I have heard back from the director of the Oxford Internet Institute today and he seemed very positive about the idea, particularly if they could host a parallel more academic conference. (There’s got to be an economy of scale since many speaker’s would be appropriate for both.)

The OII have fairly limited facilities so may not be of that great a financial benefit to us on their own. The importance of their interest though is in the still close ties they maintain with Balliol college (Jimmy’s talk for example was introduced by the master of Balliol at his recent talk) who may be able to properly help us out on accommodation and in the help their endorsement would provide in securing central university facilities. The master of Balliol expressed initial interest and said he would get back to me in the new year.

What do people think to this possibility? We’ve had several failed London bids in a row, if this came together would people be behind an Oxford one?

Tom