The Obama Moment: Bringing Networked Knowledge Into Obama’s Washington
All the pieces are falling into place for a big Obama victory and bigger Democratic margins in Congress. The missing pieces are the big ideas and transformative agenda that is commensurate to the range of 21st century challenges that we all know well. Certainly the big ideas are out there, the potential solutions are emerging across America, but they have yet to move into the political discourse of Washington. How can we create a new kind of infrastructure to deliver networked knowledge into the next Washington? All hands on deck.
Gina Cooper is founder and executive director of Netroots Nation. Often cited as a spokeswoman for online activists, Cooper has appeared on several national radio and television programs, including NPR's Morning Edition and CSpan's Washington Journal, and has been quoted in The New York Times and other major newspapers. Before her work with Netroots Nation, she was an early netroots activist and high school teacher in Memphis, TN. Cooper blogs her personal thoughts as a citizen-turned-political organizer at ginacooper.com.
Peter Leyden just finished a period as Director of the New Politics Institute, a think tank helping people in politics understand and adapt to the huge changes in technology and new media. He now is focusing on how to use new technologies and new processes to move big ideas and more transformative agendas into politics. Leyden previously worked as managing editor at the original Wired magazine, and as director of Global Business Network’s pioneering think tank on the future. He was a journalist, a special correspondent in Asia for Newsweek, and coauthor of "The Long Boom" and "What's Next."
Brad Miller is North Carolina's first representative to its thirteenth and newest Congressional District, created after the 2000 Census. In 1992, Brad was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives, where he served two years. He was elected to the North Carolina Senate in 1996, where he served six years. Miller is Chairman of the Science and Technology subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, and serves on the Financial Services and Foreign Affairs Committees.
Andrew Rasiej is a social entrepreneur and Founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, an annual conference and website about the intersection of politics and technology. He is also the co-founder of techPresident, an award winning blog that covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the web. He has advised Senators, Congressmen and political leaders on the use of Internet since 1999. In 2004 he served as Chairman of the Howard Dean Technology Advisory Committee. He is also the founder of MOUSE.org, Co-Founder of Mideastwire.com, and serves as Senior Technology Advisor to the Sunlight Foundation.
Silona Bonewald is currently focused on creating the League of Technical Voters. Previously she has worked in the gaming industry, creating high visibility web presences, content management systems and large database back-end integrations. She was also the program chair at a technical college. Silona volunteers for the ACLU and EFF on technology-based civil liberties issues, and has lobbied on various issues. The combination of her involvement in political activism, educational activism, psychometrics for gaming communities, lobbyist work, netizen activities and large systems architecture make her uniquely suited to envision the framework that will make the LoTV system all possible.
