#Resist, Rebuild, Sustain: How Organizers and Technologists Must Collaborate in this Moment
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Thursday, Aug. 10 1:00 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Thursday, Aug. 10 2:15 PM (Eastern)
With so many activists sparked by the November election, many are confronted with how best to sustain this moment. In this panel, we’ll share the story of an innovative collaboration between digital strategists and activists. After Trump’s Muslim ban, Meetup launched a network of 1,000 local #Resist groups. Quickly, the network of #Resist Meetups had more than 100,000 members participating in civic action all over the country. To sustain the momentum, Meetup teamed up with The Domestic Worker Legacy Fund, dedicated to elevating communities of color, to house a “Deep Democracy Lab” to provide vision to sustain this grassroots momentum. This panel will examine the ways organizers, digital strategists, and technologists must collaborate in this political moment.
Moderator
Almas Sayeed
Almas is the Deputy Director at the California Immigrant Policy Center, the state’s leading immigrant rights organization. Almas’s work focuses on the intersection of campaigns, litigation and policy implementation. This year, Almas helped lead CA’s (nearly successful) campaign to expand Medi-Cal to undocumented adults and the successful fight to protect CA’s sanctuary state bill. Almas lives in LA but calls Kansas home.
Other sessions: Keep Marching! How Connecting Locally Builds Power for Local and National Progressive Wins
Panelists
Kristin Hodgson
Kristin Hodgson is a marketing and communications leader with extensive experience in branding, campaign development, and partnerships. In her role at Meetup, Kristin evangelizes Meetup’s mission of bringing people together and champions the Meetup community through storytelling. After President Trump’s first travel ban, she cofounded a network of 1,000+ #Resist groups on Meetup.
Prior to Meetup, Kristin was the Senior Managing Director, Digital at Teach For America. She led TFA’s web team, defined the vision and product roadmap for teachforamerica.org, and created compelling content to engage audiences in marketing campaigns.
She lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, with her husband, daughter, and her beloved Frenchie, Bogart.
Mariana Ruiz Firmat
I’m a co-founder and the Executive Director of the Kairos Fellowship-a program building the next generation of campaigning leaders and technologists of color. I’ve been organizing for longer than I can remember. I came up in California working to end gender based violence against migrant farmworkers and their children before moving to NYC where I was a union organizer for 5 years. In 2010 I made the leap from grassroots organizing to online campaigning and worked at MoveOn. After leaving MoveOn, I went to Presente where I was Managing Director leading strategic campaigns. After years in digital campaigning and witnessing more and more black and brown leaders get pushed out of digital organizing because of structural racism, I co-founded the Kairos Fellowship. I am lucky to build with and support the incredible talent that makes up the Kairos network.
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