. So let's get to the content. There was a lot of great conversations that took place at the summer series this year, as well. So I'm gonna get kind of, like, your favorite moments. I'm gonna start with a couple of the interesting things that were surfaced as as Sasha just made a a face at me, which is phenomenal. One of my favorite moments was actually the conversation between Claude Murais from, the Liebe Committee, Nuala O'Connor, our president, and Eli Lair, the president of the R Street Institute. And they really talked about a lot of different things. And, of course, the GDPR at that point was on everyone's mind. But what was most interesting to me, and you can watch the video of this conversation on YouTube, CDT's YouTube channel, Claude and Nuala and am I allowed to call a member of parliament, like, by their first name? That's a little informal, but I just did it. So we're gonna go with it. Summer series. You're on. Summer series. It's casual. Nuala and Eli were having a conversation about misinformation and disinformation. And I thought the conversation where where Eli said that the market would solve all of these issues, and then Nuala and Claude's kind of jumping on disagreement with that was was fascinating. So if you haven't seen that, definitely, you know, it's an interesting conversation about how to deal with, the the problem both in The US and Europe around mis and disinformation. And then the other one for me was, having someone from the administration, the Department of Labor, at our last event kind of share, his perspective on the future of work and lots of great insights, areas of agreement, areas of disagreement. I thought one of the more interesting pieces when we were talking about the gig economy and where and where that's going and, you know, the kind of sense that most people in the gig economy are doing it as an extra job, and I'm like, that seems a little misguided. So, but it was still interesting. So as we think about the future work, a lot of interesting things to glean from that and move forward with, because I just don't think most people in the gig economy view it as a second add on as a lot of people like to message it. So, Jesse, why don't I let you go first? What was your most insightful thing? You know, my most most enjoyable piece of it actually started at the very beginning with our first, series first event rather when we were talking about Transatlantic tech trends broadly.

And we conducted a live poll of the attendees and asked everybody what they thought were gonna be the hot issues in Transatlantic tech trends for the year ahead, what areas they thought would be most, most ripe for policy developments in this space. We didn't really know how this was gonna play out, if I'm honest. This was a bit of a test, but it was really interesting to see. I mean, privacy and cybersecurity very much rose to the fore as issues that people were most interested in seeing developments. And we had also asked about the state of, you know, transatlantic relations. And although people felt that there was a, room for improvement, shall we say, I think on the scale, it was a relatively poor, ranking of what they how they felt transatlantic relations were looking. They did identify a whole lot of areas, where they saw positive opportunities for growth. Everything from artificial intelligence to, say, cybersecurity and privacy and future of work issues. It was very interesting. And we built a little word cloud, of those of those key issue areas. And all of this is up on the medium post, that you could link through through the, EU delegations medium post. There's some graphics from that. I thought that was very interesting because one of the things that I've loved so much about this whole series is the real convening we're doing of our different, communities. You know? Yeah. We're bringing a whole bunch of people together, and it's in a room that aren't necessarily all in the same room together. So it was neat to capture their opinions in that way. Absolutely.

Sasha, what was your your favorite kind of policy insight or moment that happened?

And we all got along. And by the end, I think we made some new friends, greet some new policy advocates, and I think we have some really cool coalitions we're gonna build from this. I hope so. I hope so. So who were some of the interesting folks? Either of you can take this one that you met. You know, you've spelled out perfectly, Sasha, our goal of what we wanted. Don't give names because that would be embarrassing to them, but, you know, kind of interesting different perspectives or or folks from different areas that you met.

Sure. Sure. I can jump in here. I mean, one of the things I really, really enjoyed was, as we said, bringing the communities together. We had quite a few, of our counselors from the EU member state embassies that came out to the events. And summer is always an interesting time at the embassies because there's a lot of transition. You get new counselors just moving to DC. So I thought this was a great opportunity, and it's gonna sound a little strange to say, but I really enjoyed watching them network and seeing how their conversations went around because they are new to these rooms. And I think the uniqueness of this room is a great introduction to what you can do in this town. Mhmm. I myself, as as Sasha was saying, was enjoying just, you know, the the the bipartisan cross aisle kinda convening that was happening and the opportunity to talk to these people that don't often come off of the hill to events. You know? We didn't none of these events were up on the hill. We were definitely bringing people,

from the different embassies and whatnot. I think I definitely remember conversations with someone from Lithuania, Macedonia, Malta, which was great because I had just gone to Malta. So I had a lot to talk about there. They kinda looked at me and, like, you went to my country? Good for you. And I also enjoyed meeting your interns, Jesse. You had some really fantastic interns and hearing about the experience of working at the EU delegation to The US, but also their perspective on Washington. They, let me know that it was far too hot and humid. But overall, it seemed like they really, really liked it. And also, I very much enjoyed, seeing some folks from the administration come out because it was, you know, I don't need to tell people that our political climate right now is a little bit different, a little bit confusing to folks on all sides of the aisle.

So the fact that they were coming out, we had someone to talk to. A lot of people said, you know, we don't necessarily know who to talk to in the new agency. So the fact that they came out and engaged, I think that speaks to the kind of interesting convening power the three of us have together. So that is wonderful. I will just second that wholly and completely. I think I think having the administration's view, particularly on that conversation about the future of work Yeah. Was very, very, special, shall we say. You know? And it was really great to hear him, them talk about how they're trying to address this problem and acknowledging that this is a problem the new economy is posing in terms of how we're going to really tackle these issues. And just the idea that we're all thinking about the same things,

I thought was was great. Yeah. And EU approaches and or European approaches and American approaches to the future of work are very different. So having, you know, all those folks in the room is is fascinating. So now let's get to the even more fun stuff. I mean, content is great, but, cheers to everyone. Hold on. We have wine glasses with us, which is the first time and the last time on Tech Talk. But, of course, part of these, happy or the goal of the summer series was to go beyond happy hours, have programming, but also create some space for people to have those conversations. And we did that. And so, you know, we had some food. We had some drink. It was especially amazing because we got to have European wines, which I think are incredible. I don't think this is a European wine. I think it's a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. So sorry that kind of loses for both of us. What was your favorite bite or sip while you were there? Because I think that matters.

I'm gonna play a totally neutral role here and say that say that I loved it all, but what I loved most was that we were able to showcase these fantastic New Year air conditioned food drink. This is something that the EU does very proudly. You know? This is important to celebrate the culinary arts and really promote, that aspect of our culture, which is so rich and strong and delicious.

Someone someone has a career as a diplomat ahead of her. My goodness. What Sasha, make make a decision here. Pick a favorite. Oh, you know I'm from a small town in Florida, so it was all delicious to me.

mostly about policy and substance because that's what the three of us are mostly about, policy and substance. Sasha and Jesse, thank you so much for partnering with CDT. It's been a joy to partner with R Street and the EU delegation and we're definitely gonna have to do this again. Right? I would second that. I would love to. Let's do it. Thanks so much for joining Tech Talk. Thank you. That's it for this episode of Tech Talk. For the very latest on what CDT is doing to shape a vibrant digital future, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or visit cdt.org. I'm Brian Wasilowski. Thanks for listening.