We are very pleased to to announce that Jillian York will be delivering an address at the 2011 Open Video Conference. Jillian is best known her for human rights activism, and currently serves as the Director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Prior to joining EFF, Jillian was the Project Coordinator for the OpenNet Initiative at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.  There, she worked with volunteers and contractors around the world to carry out ONI testing for Internet filtering, blogged for ONI, conducted research, and coordinated  DDoS and Circumvention research.

Jillian also worked on the Herdict Web project, coordinating translation, blogging, and maintaining Herdict’s social media presence.

She is involved with Global Voices Online, where she sits on the Board of Directors and serves as an author on the Middle East/North Africa team, as well as Global Voices Advocacy.  She is also a member of the Committee to Protect Bloggers, co-founded Talk Morocco, and has written for a number of publications including The Guardian, Index on Censorship, BITCH magazine, SHIFTMag, Huffington Post, and Al Jazeera English.

Jillian’s talk will take a hard look at how video is enabling activists around the world—and also the risks it carries.

Video has played a huge role across the Arab world, from Tunisia where—despite the blocking of nearly every available video-sharing site—it has been used for info-activism campaigns throughout the past decade to Syria, where in the absence of journalists, citizen reporters upload crude footage from camera phones, documenting protests and human rights abuses.

Yet the popularity of video amongst the region’s activists is not without concern. Privacy remains a crucial issue as documentarians must weigh the benefits of making their story heard against the risks of exposing individuals’ identities. Reliance on privately-owned video-sharing platforms also presents challenges, as users face the possibility that their video will be removed if in violation of the terms of service.”

We are thrilled to have Jillian join us at this year’s Open Video Conference. She will also be participating in discussions about visual privacy and an effort to design software to help make human rights activists anonymous.

Register now, and be on the lookout this week as we release the full conference schedule.

Got an iPod, iPhone, or iPad and an itch to hack? There’s a ton of cool stuff you can do with your Apple gadgets, if you take the bold step of jailbreaking your device.

Jailbreaking is the process of removing the limitations imposed by Apple on devices running the iOS operating system. Jailbreaking allows users to gain full access to their operating system, and the ability to download additional applications, extensions, and themes that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store. Why limit yourself to the software that Apple has approved? It’s your device!

Jailbreaking is 100% legal, thanks to the hard work of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. So bring your Apple device to OVC this year—we’ll hook you up.

Volunteers sign-up is now available for the 2011 Open Video Conference. Volunteering at OVC gets you free admission to the conference, an Open Video Alliance t-shirt and our sincerest appreciation. We will also, of course, feed you.

Sign-up will be open through the date of the conference (Sept 10-12) but we will be planning on having at least one orientation in late August. You’ll be able to meet your fellow volunteers and learn more about what the tasks will be day to day. Sign up today!