American Open Technology Consortium (AOTC) is a nonprofit organization of technologists who have joined together to educate lawmakers and regulators about technology — especially in regards to The Internet, which is the most world-changing technology since the wheel.
"All the significant technology trends start with technologists," Marc Andreessen says. Yet lawmaking and regulation concerning technology has always tended to start elsewhere: with well-connected interest groups, for example.
Unlike gun owners, environmentalists and evangelical Christians, technologists have never been a politically influential group. Certain large employers may have influence; but nothing to equal that of, say, Disney, the RIAA or the MPAA.
AOTC is here to change that. The influence we want is simple and straighforward: we want to speak truth to power. We know technology. We know what the Internet is about and the kind of good it does in the world. We have done far more to conceive and build the Net than any company, or any industry. And we did it for the good of the whole world, not for any special interest.
By its nature the Internet embodies three virtues:
- Nobody owns it
- Everybody can use it
- Anybody can improve it
No one company is going to stand up for these virtues. That job falls, like the job of building the Net itself, on the shoulders of technologists. That's who we are and why we're here.
