Congratulations to our third and final round of winners in the 2012 DFA, America’s Voice and Center for Community Change scholarship program. We’re excited to have each of these talented and passionate change-makers at this year’s conference in Providence, RI.

View the round 1 winners here and the round 2 winners here.

Round 3 Winners:

Daniel Lee
Culver City, CA
Daniel is the co-chair of Move to Amend Los Angeles, an Occupy LA member, an organizer with the LA Media Reform Summit and a voting member on the Culver City Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration committee. Watching the documentary “Eyes on the Prize” in middle school was his wake-up call to activism. He is committed to work toward a truly representative democracy and a full recognition of human rights.

Jesse  LaGreca
New York City, NY
Jesse has been writing on DailyKos.com under the screen-name MinistryOfTruth since 2008. By keeping each other informed, by organizing, by voting and through activism, he believes we can restore the American Dream. He believes we must to get money out of politics and do what we can to stem the rise in income inequality.

Maria Jimenez
Huntington Park, CA
Born in Mexico, Maria is the only undocumented child in her family. She’s volunteered for the Huntington Park Police Department since age 14 and recently joined the Immigrant Youth Coalition of Los Angeles. She currently attends Rio Hondo College, where she will soon receive a degree in administration of justice. Her goal is to become a police officer and give back to her community by patrolling the city and deteriorating the constant fear many undocumented residents have toward the police.

Blanca Vazquez
Oakland, CA
Blanca had the recent privilege of working with the Campaign for an American DREAM, in which she was able to see firsthand how social policies affect those who do not exactly have the power to make their opinion heard. It was through this campaign that she realized we must educate our communities on how policies affect them.

Stephen Boykewich
Brooklyn, NY
Before Stephen made a professional move to social justice media and communications work, he worked as a journalist on four continents, where he had the chance to document the effects of global capitalism run wild and the fights of local people for dignity and respect. Since returning to the U.S., he’s had the opportunity to lead media and communications campaigns for organizations including the National Guestworker Alliance, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the Excluded Worker Congress, ISAIAH, the Transportation Equity Network, Gamaliel, the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice and the International Center for Transitional Justice.

Hilda Ramirez
Campbell, CA
Hilda’s first interest in politics stemmed from an event when she was only 12 years old. She represented her school in a ceremony and laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. That experience impacted her life forever. She believes blogging—much like politics—is a personal call to action. With responsible engagement they both offer solutions to many critical issues and causes. They both allow us to advocate and bring forth change.

Tommy Tseng
Monterey Park, CA
The first time that Tommy was inspired to engage in significant organizing for change occurred when former CA Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger defunded University of California’s labor studies programs in 2003. Since then he’s successfully worked on and led union, political and issue-based campaigns. His proudest achievements are playing a leadership in the election of the first ever Chinese American woman, Judy Chu, to the US Congress and executing a communications strategy to present LGBT people and issues positively in Southern California’s Asian ethnic media. He’s also a formerly undocumented immigrant who was a first generation high school student.

Antonio Alburizures Lopez
Lincoln, RI
Antonio is a Guatemalan citizen who came here at the age of 1. Undocumented and unafraid, he has been very vocal about the issues undocumented youth are facing locally in R.I and nationally. He started working with undocumented youth under the leadership and guidance of Tam Tran a national pioneer of the Dream Act movement. He believes education is a human right, a principle that shouldn’t ever be denied. He’s also worked alongside CASO, BIRC and IDEAS 4 NE to implement instate tuition in Rhode Island.

Adriana Maestas
Irvine, CA
Adriana was first inspired to start blogging in 2007, but has been writing about political happenings since college. She grew up in a household where political opinion was encouraged so it’s not surprising that as an adult politics still interest her. One of the things that she writes about on is examining Latino leadership more critically. She feels that often in the Latino community, leaders are propped up because there are so few folks in positions of power but at the same time, not many people are examining these folks closely and looking at them in the context of how they relate to and represent the largest minority group in the country.

Heather Aronno
Anchorage, Alaska
In 2009 Heather discovered that LGBT residents in Anchorage had no basic protections from discrimination. She found out a group called Equality Works and some local activists were trying to change that, and her and her husband got involved. They’ve created a blog to directly address some of the mis-truths being propagated by opponents to equality. They sat in on public meetings and testified in favor of equality. They saw the ordinance pass through our municipal assembly that would address this problem of unequal protection under the law. And they saw their Mayor, backed by the law’s opponents, veto it and claim lack of any evidence of discrimination. That’s when Heather knew this couldn’t be a one-time battle. She was going to have to be a better catalyst for change.

Mary Ellen Broderick
Albuquerque, NM
Mary Ellen is a New Mexico grassroots activist, co-founder of Democracy for New Mexico.com blog and meet-up. She’s a lesbian who has been in a committed loving relationship for 23 years. Her partner, Barbara Wold, who passed away suddenly on December 18, 2011, was the progressive will and unwavering backbone of their progressive community here in New Mexico. Mary Ellen recently declared her candidacy for New Mexico House of Representatives District 30.

Beth Foster
Cleveland, TN
Beth was a newspaper journalist for 15 years before becoming a full-time advocate for homeless animals through the Dixie Pet Underground Railroad, a pet rescue agency that she founded and direct. Her time is divided between that work and her involvement in Occupy Chattanooga. Through the Occupy movement, she has been drawn into other forms of activism and looks forward to continuing her work to improve the world for all creatures—human and non-human.

Price Izen
Houston, TX
Price first got involved in political blogging during the early stages of the 2008 campaign in the Democratic Primary. He writes about economic issues in a post-Keynesian/modern monetary theory mindset, but also covers all issues. He believes President Obama and Democrats in Congress have failed to reign in our financial system and that we are also suffering from a lack of stimulus and the effective multipliers a full employment strategy would bring. Price is also an artist who provides artwork for his diaries on these issues every once in awhile.

Jesse Bacon
Philadelphia, PA
Jesse has had a somewhat checkered career as an administrator in public health, teacher, pub server and stay-at-home dad. He has spent the past two years as an online campaigner and communications person with Jewish Voice for Peace and is ready to begin taking on more responsibilities and broader issues that affect even more people. One of his earliest memories of activism was when he tried to join an antiwar group as a 10 year old and was only put off when the person said “funny little kid” under their breath.

Jorge Gerado Zavala
Chicago, IL
Jorge has worked across the African-American, Asian-American and Latino communities to bridge issues of education, poverty, civic engagement and empowerment. With the Illinois Department of Human Rights and Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition (RPC), he’s worked on diverse campaigns encompassing health and wellness, human rights and education matters.

Margaret Haule
Austin, TX
Margaret was born fighting with an umbilical cord wrapped on her neck and to this day continues to fight on an array of social issues from death penalty abolitionism, racism, environmentalism, prison industrial complex, reproductive justice, immigration and police brutalism. Everyone in her family has been active for a cause, and she wanted to be part of the solution not the problem.

Imraan Siddiqi
Phoenix, AZ
Imraan’s passion in life is to defend the rights and debunk myths about Islam and Muslims. Since high school and college, his professors told him he needed to pursue a career in journalism or writing, since he was able to give a unique perspective as an American-born Muslim.  After 9/11, Imraan got into writing almost by accident—needing to vent about how he was feeling with the heavy Islamophobia showing up in the mainstream media.

Some of 2012′s most exciting races involve strong, progressive women who are leading the national conversation on not only on women’s issues but also things like the economy and LGBT rights.

Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren, Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono and Washington’s Darcy Burner are each known for standing up for workers, the middle class and equal opportunity for all. That’s why we’re excited to have the three of them on the big stage at Netroots Nation in a few weeks.

In a Friday lunchtime session moderated by the Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel, Warren, Hirono and Burner will address the past year’s growing War on Women and the GOP war on the middle class. They’ll discuss what playing offense looks like for women and how election wins this fall will translate to policy victories in 2013 and beyond.

To supplement this keynote session, we’ve also got several amazing panels based on this set of issues where the conversation will continue. You can explore those sessions here.

We’re looking forward to seeing you in Providence. If you haven’t registered yet, just click here.

One month from today, we’ll be kicking off our seventh annual conference. We’re confirming speakers on a daily basis now, so I wanted to take a few minutes to update you on some of the great folks you’ll hear from and meet in Providence.

We’re pleased to announce that thursday night’s opening keynote will be headlined by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who’s been leading the charge in his state and nationally to hold Wall Street accountable for its role in the country’s economic crisis. Check out the American Prospect’s recent profile on him, The Man the Banks Fear Most. Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, environmentalist Bill McKibben, Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards and NEA’s Lily Eskelsen will also speak.

Throughout the weekend, we’ll be joined by numerous progressive leaders and elected officials including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Sen. Sherrod Brown, Sen. Jeff Merkley, Rep. Keith Ellison, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Rep. David Cicilline and Rep. Jim Langevin. Plus, we’ll be announcing more speakers in the coming days and weeks.

This year’s conference includes 70 panels on topics like the 2012 elections, the Occupy movement and reproductive rights, plus we’ll highlight state battles on issues like immigration and labor. We’ll also have 30 hands-on training sessions led by some of the top trainers in the progressive movement, plus caucuses, film screenings, tons of social events and our biggest crowd ever. You can check out our full agenda here.

See you in Providence in one month!

Want to attend Netroots Nation but are short on cash for the registration fee? We have a limited number of volunteer scholarships available for those willing to commit to four hours a day of volunteer time during the conference.

We’re looking for dedicated, motivated individuals who understand the importance of our volunteers’ contribution to the success of Netroots Nation each year. If you think you have what it takes to be a contributing member of our volunteer team, email Shanna at volunteers@netrootsnation.org and request an application.

The deadline for applying has been extended to Friday, May 11. Applications submitted past that date will not be considered.

Congratulations to the second round of winners in the 2012 DFA, America’s Voice and Center for Community Change scholarship program. We’re excited to have each of these talented and passionate change-makers at this year’s conference in Providence, RI. We’d also like to extend a special congratulatory note to Dulce Matuz, who was named one of TIME‘s 100 Most Influential People.

Interested in attending as well? Then click here to apply or nominate someone deserving.

Round 2 Winners:

Dulce Matuz
Phoenix, AZ
Dulce is the cofounder and president of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition and was named one of TIME‘s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2012. After Arizona passed Proposition 300 in 2007, it made it nearly impossible for Dulce to continue her higher education due to the rate hike. That’s when she decided to get involved. She loves to volunteer in DREAM Act-related political advocacy. Her ultimate goal is to run for office and to create positive change in her community with a high emphasis in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) education.

Shane-O
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Shane-O is a self-proclaimed political “junkie” who has produced many progressive radio shows, including the Stephanie Miller Show. He’s a regular guest host for the Nicole Sandler Show and co-hosts and produces the talk show “Talking Left,” broadcast on Radio or Not, Talk Radio One, Progressive Blend Radio and SoFlo Radio. He is also the co-creator, co-host and co-producer of “Occuthon 2011,” a charity event to benefit local Occupy movements.

Meg Lanker/Cognitive Dissonance
Laramie, WY
Meg is a college student in Laramie, WY, who is planning to go to law school in fall of 2013 in order to advocate for civil rights and the rights of undocumented workers. Based on suggestions from fellow activists, she began her radio show, Cognitive Dissonance, in July 2010. Since then it has grown to a daily site of news and commentary with nearly 9,000 followers. You can check her out every Friday from 10 p.m. until 1 a.m. on KOCA bilingual community radio.

Martha Vazquez
Los Angeles, CA
Martha is the co-founder of San Gabriel Valley Immigrant Youth Coalition and Immigrant Youth Coalition. She has a passion for organizing others and to help them embrace who they are and to fight for their rights. The thing that has empowered her the most from her work is when she sees and/or hears how she have inspired others because of what she’s done unknowingly. Those moments remind her why she does what she loves to do.

Angelica Rubio
Lake Arthur, NM
Angelica is a political junkie and blogger at www.rubiodispatch.com. She is also currently in the process of finalizing a 501c3 application for her organization, Center for Advocacy Rights and Engagement (CARE) in rural New Mexico. She is also a freelance writer and was recently published in the journal of North American Congress on Latin America, providing insight on the media’s negative use of the term “illegal” in the ongoing immigration debate.

Mark Maynard
Ypsilanti, MI
Mark launched his blog, MarkMaynard.com, 10 years ago and it has grown to be on of the most read in SE Michigan. He uses this forum to facilitate the building of community by promoting locally owned businesses and championing progressive causes. He started his blog as a  continuation of a magazine that I published with my wife called Crimewave USA, which was distributed internationally though Tower Records, Borders Books, etc.

Peregrine Kate/Catherine D.
Ann Arbor, MI
Catherine’s activism goes back 30 years after she was inspired by feminist groups organizing against sexual abuse of all types. Since then, her political activities have expanded, but she remains committed to her core belief in “the creation of a society without domination.” Her career history includes stints as a janitor, auto parts assembly line worker, copy editor, adjunct university instructor, researcher, legal worker, HIV/AIDS legal advocate, and union organizer. Recently though, her blogging has became a more appealing method for her to raise consciousness and encouraging mutual empowerment since she has become too disabled by her cancer and its treatments to work outside the home.

@SamPKCollins
Washington, DC
Sam is a native Washingtonian with Liberian ancestry. His experiences have helped shape his perspective and prepared him to pursue a degree in journalism. His ultimate goal is to be in a position where he can disseminate no-nonsense, fact-filled information to the masses in the form of a nicely written news piece, whether print, online, TV or radio. Through his father, he gained interest in American and West African politics and was hooked after following the presidential election of 2000.

Justin Conley
Franklin, NC
Justin is a small-town guy from the mountains of rural NC. He teaches high-risk students career readiness skills and finds it inspiring to watch other young people make the decision to better their lives and communities. Recently, he’s organized the Young Democrats of North Carolina’s Rural Caucus, because he felt that the needs of rural North Carolinians were being forgotten by both political-parties in our state legislature. He’s working to combat the attacks on public education and the growing economic disparity of rural people and to organize a grassroots operation to highlight programs imperative to the success of rural areas.

Colleen Crinion
Washington, DC
Collen grew up in Michigan living a typical working class existence—paycheck to paycheck. For her, this was a lesson in the gulf between hard work at the bottom of the economic scale and hard work at the top. She spent a year as an AmeriCorps*VISTA worker; then earned her M.A. in Sociology, with a focus on gender and family. She currently work for the Humane Society of the U.S., in the legislative and political arm, managing political endorsements, legislative and grassroots outreach and social media. Colleen also volunteer with the DC Abortion Fund and the Women’s Information Network.

Lisa Murano
Orlando, FL
Lisa has worked for a major women’s rights advocacy and health care organization for five years. She’s presented to thousands of young people annually about reproductive rights and health, the importance of young people’s voices in the political arena and grassroots activism. She’s worked with many progressive organizations (c3 and c4) including the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Equality Florida, the ACLU, Emily’s List/Ruth’s List Florida, Obama for America, Organize Now and Florida Watch Action, to name a few.

Nancy Meza
Los Angeles, CA
What first inspired Nancy to get involved in politics was the reality of growing up in East Los Angeles and seeing how educational inequalities impacted her family and her community. She was born in Jalisco, Mexico and was brought to the U.S at the age of two by her mother. She later became involved in immigrant rights organizing when she met other dreamers and embraced her immigrant identity. She is a music lover, record collector and proud sister.

Camilo
Providence, RI
Camilo is a long time community organizer for economic justice who comes from a working class immigrant family in Southeastern Massachusetts. He has worked with a wide array of people from various backgrounds including environmental justice activists, queer liberationists, youth, seniors, disability rights activists, union members and many more. Camilo has dedicated many years to learning various ways to organize with different groups so that they can contribute to make their movements bigger by increasing and broadening participation.

Chris Rork
Denver, CO
Chris has worked on numerous campaigns for Democratic candidates and progressive issues as a staffer and a volunteer. After witnessing eight years of disaster during George W. Bush’s presidency, Chris felt that he could no longer sit idle as the American dream faded into the distance for so many people. He’s passionate about the Colorado state budget, and the massive cuts to higher education and K-12 his state has experienced. He also writes about these issues and national politics on Colorado’s most popular political blog.

Paradise Gray
Pittsburgh, PA
Paradise is a hip-hop legend. He’s been the mentor to Jasiri X and hundreds of other legendary hip-hop artists. He is also the curator of “The Paradise Collection” which includes hip-hop history, photos and memorabilia collection. Paradise is also the Architech of X Clan, Manager of The Latin Quarter, DJ, writer, author, producer, promoter, keynote speaker and artist. Paradise’s inspiration comes from Africa Bambaataa and The Zulu Nation.

Roberta Retrum
Eagle River, WI
Roberta lives in a small Northern Wisconsin town called Eagle River, which is Tea Party territory. Despite that though she collected 897 signatures to recall Scott Walker. In the process she became a fixture and an organizer. Roberta also serves as the Vilas County Co-Coordinator for United Wisconsin, which is the group that started Walker’s recall. More importantly though she is campaigning for a seat in the legislature for the 34th Assembly District this November.

Jonathan “undocuQueer” Perez
Montebello, CA
Jonathan came to the States at the age of 3 from Medellin, Colombia. He has organized against criminalization of people of color and the prison industrial complex since high school among other issues that affect immigrants. He decided to come out of the shadows and closet because he did not want to live in fear and hiding very important parts of himself anymore.

Wooten
East Bend, NC
After witnessing the challenges his undocumented friends faced, Wooten got involved in immigrant rights activism and organizing. He ended up withdrawing from college and started an undocumented immigrant youth rights community organization called El Cambio back in his hometown. Over the last two years they have created a real movement in their area and local and state-wide politicians have taken notice. He even came out as gay due to the empowerment felt from his undocumented friends coming out about their immigration statuses.

Steve Owens
Calais, VT
Steve is a National Board Certified Teacher in music and was a Teaching Ambassador Fellow at the US Dept. of Ed. in 2010. He is active in the labor movement (Vermont Workers Center), and he supports labor solidarity in the quest for social justice. Steve is now the president of the local union and Board Director for VT-NEA and has had influence on local and state policy.

Tina
Goodlettsville, TN
Tina is a student and an activist who decided to take a gap year after graduation because paying for college didn’t seem viable at the time. She took time to travel across America, work for a non-profit that works for immigration rights, lobby at the legislature, fight against anti-immigration bills, find ways to bring in-state tuition for all residents regardless of status and work on strategies to keep Tennessee immigrant friendly.

Starting this Thursday, we’ll be doing weekly Spreecasts featuring content that will be a part of Netroots Nation 2012 in Providence. Click here to sign up for reminders of the Spreecasts and view the archives as they become available.

SPREECAST SIGNUP

What is a “Spreecast,” you ask? I think they really put it best:

Launched as a public beta in November 2011, Spreecast enables people, using only a browser and a webcam, to produce highly interactive face-to-face video broadcasts that thousands of others can participate in live. Spreecasts are simultaneously recorded and immediately available for playback and sharing. You can also embed them on your web site or blog. In a Spreecast, up to four people at a time can get face-to-face on screen, while many others can watch, chat, tweet, comment and participate by submitting questions to those on screen. Producers have robust tools to control who and what appears on screen.

Our first Spreecast will be this Thursday, April 26 at 6 p.m. Eastern featuring folks from this NN12 panel: The Battle for Congress: Q&A on the 2012 Elections. Guests will include Daily Kos Contributing Editor Steve Singiser and Political Director David Nir, who is also the editor of the FANTASTIC DailyKos Election Daily, which you should sign up for RIGHT NOW).

I hope you’ll join us this Thursday and every week. Check back for details on who will be featured in upcoming Spreecasts!

We just updated the hotel page on this site to reflect that the hotel blocks at both the Westin Providence and the Biltmore are sold out. There are rooms still available at both hotels, but they are not subject to the Netroots Nation group block rate.

As people cancel or consolidate room reservations at the Westin and Biltmore, rooms may still become available. We suggest you check back with the hotels to see if someone cancelled their reservation.

If you have reservations at either of these hotels and you’re considering not using them, please cancel the reservation as soon as possible so that other NN12 attendees may take advantage of our discounted rate. Those rooms in the group blocks are scheduled to be the property of NN12 attendees until May 17, so please make every effort to cancel your reservation (if you don’t intend to use it) well before May 17, so that other attendees may use that room.

If you cancel after May 17, those rooms can be booked by NN12 attendees, but they’ll be charged the going rate at the hotel instead of our discounted rate (to say nothing of the fact that they won’t count toward our contractually agreed upon hotel usage).

If you don’t have a room and aren’t having luck booking a room coming out of the Westin or Biltmore blocks, try the Providence Convention and Visitors Bureau website.

Photo credit: Mona T. Brooks

After a two-month long process of scoring and discussing (and more scoring and discussing), we are excited to announce our 2012 agenda!

Our final list of 70 panels includes some timely topics like the 2012 elections, the Occupy movement and reproductive rights. But this year we’re also including some topics not often touched on at Netroots Nation, including transgender issues, criminal justice and fracking. There are also 30 super useful, hands-on training sessions led by some of the top trainers in the progressive movement.

Click here to peruse the full list of panels and trainings. (And check back frequently as we confirm and update our panelists.)

Special thanks to everyone who submitted proposals. We had almost 500 submissions this year, which gave us an amazing breadth of topics to consider.

We also want to sincerely thank all of the people who served on subcommittees and helped us read, score and consider all of these ideas. We were fortunate to draw upon their considerable experience and knowledge during this process. Out hat is off to:

Abel Collins, Abel Habtegeorgis, Adam Bonin, Adam Green, Adam Mordecai, Adam Quinn, Alex Moore, Amanda Marcotte, Anat Shenker, Aniello Alioto, Austen Levihn-Coon, Barry Kendall, Benjamin Lennett, Charles Lenchner, Charlie Chamberlain, Chris Massicotte, Christie George, Christina Hollenbeck, Christine Pelosi, Chuck Rocha, Cindy Kang, Cynthia Liu, Dan Ancona, Dave Johnson, David Dayen, David Nir, David Segal, David Waldman, Dawn Euer, Denise Oliver-Velez, Digby, Elana Levin, Elijah Zarlin, Emilie Aries, Greg Basta, Jackie Mahendra, Jason Rosenbaum, Jen Ancona, Joan McCarter, Joe Sudbay, John Neurohr, Josh Harkinson, Josh Nelson, Josh Orton, Julia Rosen, Julielyn Gibbons, Kaili Joy Gray, Karl Frisch, Karoli Kuns, Kate Brock, Kate Sheppard, Keith Kamisugi, Kelly Rand, Larry Huynh, Laura Clawson, Lauren Wolfe, Lisa Hayes, Liz Havstad, Lynne Lupien, Mahwish Khan, Marce Gutierrez, Marcy Wheeler, Mary Rickles, Matt Browner-Hamlin, Matt Ewing, Matt Ortega, Melissa Ryan, Mike Lux, Mike Moschella, Mike Rogers, Mudcat Arnold, Murshed Zaheed, Natasha Chart, Nathan Henderson-James, Nathaniel Charny, Nick Berning, Nirmal Mankani, Nolan Treadway, Rachel LaBruyere, Raven Brooks, Richard Graves, Richard Smith, RL Miller, Robert Cruickshank, Sabrina Stevens Shupe, Sarah Granger, Sunny Hundal, Tim Tagaris, Timothy Karr, Tina Lee, Tracy Van Slyke, Whit Jones, Will Coley, Will Neville, Zahra Billoo, and Zerlina Maxwell