A true inspiration to those whom have been working on Peace Website and the Free Digital Universe, John Barlow recieves a Peace Pillar Award. 

John penned the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace (below), has been called "the Thomas Jefferson of Cyberspace" by Yahoo, and is a co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization which promotes freedom of expression in digital media. He currently serves as its Vice Chairman.

John has written for a diversity of publications ranging from Communications of the ACM to The New York Times to Nerve. He was on the masthead of Wired for many years. His piece for Wired on the future of copyright, The Economy of Ideas, is now taught in many law schools. 

He is a recognized commentator on information economics, digitized intellectual goods, cyber liberties, virtual community, electronic cash, cryptography policy, privacy, and the social, cultural, and legal conditions forming in Cyberspace. He also works as a consultant on such matters with the Vanguard Group, DiamondCluster Exchange, and the Global Business Network. He is also a member of the External Advisory Council of the National Computational Science Alliance.

In recent years, he has devoted much of his time and energy helping to "wire" the Southern Hemisphere to the North and has traveled extensively in Africa. His Wired piece, "Africa Rising" describes the first of these journeys. More recently, he has been working with Brazil's Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, in an effort to get all of Brazil's music online.

In June of 1999, FutureBanker Magazine (an ABA Publication) named him "One of the 25 Most Influential People in Financial Services," even though he isn't in financial services.