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.

Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen teaches Journalism at New York University, where has been on the faculty since 1986. From 1999 to 2005 he served as chair of the Department. He lives in New York City. Rosen is the author of PressThink, a weblog about journalism and its current ordeals (www.pressthink.org), which he introduced in September 2003. In 1999, Yale University Press published his book, What Are Journalists For?, which was about the rise of the civic journalism movement. Rosen wrote and spoke frequently about civic journalism (also called public journalism) over a ten-year period, 1989-99. From 1993 to 1997 he was the director of the Project on Public Life and the Press, funded by the Knight Foundation.

JD Lasica

Jeanette Whitman

Jeanette Whitman-Lee currently serves as VP of Human Resources to the Educational Alliance – a non-profit agency with a 130 year history in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. In her current role, she is involved in leading a 7-person HR team in developing socially conscious initiatives & policies and working with the executive team to develop an engaged and productive workforce. She earned her CPP (Certified Protection Professional) certification from ASIS and her SHRM-SCP (Senior Certified Professional in HR) from Society of Human Resource Managers, contributing actively in a variety of different ways to both professional organizations.

Jeanette graduated with a BA in English from Eastern CT State University, where, near her alma mater, she experienced her first professional role — teaching elementary school in a small Catholic school for the Diocese of Norwich, CT. After 11 years of teaching, Jeanette transitioned industries, working in a variety of multi-unit roles in the retail industry. During this time Jeanette also volunteered as a weekend Administrator at Holy Family Home and Shelter, a homeless shelter for children and families in Willimantic CT, a part-time Administrator at the Ronald McDonald House, has served on the Board of Directors for Tropical Federal Credit Union since 2012 and is currently a member of the MBA Advisory Board at Berkeley College in Woodland, NJ. Jeanette lives with her husband Ed in Bridgeport, CT with their 3 rescue cats: Bubby, Mon Amie, and Cyrano.

Jeanne Holm

Jed Alpert

Jed Alpert, is CEO of Rights Group, LLC, a mobile entertainment and marketing company with clients including Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Visa International, Samsung, Pepsi, and Collegehumor.com. Its Politxt/Patriotxt division is the leading provider mobile services to campaigns and advocacy organizations including People for the American Way, SEIU, International Fund for Animal Welfare, National Alliance for Hispanic Health, One America Committee, Family Justice and the ACLU.

Jed was previously President of Sunshine Amalgamedia, Inc., a technology-driven entertainment company with operating divisions in interactive content, including Interactive TV; exhibition (Sunshine Theater NYC); television development and production; and feature film production. At Sunshine, Jed developed an innovative syndication sponsorship model commissioning top young directors to make short films for multiple distribution networks with nationally branded sponsorship. Sunshine partners, clients, and customers have included Microsoft, Oracle, Scripps Howard, and others. Additionally, while at Sunshine, he oversaw the production of feature films and developed television.

During his tenure practicing law at Rudolph and Beer, and as an associate at Paul Weiss, Jed’s clients included films such as Slingblade, Hurricane Streets, Sunday, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Cruise, Next Stop Wonderland, Three Seasons, and Star Maps. He represented companies such as Open City Films, Rhino Entertainment and Sonic Net. Further, he produced numerous feature films including Sunday, winner of the 1997 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. He has also served on the board of a number of film festivals and arts organizations, including Genart, The Newport Film Festival and Thread Waxing Space. Jed holds a BA from Connecticut College and a JD from Cardozo School of Law.

Jed Miller

Jed Miller is director of Internet programs for the American Civil Liberties Union. He was previously director at the New York nonprofit Web Lab, where he oversaw online dialogues on civic issues and social change. As interactive editor at The New York Times on the Web, he managed all reader forums and created the Web discussions for the newspaper’s Pulitzer-winning 2000 series on race in America. Jed has written about digital democracy and Internet culture for the Soros Foundation, the Kettering Foundation, PlaNetwork Journal, Mary Furlong’s Boomer/Senior Market Report and others. His site and personal blog can be found at www.jedmiller.com.
Jed Miller is a veteran digital strategist who guides mission-driven organizations to stronger alignment between vision, tools and communities. He currently consults on open data and social justice programs to the World Bank, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation and the Natural Resource Governance Institute, among others. He previously served as internet director for the Revenue Watch Institute and, before that, as digital director at the American Civil Liberties Union. Jed has taught communications at Columbia’s School for International Public Affairs (SIPA) and has written for the Guardian, Open Society Foundations and the General Services Administration. He is a native New Yorker a founding contributor to Personal Democracy Forum.

Jed Sundwall

Jeff Berman

No Profile is available for this user.

Jeff Jarvis

Jeff’s primary blog is at BuzzMaching.com. He was creator and founding editor of Entertainment Weekly; TV critic at TV Guide and People; Sunday editor and associate publisher of the NY Daily News; a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner; and a reporter and editor on the Chicago Tribune. He is now president & creative director of Advance.net.

Jeff Merritt

Jeff Merritt is an expert in the design and implementation of innovative civic engagement and good government programs with more than 15 years of on-the-ground leadership in the US and abroad. Jeff began his career working with U.S. State Department-sponsored democracy programs in Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Montenegro. Upon returning to the U.S., he served as Executive Director for the Center for Civic Responsibility and in 2005 founded Grassroots Initiative, the nation’s first not-for-profit election consulting firm. At Grassroots Initiative, Jeff helped organize the first entirely online public election in U.S. history as part of a 2009 contract with the New York City Department of Education.

In 2010, he joined New York City government as a Senior Advisor to Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and in 2012 was named one of City & State’s “New York City Rising Stars: 40 Under 40″. At the Public Advocate’s office, Jeff helped develop the City’s first open-source technology tools and led national coalitions on issues of corporate political spending and gun divestment. In 2014, he helped to establish the Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation, where he has led a range of technology efforts including the launch of the .nyc top-level domain and announcement of LinkNYC, New York City’s plan to build the largest and fastest municipal Wi-Fi network in the world.

Jeff Warren

El creador de GrassrootsMapping.org, Jeff diseña herramientas de mapeo, los entornos de programación visual, becario en el Center for Future Civic Media, y estudiante en el MIT Media Lab’s Design Ecology Group donde creó el vector de asignación de marco Cartagen. Fue cofundador de Vestal Design, una gráfica / empresa de diseño de interacción en el año 2004, y dirigió el Cut & Paste Lab Project, una serie de un año de duración de talleres sobre herramientas de código abierto y diseño web en Lima, Perú durante el 2006-7 con el diseñador Diego Rotalde. Es co-fundador de la empresa d Portland, Paydici.com así como Weardrobe.com. Jeff es licenciado en Arquitectura por la Universidad de Yale y pasó gran parte de ese tiempo (y los años siguientes) trabajando con el artista / técnico Natalie Jeremijenko. Para obtener más información, visite Unterbahn.com.

Jen Pahlka

Jenn Fiore

Jenn Topper

Jenn Topper is the communications manager for the Sunlight Foundation, helping journalists and news outlets use Sunlight’s tools and data to tell their stories. She has more than 8 years of experience communication, specializing in advocacy and policy. Previously, she managed the media relations for Free Press and the Campaign for America’s Future. Before coming to DC, she worked at Rubenstein Communications in New York City.

Jenni Dye

Jenni Dye is a Wisconsin attorney, progressive activist, and social media organizer. Jenni works at Community Justice, a non-profit law firm, as an advocate for low and moderate income individuals and is actively involved in efforts to educate the public regarding Wisconsin law and their legal rights. Since February 2011, she has also spent much of her time organizing, educating, and commenting on Wisconsin politics through her Twitter alterego, @legaleagle. Jenni lives in Fitchburg, WI, a suburb of Madison, where she is recently won election to the Dane County Board of Supervisors.

Jennifer 8 Lee

Jennifer 8. Lee is a Metro reporter at The New York Times where she currently covers crime and other assorted city mayhem. Since joining the Times in 2001, she has reported on technology, Washington politics, the environment, the 2004 campaign and “things people talk about.” Born in New York City, she graduated with a degree in applied math and economics from Harvard College, where she was vice president of The Harvard Crimson. Jennifer is currently doing research on Chinese restaurants in America, speaks fluent Chinese and writes fortune cookie fortunes on the side.

Jennifer Bell

Jennifer Green

Jennifer is the Director of Research at Civis Analytics, a leading data science firm that helps organizations understand and act on their data to target resources.

Before joining Civis, Jennifer was the Executive Director of the Analyst Institute where she ran an applied lab of social scientists engaged in the design and execution of the largest political research portfolio of randomized controlled field experiments in existence. During her tenure at AI she has been credited with turning experimentation from a esoteric and fringe concept to a mainstream practice in politics.

Building research into programs to evaluate and optimize efforts has been a nonstop obsession. In graduate school, she conducted large-scale field experiments in India that sought to increase voting among marginalized groups and build a stronger citizenry by educating rural villagers on policy and the electoral process. Before attending graduate school to specialize in experimental methodology, Jennifer worked at the Carter Center to design the evaluation protocols for United Nations human rights missions and to safeguard elections in West Africa. She has also served as a fellow in the Science and Technology Directorate of Homeland Security, where she has worked on protocols to evaluate response policies for emergencies and natural disasters.

Jennifer Jones

Jennifer Nedeau

Jennifer Nedeau is a leader in communications, digital strategy and marketing. Over the past 10 years, she has managed earned, owned and paid media strategies for corporations, non-profits, publishers and political campaigns. Currently, she serves as the Director of Strategic Communications at Bully Pulpit Interactive (BPI), where she is in charge of the agency’s marketing, PR and new business operations. Since joining BPI in 2012, she has worked to expand the agency’s footprint in DC, New York and Chicago. She previously served as a Senior Account Director at BPI where she led advertising and digital strategy for a variety of clients. She has been featured on PRWeek’s Innovation 50 list and named one of the top PR pros to follow on Twitter by PRNewser. Her industry insights have been featured by CNBC, The Washington Post and Good Morning America. Previously, she worked in New York City where she helped to direct traditional, mobile and online communications strategy for some of the largest media brands in the world: TIME, FORTUNE, MONEY, LIFE and CNNMoney. Prior to that she worked for Air America Media and New Media Strategies. Nedeau has given presentations and speeches about media, leadership, innovation and politics at SXSW Interactive, The New York Times Social Media Summit, The National Press Club and Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School. Nedeau was born and raised in San Francisco before she moved to the east coast to complete a bachelor’s degree in Journalism at The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. She is currently based in Washington, DC.

Jennifer Preston

Jennifer Preston is a reporter for The New York Times, covering the intersection of social media, politics, government, business and real life. She took on the new beat in January 2011 after working as the newsroom’s first Social Media Editor, helping her fellow journalists use social media for reporting, real-time publishing and building community.

Jennifer has worked for The New York Times since 1995 as a political reporter, a section editor and newsroom manager. As a reporter, she has written about the role of social media in the unrest that has spread across the Middle East and North Africa.

Jennifer has won several awards for investigative reporting, including the New York Press Club’s Gold Typewriter Award for outstanding public service for a series about the use of deadly force by off-duty police officers.

She is an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and author of the book, “Queen Bess”.

Jenny Beth Martin

Jenny Nuber

Jenny is vice president of kglobal’s grassroots division and brings to her work nearly a decade of experience in cause-related advocacy, brand management, and media and communications strategy.

Prior to joining kglobal, Jenny spent several years as the director of the King Hussein Foundation International, managing the public affairs of Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan. In the American political sphere, Jenny’s campaign experience includes presidential, gubernatorial and congressional races along with grassroots legislative advocacy.

Jenny began her career in the nonprofit sector and spent half a decade raising funds, support and legislative awareness for victims of gender-based violence as well as refugees and asylum seekers.

Jenny earned her B.A. in political science and international relations from the State University of New York College at Geneseo and is currently a candidate for a Master’s in political science from the State University of New York University of Buffalo.

Jérémie Zimmermann

Jérémie Zimmermann is co-founder of La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net), a citizen group informing about legislative projects menacing civil liberties as well as economic and social development in the digital age. He is also vice-president of April, a French non-governmental organization for promoting and defending Free Software.

Jeremy Bird

Jeremy Bird is a founding partner at 270 Strategies and a longtime grassroots organizer with broad experience across domestic and international politics, labor, and policy. He helped launch 270 Strategies after serving most recently as the National Field Director for the 2012 re-election campaign of President Barack Obama, where he had primary responsibility for building a nationwide army of staff and volunteer organizers. He is credited with helping establish a ground game and turnout machine that in 2012 “reproduced – through brute force, dedication and will – a turnout in the swing states that in some cases bested the campaign’s remarkable performance of four years ago.”

Jeremy has played a number of key leadership roles in support of President Obama since 2007 – including serving as the South Carolina Field Director in the 2007-08 primary campaign and as the Ohio General Election Director in 2008. As the National Deputy Director of Organizing for America – the grassroots organization born out of the 2008 campaign – he was also central to some of the Obama Administration’s most historic policy achievements between 2009-2011, including the Affordable Care Act and Wall Street Reform. Across these roles, Jeremy helped create and implement the Obama campaign’s neighborhood team organizing model – an approach which transformed organizing in presidential politics by merging people-focused, community organizing with empowering and inclusive digital technology and cutting-edge data analytics.