Qiang Xiao

Biography

Xiao Qiang 萧强 is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of China Digital Times, a bi-lingual China news website, and an Adjunct Professor at the School of Information, UC Berkeley.  He is also a visiting researcher and Principle Investigator of Counter-Power Lab at the School of Information, University of California at Berkeley.

A theoretical physicist by training, Xiao Qiang studied at the University of Science and Technology of China and entered the PhD program (1986-1989) in Astrophysics at the University of Notre Dame. He became a full time human rights activist after the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. Xiao was the Executive Director of the New York-based NGO Human Rights in China from 1991 to 2002 and vice-chairman of the steering committee of the World Movement for Democracy. Xiao has published numerous articles on China, human rights and the Internet politics in the International Herald Tribune, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Los Angeles Times, South China Morning Post and other major publications. He is also a weekly commentator for Radio Free Asia.

Xiao is a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship in 2001, and is profiled in the book  Soul Purpose: 40 People Who Are Changing the World for the Better, (Melcher Media, 2003). He was also a visiting fellow of the Santa Fe Institute in Spring, 2002.

Xiao teaches classes on digital activism, China reporting and human rights at both the School of Information and the Graduate School of Journalism, University of California at Berkeley. He also runs the Counter-Power Lab, an interdisciplinary faculty-student research group focusing on the intersection of Internet freedom, social media and digital activism. In Fall 2003, Xiao launched China Digital Times to explore how to apply cutting edge technologies to aggregate, interpret, and contextualize online information from and about China. In 2006, Xiao helped initiate and facilitate the Open Net Consensus forum - which started the process of developing global principles on freedom of expression and privacy and included Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other global internet companies, as well as several universities and human rights and civil rights organizations and investors. This process led to the launch of the Global Network Initiative in October 2008.