Personal Democracy Forum

Marija Novkovic is an Open Government Partnership specialist with nine years of professional experience in the governance field, focusing on anti-corruption, transparency and integrity. Before joining UNDP Montenegro, Marija was a Government of Montenegro employee, where she helped design and monitor the country’s first national anti-corruption action plan. Marija joined UNDP Montenegro in 2010 to manage the anti-corruption portfolio. In 2012, she spearheaded the establishment of an online petitioning platform, Citizens Voice, allowing every adult citizen of Montenegro to directly influence policy making. Marija is currently leading a social innovation project, canvassing the whole of Montenegro for ideas on how to harness the powers of web and mobile technology for social change. She regularly writes on open government issues for UNDP’s Voices from Eurasia blog and her articles have been published, among others, by the Guardian.

Marija is one of 41,000 Chevening alumni around the world who together comprise an influential and highly regarded global network of leaders who completed their postgraduate education in the United Kingdom.

Get in touch with Marija on Twitter: @MariaNovkovic.

Marina Gorbis is a futurist and social scientist who serves as executive director to the Institute for the Future (IFTF), a Silicon Valley nonprofit research and consulting organization. In her 18 years with IFTF, Marina has brought a futures perspective to hundreds of organizations in business, education, government, and philanthropy to improve innovation capacity, develop strategies, and design new products and services.

Marina’s current research focuses on how social production is changing the face of major industries, a topic explored in detail in her book, The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World. She has also blogged and written for BoingBoing.net, FastCompany, Harvard Business Review, and major media outlets. A native of Odessa, Ukraine, yet equally at home in Silicon Valley, Europe, India, and Kazakhstan, Marina is particularly well suited to see things from a global viewpoint. She has keynoted such international events as the World Economic Forum, The Next Web Conference, NEXT Berlin, the World Business Forum, the National Association of Broadcasters annual convention, and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges annual conference. She holds a BA in psychology and a master’s of public policy from UC Berkeley.

Marina Martin is currently the Chief Technology Officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs where she runs the U.S. Digital Service at the VA, focusing on appeals modernization and transforming the Veterans’ digital experience. Prior to joining the VA, she served as a Senior Advisor to US CTO Todd Park, where her portfolio included veterans’ claims processing as well as the government-wide Open Data Initiative.

As one of the 18 inaugural Presidential Innovation Fellows – tech-savvy entrepreneurs from the private sector brought in for six-month tours of duty in the federal government — Marina was also the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the U.S. Department of Education. Before joining the federal government she was a business efficiency consultant and Web developer, helping traditionally low-tech businesses save time and money by adopting 21st century technologies. Marina founded the efficiency consulting firm The Type-A Way and is the author of Business Efficiency for Dummies. Outside of work, Marina oversaw the launch of the Startup Weekend GOV vertical, served on the City of Seattle Citizens’ Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board for three years, and has volunteered as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate for at-risk foster children for the last seven years (and she thinks you should volunteer as one, too). Today, Marina splits her time between DC and her home in Seattle, WA with her cats and dog, Momo.

Mario Lugay is an Impact Advisor at the Kapor Center for Social Impact, managing partnerships at the intersection of tech and social impact. He is the the co-founder of the New American Leaders Project, the country’s first and only organization dedicated to training first- and second- generation immigrants to run for elected office. Prior to this, Mario served as the program director of the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation, providing leadership around new philanthropic investments in both integrated voter engagement strategies and for a fair and accurate 2010 census count. He has built significant experience in organizing as the National Coordinator of Racial Justice 911 and at CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities. Mario is a long-time philanthropic and nonprofit consultant, trainer, and speaker, and is a graduate of Columbia University. In addition to serving on the boards of the American Prospect and Resource Generation, Mario is a life long NYer who has found a physical home in Oakland and a political home at Asian Pacific Environmental Network, where he serves as board chair.

Mariya Soroka is a co-founder of Razom for Ukraine (which means “together” in Ukrainian), a non-profit organization established to support the people of Ukraine in their continued quest for democracy, justice, and human rights.

Mariya believes deeply in the enormous potential of dedicated volunteers around the world united by a single goal: to realize a free and democratic Ukraine. Razom uses powerful social networking tools to unite a global network of individuals, institutions and organizations into a coordinated effort supporting this shared goal.

Mark Edward Campos is chief data and information expert for Waze, the social mapping and traffic app. Formally trained in architecture at California College of the Arts, his personal work explores the intersection of information design, robotics, custom fabrication, and public space. At Waze, Mark is responsible for the aggregation, visualization, and distribution of some of the most real-time data in the world. During his tenure at Waze, Mark has had the opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds in geo-location, and has spoken on data and policy across the country.

Mark Headd is the former Chief Data Officer for the City of Philadelphia, serving as one of the first municipal chief data officers in the United States, and was also Director of Government Relations at Code for America. He currently works with civic technologists and open data advocates as a Developer Evangelist for Accela, Inc. A coder and civic hacking veteran, he has worked as both a hands-on technologist and as a high-level policy advisor. Self-taught in programming, he holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and is a former adjunct instructor at the University of Delaware’s Institute for Public Administration, where he taught a course in electronic government.

Mark Kaigwa is a consultant, technologist and blogger based in Nairobi, Kenya. Technology continues to transform Africa; as reach grows on the continent, innovation is accelerated particularly by the mobile phone. Mark leads in advising brands, businesses and nonprofits aiming to impact the hundreds of millions across the connected continent. A multidisciplinary background with work across 10 Sub Saharan African countries forms his worldview. As the writer of an award-winning African videogame for Warner Bros. Interactive and work across film, new media and the mobile, Kaigwa’s experiences have put him as a thought leader in Africa’s emerging media industry. His most recent work leading digital advisory for “MamaYe” a 5 year campaign aimed at using information, advocacy and evidence to improve maternal and newborn survival in 6 Sub Saharan African countries.

His entrepreneurial exploits in online publishing have led to leadership roles at Afrinnovator.com and Africandigitalart.com respectively, contributing to their strategies and growth in their formative years.

A storyteller and speaker, Mark frequently gives keynotes, workshops and participates in regional and international discussions on technology, communication and mobile on the African continent.

He can be reached at hello@mark.co.ke and at www.mark.co.ke

A community activist and technology executive of 20+ years, Mark currently serves as the Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation, makers of Firefox and one of the largest social enterprises in the world. At Mozilla, he is focused on using the open technology and ethos of the web to transform fields such as education, journalism and filmmaking. Mark has overseen the development of Popcorn.js, which Wired has called the future of online video; the Open Badges initiative, launched by the US Secretary of Education; and the Knight Mozilla News Technology partnership, which seeks to reinvent the future of digital journalism.

Prior to joining Mozilla, Mark was awarded one of the first Shuttleworth Foundation Fellowships, where he explored the application of open principles to philanthropy. During his fellowship, he advised a Harvard Berkman study on open source licensing in foundations, was the lead author on the Cape Town Open Education Declaration, and organized the first open education track at the iCommons Summit, which led to him becoming a founding board member of Peer-to-peer University (P2PU).

From 2005 to 2008, Mark served as the first Director of Telecentre.org, a $26M initiative to connect 1000s of community technology centres around the world supported by Microsoft, Canada’s International Development Research Centre, and the Swiss Development Corporation. While at Telecentre.org, Mark spoke at the first World Summit on the Information Society, provided the keynote at the Global Knowledge Partnership Summit, and built a global network of community technical centres that spanned over 25 countries.

As a consultant and social entrepreneur, Mark has designed and implemented community-driven technology projects for dozens of organizthe Government of Canada, the Government of Ontario, the Association for Progressive Communications, Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and the Canadian Labour Congress. He has raised more than $30M, authored two books, presented at 100+ conferences, written dozens of papers, and traveled to more than 40 countries. Despite his travels, his favourite place remains the armchair next to the fireplace in his living room.

Mark lives in Toronto, Canada with with wife Tonya, founding Executive Director of the Centre for Social Innovation, and his sons Tristan and Ethan. Mark holds a BA in the History of Community Media from the University of Toronto.

Mark van Embden Andres is in charge of finding new and effective ways to apply Elva worldwide. Mark joined Elva recently, after working for the Netherlands Embassy in Georgia on development, democratization, conflict transformation and humanitarian relief in the South Caucasus. He is eager to use this experience to maximize Elva’s potential.

Elva Community Engagement (www.elva.org) builds innovative web and mobile tools that connect citizens in Africa, Asia and Europe with humanitarian organisations to monitor and resolve local issues of concern. Local communities and international organisations are using our tools to monitor a wide variety of important issues, such as humanitarian assistance, conflict management and election observation. Elva’s pioneering work is being recognized and supported by leading international organisations including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Marko Rakar (1972) is president of a small Croatian NGO called Windmill. Marko has a lifelong experience in working/writing for media as well as dealing with the media. He combines his media knowledge with new technologies and was one of the earliest internet adopters in Croatia. He is a recognized lecturer and consultant on the subjects of organizing, the internet, new media as well as politics. He has run a number of successful campaigns and races for organizations, parties and independent candidates on presidential, parliament and municipal elections in Croatia, Europe, Asia and the US. His speciality is new and social media, as well as data transparency and open governance. Marko studied Philosophy and Information sciences at the University of Zagreb, speaks English fluently and is regular columnist and author to a number of blogs, web sites, newspapers and magazines in Croatia and internationally.

He was recognized in 2009. by World eGovernment forum as one of the “Top 10 who are changing the world of politics on the internet,” recognition which he received for exposing voter list manipulation in Croatia. In 2010 he was arrested, held for questioning and accused of leaking a top secret list of war veterans which includes more then 200.000 people who never participated in the war effort and who draw more then $1.2 billion per year in benefits from Croatian government. In late 2011, Windmill published a list of more then 60.000 Croatian public procurement contracts worth more then $15 billion combined with financial data of suppliers and a number of other information which helped prove and explain how Croatian public procurement process is inefficient, riddled with crime and corruption and in general harmful for Croatian citizen interests. Windmill and Marko are currently working on analysis of the Croatian pension system trying to prove how the private pension funds were used to bail out bad bank loans, as well as a number of other anti-corruption and data transparency projects.

Marko is a member of the board of EAPC (Europan association of political consultants), member of the board of IAPC (International association of political consultants), “School of politics” alumni (by Council of Europe).