The past few weeks of my Leadership in Action project with the AI, Media, and Democracy Lab at the University of Amsterdam have been fascinating and clarifying: I've acquired a lot of concrete knowledge in a field that I find very interesting, but I've also become a more capable teammate and contributor.

The domain-specific knowledge is the easiest to identify: I have developed a much stronger understanding of how copyright, data privacy, and data governance issues intersect with the concerns of news media, especially in the European policy environment. While I came into the summer with some degree of familiarity with these issues--in part because of my Laidlaw work on AI and journalism last year--the little that I knew was abstracted from the actual legal and organizational conditions on the ground. My engagement with and research into the European media ecosystem--and the legal-political conditions affecting its livelihood--has given my understanding a new level of depth and made it both concrete and practically applicable.

The intangible growth is harder to point to but just as valuable. In the transition from isolated research to team collaboration, I've learned how to navigate a new kind of work environment--one that walks a fine line between civil society hub and applied research lab. I've become a better listener and communicator, and in particular I've become better at asking questions--something indispensable when being thrown into an unfamiliar environment like this one.

It's hard to identify an individual person who has shaped my project disproportionally--I've been jumping from one assignment to the next (while focusing on a general set of issues), so I've been able to engage with a pretty broad range of voices and ideas. My supervisor has been incredibly helpful, as have the organizers at the Lab. In terms of leadership, the Lab management has been particularly inspiring to me because of how they've deftly moved between their roles as academic researchers and practical problem-solvers. But most of all, I've been very touched by the different civil society leaders and local media actors who I've had the benefit of encountering over the past few weeks--either in conversation or at conferences. These are the people fighting for a more just digital society, and they have exposed me to a world and a cause that I don't plan on leaving anytime soon.