The last several years have witnessed the coalescing of the Access-To-Knowledge (A2K) social movement that champions human rights, human development, and the public interest as the focal points of innovation and information policy.

Yale’s ISP 2006 Access to Knowledge (A2K) conference advanced our commitment to building a broad conceptual framework of "Access to Knowledge" that can foster powerful coalitions between diverse groups. The A2k conference brought together over 300 leading scholars and activists from over 40 countries to participate in the construction of an intellectual framework for access to knowledge. Full conference proceedings and foundational resources for Access to Knowledge are available at the Yale A2K conference wiki.

This year, on April 27th-29th 2007, the weekend of World Intellectual Property Day, the A2K2 conference will be a pivotal event mobilizing the A2K coalition. A2K2 will further build the coalition amongst the institutions and stakeholders that crystallized at the first landmark conference, help set the agenda for access to knowledge policy and advocacy, and deepen the understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of access to knowledge issues. Developing both a theoretical framework and delving into the details of practical implementation, the program will focus on mobilizing the private sector, governments, technologists, and civil society around A2K issues. A2K2's policy panels will be structured towards tangible legal and technological solutions and collaborative strategies for policy makers and individual institutions.