Speaker Database

Speaker Database / 1,371 Speakers

The Personal Democracy Forum was a conference that ran for over 15 years and took place in NYC, Europe and Central America.

Halley Suitt

Halley Suitt is the author of Halley’s Comment (www.halleyscomment.blogspot.com), a senior editor for Worthwhile Magazine (www.worthwhilemag.com) and has been published in Harvard Business Review, Penthouse Magazine and other publications of note, as well as the blogs TomPeters.com, Misbehaving.Net and Blogsisters. She has appeared on Oprah.

Hallie Montoya Tansey

Hallie is the co-founder and CEO of The Target Labs, a company dedicated to making best-in-class analytics affordable and accessible to smaller Democratic and progressive campaigns. She worked on her first campaign in 2003 in San Francisco, and fell in love with electoral politics. She subsequently co-founded the League of Young Voters, a national non-profit organization, and played a key role in building the organization out to 24 staff and a $2 million annual budget over three years. Hallie joined the Obama campaign in Nevada early in 2007, ultimately leading field operations for the campaign in New Mexico, Texas, Chicago HQ and Wisconsin. Hallie studied analytics and targeting at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, where she earned her MBA in May 2013.

Hank Hultquist

Hannah Calhoon

Hannah Calhoon is the co-founder and Director of Blue Ridge Labs @ Robin Hood, a program of the Robin Hood Foundation that helps social innovators build technology-enabled products and services to address the challenges faced by low-income New Yorkers. The program offers fellowships, grants, and workshops to support the identification and testing of new products and ventures through a process of deep immersion and continual collaboration with residents of New York City’s under-served communities. Prior to founding the Labs, Hannah worked as an international development consultant, supporting efforts around new product development, impact investing, and market entry.

Harish Rao

EchoDitto Chief Operating Officer Harish Rao served most recently as the director of information technology for the Dean for America campaign, where he was in charge of back-end technologies including communications technology infrastructure and data services. Prior to the campaign, he was vice president of operations of Internet and Information Solutions, Inc., a provider of outsourced I.T. services to small- and medium-sized business. He holds a B.A. from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Harlo Holmes

Harlo Holmes is a Digital Security Trainer. She strives to help individual journalists in various media organizations become confident and effective in securing their communications within their newsrooms, with their sources, and with the public at large. She is a media scholar, software programmer, and activist; and contributes regularly to the open source mobile security collective The Guardian Project.

Harold Feld

Harold is Public Knowledge’s Senior Vice President. Before becoming Senior Vice President at Public Knowledge, Harold worked as Senior Vice President of Media Access Project, advocating for the public interest in media, telecommunications and technology policy for almost 10 years. Prior to joining MAP, Harold was an associate at Covington & Burling, worked on Freedom of Information Act, Privacy Act, and accountability issues at the Department of Energy, and clerked for the D.C. Court of Appeals. He received his B.A. from Princeton University, and his J.D. from Boston University Law School. Harold also writes Tales of the Sausage Factory, a progressive blog on media and telecom policy. In 2007, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin praised him and his blog for “[doing] a lot of great work helping people understand how FCC decisions affect people and communities on the ground.”

Heather Brooke

Heather Gold

Heather Holdridge

Heather joined Planned Parenthood Federation of America in August 2011 as Director of Digital Strategy after two years as VP of Digital at Fenton Communications, where she led the DC office’s digital practice. Heather worked to develop and execute social media strategies and multimedia projects across a diverse client base.

Prior to Fenton, Heather served for four years as the director of political advocacy for Care2. She worked to connect Care2’s millions of members to non-profits doing political work and advocacy campaigns. She led the effort to develop Care2’s Election2008 Channel.

Heather was also a partner and online organizing director for the Carol/Trevelyan Strategy Group (CTSG), instrumental in developing and growing CTSG’s Creative Multimedia department, including serving as executive producer and co-writer for several Pollie-award winning campaigns.

[2006] Heather serves as the Director of Political Advocacy for Care2 (http://www.care2.com), the largest online progressive community with over 5.7 million members. She is working to connect Care2’s audience to non-profits doing political work and campaigns in 2006. Care2’s members are interested in leading healthy lives and making a difference in the world, supporting progressive advocacy on issues as varied as women’s rights, environmental issues, human rights, animal rights, and consumer issues, among others.Prior to Care2, Heather was a partner and Online Organizing Director for the Carol/Trevelyan Strategy Group, working with clients across the progressive spectrum to develop online campaigns and communications strategies. She specialized in customizing content for the Web, and working to develop viral interactive media. Her work included the development and growth of the Creative Multimedia department at CTSG, including executive producer and co-writer for media that have won Pollie awards and the popular Republican Survivor series for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2004.

Heather Hurlburt

Heather Lauer

Heidi Sieck

Helen Darbishire

Helen is a human rights activist who specialises in the public’s right of access to information, and development of open and participatory democracies.

Passionate about the role of civil society in effecting change, Helen is a founder of the global Freedom of Information Advocates Network, and served two terms as its chair (2004-2010). She is a founder board member of the pro-transparency organisations Civio (Spain) and Diritto di Sapere (Italy), and a board member of the Open Knowledge Foundation Spain.

Helen led access to information activities at the Open Society Foundations (1999-2003) and was a campaigner with Article 19 (London), establishing its programmes in central and eastern Europe. She has advised UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the World Bank.

Helen’s degree in Psychology and History & Philosophy of Science from the University of Durham (UK) has nothing and everything to do with her enthusiasm for information, data and the role of new technologies in advancing human rights.

Henry Copeland

Henry Copeland launched the Blogads service in 2002. Today, Blogads.com connects hundreds of blogs with advertisers including Time Warner, JohnKerry.com, The Republican National Committee, The New Republic, Rhino Records, O’Reilly Media, Paramount Pictures, Random House, eChristianWebhosting and Audible.com. During the ’04 electoral cycle, Blogads ran hundreds of ads for different candidates and causes. Henry received a BA in history from Yale University. After working on Wall Street and in Budapest as a journalist, Henry founded Pressflex.com, the parent company to Blogads, in 1998. Pressflex today serves as the webmaster for nearly 100 newspapers and magazines across Europe.

[2006] Henry Copeland leads Blogads.com. Launched in 2002, Blogads handles advertising for 300 leading political blogs including DailyKos, HughHewitt, Talkingpointsmemo, Atrios, Redstate and PoliticalWire. Having drunk the blog Kool-Aid early and often, Copeland believes blogs are bigger than the Beatles. In previous lives, Copeland was a Wall Street bond trader and a business journalist in post-Communist Europe. Copeland graduated from Yale University in 1984.

Hernán Larraín

Larraín es un abogado graduado con honores en la Universidad Católica de Chil y Master en Derecho, London School of Economics and Political Science. Su actividad profesional comenzó en la Universidad Católica de Chile, como Profesor de Derecho, vicerrector y profesor representante en su Consejo Superior. Fue miembro de la Comisión Presidencial sobre la Educación Superior y Director Ejecutivo de Fundación Andes (1987-1991). Larraín también colaboró con el Diario El Mercurio como editorialista y columnista (1984-1993). Es autor de ensayos y libros sobre diferentes temas: Educación, Derecho y Política. Se incorporó a la política en junio de 1991 como miembro del Partido Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI). Desde 1994, Larraín ha sido elegido como senador de la Región del Maule, reelegido para un segundo mandato en 2002 y por un tercero a partir de 2010. Larraín ha sido nominado como “el mejor senador” (2002, 2005, 2007), el presidente de su partido (2006-2008) y Presidente del Senado (2004-2005). Hoy es presidente de dos comisiones del Senado: Asuntos Exteriores y de Ética y Transparencia.

Hilary Doe

Hilary Doe is a nonprofit leader, committed to civic engagement and leadership development. She is the VP of Strategy at NationBuilder.

Prior to joining NationBuilder, Hilary served as the Senior Advisor to the President and, previously, the Vice President of Operations and Programming at the Roosevelt Institute. In her role at the Roosevelt Institute, Hilary received national recognition from the White House, the Francis Perkins Center, the National Consumers League, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and others. Her work has been featured by numerous national and regional media outlets, including cable news networks, the Washington Post, the Nation, and NPR. Prior to joining Roosevelt, Hilary worked as a Senior Analyst in the Public Policy Analysis practice area of Anderson Economic Group, and held positions with the Brookings Institution and the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation.

Hilary graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. She went on to earn a Master’s degree from Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy, and was a doctoral student in the Department of Politics at Princeton University.

Hillary Hartley

Hollis Felkel

Hollis “Chip” Felkel is an entrepreneur, veteran public affairs strategist and an advocacy innovator with over twenty-five years of experience in national politics and policy. He is the creator and Chief Advocacy Innovator of RAP Index, a revolutionary “influencer identification” tool for public affairs and serves as CEO of Felkel Group, a strategic communications firm focused on public policy issues.

Today, Felkel offers guidance as a communications advisor, counselor, navigator and connector to senior decision-makers at all levels of business and government providing a frank objective perspective on political and policy issues, on communications challenges and business development projects. Felkel’s expertise and insight is sought Fortune 100’s, state and national associations as well as issue focused coalitions.

Felkel is recognized as a knowledgeable, experienced observer of today’s volatile political/public policy area with his opinions and views appearing regularly in both national and international media outlets including NYT, Fox, WSJ, CNN, MSNBC, Politico, NPR, TIME, the Telegraph and Guardian (UK) DR (Denmark), BBC, and CBC (Canada). Locally, he serves as the Political Analyst for WYFF (NBC-Greenville).

A political campaign veteran, Chip Felkel began his career with Campbell for Governor (1986) and later served in management roles with the 1988 Bush-Quayle campaign, with Jim DeMint’s 2002 Congressional re-elect, and in strategic and communications roles with Bush-Cheney 2000 and 2004.

Today, Chip Felkel serves as a member of the Board of Visitors at his alma mater, the University of South Carolina and is a former board member with the UpCountry History Museum and local YMCA. He resides in Greenville (Simpsonville) SC with his wife Shonna and their two children.

Holmes Wilson

Holmes Wilson is a co-founder and co-director of Fight for the Future. Wilson also co-founded Miro , Open Congress , and Amara . During that time, he served as founder and co-director of Downhill Battle, a first-of-its-kind viral campaign operation; director of development and project manager of Universal Subtitles at Participatory Culture Foundation and Participatory Politics Foundation (where he worked with Cheng to launch Open Congress, the most popular government transparency and accountability website in the world); and Campaign Manager for Free Software Foundation. Recently, Fight for the Future has been at the forefront of campaigns to end government mass surveillance and restore net neutrality.

Hossein Derakhshan

Hossein Derakhshan is a Canadian-Iranian author and journalist. He was the pioneer of blogging in Iran which earned him the title of ‘blogfather’ there. He spent six years in prison in Iran over his blog posts and other web activities. He is the author of The Web We Have to Save (Matter, July 2015), which was published in Liberation, Die Zeit, Corriere della Serra, El Pais, Folha de Sao Paulo and The Guardian. He now writes about Iran and technology for various media outlets, including Hamshahri Javan (in Tehran) and shares his thoughts at @h0d3r on Twitter and Medium. He is also the creator of Link-age, an art project to promote open and diverse internet.

Houeida Anouar

Howard Rheingold

Hsiao-wei Chiu (Ipa)

Ipa is co-founder of g0v.tw, civic tech community in Taiwan starting from 2012. She is a writer and documentary director. She has directed and involved several awarded films funded by Discovery Channel and Taiwan Public Television Service, including Gold Remi Award of WorldFest Houston. She focus on citizen engagement and public participate recently, with the g0v community, they promote  the online collaboration from open source culture to civil society and public sectors. She’s also one of the g0v hackathon organizers and supervisor for the g0v Civic Tech Prototype Grant.

Hugh Hewitt

Hugh Hewitt is the host of a nationally syndicated radio show heard in more than 70 cities nationwide, and a Professor of Law at Chapman University Law School, where he teaches Constitutional Law. He is the author of Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World as well as the New York Times best selling author of If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat. He has written 4 other books. Hewitt has received 3 Emmys during his decade of work as co-host of the PBS Los Angeles affiliate KCET’s nightly news and public affairs show Life & Times. He is a weekly columnist for The Daily Standard, the online edition of The Weekly Standard.