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.
James Kilgore is an activist, writer and researcher based in Urbana, Illinois. He currently leads the Challenging E-Carceration campaign which focuses on the use of electronic monitoring in the criminal legal system. The campaign is hosted by the Center for Media Justice and the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center. James received a 2017 Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship to do this work. He has written widely on mass incarceration and is the author of five books, including Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People’s Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time and four novels drafted during his six years in prison. He has two sons, aged 24 and 28.
James Rucker is the Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org, an online citizens’ lobby of over 85,000 dedicated to amplifying the political voice of Black America and forcing politicians to be more responsive to our needs. ColorOfChange.org was created in the aftermath of the failed government response to Katrina and has since taken up advocacy and electoral campaigns focused on a variety of issues.
Prior to starting ColorOfChange.org, James served as Director of Grassroots Mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action and help develop and execute fundraising, technology, and campaign strategies. Prior to joining MoveOn, James worked in various roles in the software industry in Silicon Valley: co-founded and leading Imana, Inc., an enterprise software company, in San Francisco, as well as providing management coaching and technology consulting for other start-up ventures. James is also passionate about school reform and issues of equity, and serves on the boards of two area schools. James grew up in Seaside, California and has a BS in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University.
Jamie E. Brown joined Google’s Washington office in June 2006, as their Federal Relations Counsel. Before joining Google, Ms. Brown worked at the White House as Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. In that role, she managed the Senate strategy for the confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Prior to her time at the White House, she served in a variety of positions at the U.S. Department of Justice, including Acting Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs. She is an attorney who previously practiced at Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand, LLC. and began her career as Legislative Counsel to U.S. Senator Connie Mack.
Jan Neutze leads the Microsoft Cybersecurity & Democracy Team at Microsoft Corp in Redmond, WA which brings together a group of policy, legal and technical experts focused on defending democratic processes and institutions against cyber-enabled interference. In addition, Jan leads Microsoft’s efforts on protecting societies from cyber conflict, including by advancing a Digital Geneva Convention, working with governments and non-government stakeholders around the world.
From 2013 to 2017, Jan built up and managed Microsoft’s cybersecurity program in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). In that role Jan lead a team of policy and technical experts based in Brussels, Belgium with a focus on cybersecurity policy and regulatory issues as well as a range of strategic projects aimed at managing geopolitical risk. Jan has served in a range of advisory roles on cybersecurity policy issues, including the Permanent Stakeholder Group of the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) from 2015-2017, advising the EU agency’s leadership; as well as the Global Commission on Cyber Stability (GCSC) for which Jan serves on the management board. Prior to taking on Microsoft’s EMEA cybersecurity portfolio, Jan worked in Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing (TwC) group at Microsoft headquarters focusing on cybersecurity public policy and cybersecurity norms, as well as engaging with partners from government, international organizations, and academia.
Jan joined Microsoft from the United Nations Headquarters where he served for three years in the UN Secretary-General’s Executive Office and in the Department of Political Affairs, leading a range of cybercrime and counterterrorism projects. Prior to his work at the UN, Jan managed transatlantic policy projects at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Atlantic Council of the United States. Jan is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) and holds a J.D. from the University of Muenster, Germany as well as an M.A. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
Co-founder nad member of the Board, Stanczyk Foundation
Jan Niedośpiał is a political scientist. He passionately runs a Transparent Krakow programme, which watch over local administration of the City. His goal is to create conditions, in which everyone – no matter how little time they have – will be able to be a watchdog. And provide them with examples of how to do that. To achieve that he experiments with introducing new technologies to classic watchdog activities.
He’s Co-founder and member od the Board of Stanczyk Foundation. It’s mission is to work for transparency, openness, citizens’ control over public bodies and for development of the potential of NGO’s.
Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute currently serves as the second-highest official and chief operating officer in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for the day-to-day business and management of the third largest department in the Federal government of the United States. Comprising over 210,000 employees and operating with an annual budget of over $56 billion, DHS is responsible for ensuring the Nation’s security, safety, and resilience through operations designed to prevent terrorism and enhance security, safeguard and manage the Nation’s borders, administer and enforce U.S. immigration laws, ensure cybersecurity, and strengthen national resilience through disaster and all-hazard preparedness, response, and recovery. She has over thirty years of military and senior executive experience in the United States government and at the heart of efforts to prevent and resolve international crises.
Previously, Ms. Lute served as Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations responsible for logistical and administrative support to UN peacekeeping operations worldwide. She oversaw all logistics, personnel, finance, communications and IT, aviation, and other support functions to UN field-based operations, including rapid-response support to a wide variety of international operations and crises. Ms. Lute also served as Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding, responsible for coordinating efforts on behalf of the Secretary General to build sustainable peace in countries emerging from violent conflict.
Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. Lute was executive vice-president and chief operating officer of the United Nations Foundation and the Better World Fund, the entities established to administer Ted Turner’s $1 billion contribution to support the goals of the United Nations. She also headed the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict and was a senior public policy fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Ms. Lute also served on the National Security Council staff under both President George H.W. Bush and President William Jefferson Clinton and had a distinguished career in the United States Army, including service in the Gulf during Operation Desert Storm. She has a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University and a J.D. from Georgetown University.
Jared Ford is an advisor for innovation and technology at NDI, where he has designed global policy and directed political technology programs in dozens of countries. His specialties include technology strategy to impact governance, advocacy, organizing, and oversight activities. His leadership skills have been applied to building political and civic organizations, safeguarding elections, and promoting citizen participation. Prior to joining NDI, Ford was a Legislative Assistant for Senator Patrick Leahy. He previously worked on peace technology as a consultant at the United States Institute of Peace and interned for the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Ford holds a Master’s in Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University’s School of International Service, and a BA in Psychology from Amherst College.
Lanier’s name is most often associated with Virtual Reality research. He either coined or popularized the term ‘Virtual Reality’ and in the early 1980s founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. In the late 1980s he developed the first multi-person virtual worlds as well as the first “avatars”, or representations of users within such systems. He also developed the first virtual reality applications in surgical simulation, vehicle interior prototyping, and assorted other areas. Sun Microsystems acquired VPL’s seminal portfolio of patents related to Virtual Reality and networked 3D graphics in 1999.
From 1997 to 2001, Lanier was the Chief Scientist of Advanced Network and Services, which contained the Engineering Office of Internet2, and served as the Lead Scientist of the National Tele-immersion Initiative, a coalition of research universities studying advanced applications for Internet2. From 2001 to 2004 he was Visiting Scientist at Silicon Graphics Inc. He was Scholar at Large for Microsoft from 2006 to 2009, and Partner Architect at Microsoft Research from 2009 forward.
Lanier received an honorary doctorate from New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2006, was the recipient of CMU’s Watson award in 2001, was a finalist for the first Edge of Computation Award in 2005, and received a Lifetime Career Award from the IEEE in 2009 for contributions to Virtual Reality.
Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010. His book “You Are Not a Gadget” was released in 2010 and was named one of the 10 best books of the year by Michiko Kakutani in the NY Times. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Discover (where he has been a columnist), The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harpers Magazine, The Sciences, Wired Magazine (where he was a founding contributing editor), and Scientific American. He has edited special “future” issues of SPIN and Civilization magazines. He is one of the 100 “remarkable people” of the Global Business Network. In 2005 Lanier was selected as one of the top one hundred public intellectuals in the world by readers of Prospect and Foreign Policy magazines.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica includes him in its list of history’s 300 or so greatest inventors. The nation of Palau has issued a postage stamp in his honor. Various television documentaries have been produced about him, such as “Dreadlocks and Digital Dreamworlds” by Tech TV in 2002. The 1992 movie Lawnmower Man was in part based on him and his early laboratory – he was played by Pierce Brosnan. He helped make up the gadgets and scenarios for the 2002 science fiction movie Minority Report by Steven Spielberg. He has appeared on national television many times, on shows such as “The News Hour,” “Nightline,” and “Charlie Rose,” and has been profiled multiple times on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
As a musician, Lanier has been active in the world of new “classical” music since the late seventies. He is a pianist and a specialist in unusual musical instruments, especially the wind and string instruments of Asia. He maintains one of the largest and most varied collections of actively played rare instruments in the world. Lanier has performed with artists as diverse as Yoko Ono, Philip Glass, Ornette Coleman, George Clinton, Sean Lennon, Vernon Reid, Ozomatli, Barbara Higbie, Terry Riley, Duncan Sheik, Pauline Oliveros, and Stanley Jordan.
Jason McCabe Calacanis is CEO and co-founder of Weblogs Inc., a network of close to 100 blogs. Weblogs, Inc. was founded in January of 2004 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL in November of 2005. The company produces widely read blogs including Engadget, Joystiq, Blogging Baby, Luxist, and Gadling.
Prior to forming Weblogs Inc., Calacanis was the CEO and founder of Rising Tide Studios, a media company that published print and online publications including the Silicon Alley Reporter, which chronicled the internet industry, and produced of high-profile industry specific conferences. After the industry consolidated, the flagship publication became Venture Reporter, now owned by Dow Jones, and shifted from an advertising model to a database subscription model.
Calacanis was born in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn and received a B.A. in psychology from Fordham University in Manhattan. He is a 5th Degree in Tae Kwon Do, has run in eleven consecutive New York City Marathons, consulted on the script and appeared in Wayne Wang’s film Center of the World about the life of a cyber surfer, serves on the board of directors of Bay Ridge Preparatory School and is a commentator on the new media industry. He is currently bi-coastal, residing in Santa Monica and New York City.
Jay Dedman most recently worked as a community organizer at Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN), a community TV station. He is also a videoblogger, moderating an active videoblogging group online at groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging.
He began as a writer and producer of local news in Cincinnati and Atlanta. After working at CNN International, he became discouraged with the coverage and worked as a freelance journalist in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was where he first tried to use the Internet to publish video showing how people live in a country at war. Returning to New York, he continued his experiments with putting video on the web until he found that blogging was the perfect distribution method. He has worked hard to build strong communities around video, having helped create FireAnt.tv. Jay can be found online at momentshowing.net.