Personal Democracy Forum

Scott Zumwalt has nearly a decade of experience in digital strategy and marketing for non-profits and progressive political campaigns. He is currently a senior director at Bully Pulpit Interactive. Scott leads some of BPI’s major client engagements drawing on his diverse background in digital advocacy for non-profits and political campaigns.

Scott is the chief digital strategist that helped launch and develop the award winning It Gets Better Project. He previously worked for Blue State Digital where he directed strategy accounts for American Red Cross and the Communications Workers of America. In 2008 he was the New Media Director for Kay Hagan’s successful campaign for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina against former Sen. Elizabeth Dole. Scott was also a digital aide on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and with former Gov. Tom Vilsack.

A native of Chappaqua, New York, Scott graduated cum laude from Georgetown University with a B.A. in Political Economy and minor in Sociology. Scott also holds a certificate in Graphic & Web Design and focus in web design and development from Boston University Center for Digital Imaging and Arts. He currently serves on the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund Campaign Board.

Seamus Kraft is a communicator and civic activist building new means for successful democracy in the digital age. Since February 2013, he has built The OpenGov Foundation into a dedicated four-person team producing cutting-edge civic software used by elected officials and citizens in governments across the US. Seamus is also a co-creator of the Free Law Founders, a coalition of leaders from New York, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and Washington, DC working to open the processes and information of government to access and innovation for all. Prior to creating The OpenGov Foundation, Seamus served as Digital Director and Press Secretary for The US House Oversight Committee, where he built one the most successful digital communications operations in government from the ground up. Seamus’s work both in and outside of government has been viewed by millions of people worldwide; in 2012 TechCrunch named him among its list of the “20 Most Innovative People of 2012”. A native of Marblehead, MA, he received his undergraduate degree in classical political philosophy from Georgetown University in 2007.

Sean Martin McDonald is the CEO of the Social Impact Lab (SIMLab) CIC, the makers of FrontlineSMS and FrontlineCloud. He is the Founder of the Capture the Ocean and FrontlineSMS:Legal Projects. Sean joined SIMLab in 2010 and works with organizations all over the world to figure out how to use mobile technologies to increase their social impact. SIMLab was recently named the #1 Technology NGO in the world by the Global Journal. Frontline products have been downloaded over 200,000 times and is being used by thousands of organizations in more than 135 countries to reach tens of millions of people. Sean leads day-to-day operations, strategic vision, and business development for SIMLab.

Sean has worked in and written about the connections between international development, data, technology, political communications, conflict resolution, and legal services for the last 10 years. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of International Peace Park Expeditions, the Social Impact Lab Foundation, and the Social Impact Lab Community Interest Company. He is a Trustee of the Awesome Foundation DC and an affiliate with Harvard University’s Berkman Center. Sean is an advisor to Clinton Global Initiative, Digital Democracy, DoSomething.org, ECPAT USA, the Law Without Walls Program, TechChange, and UNDP.

Sean is a lawyer, barred in New York. He holds a J.D. and an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Magazine Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Sebastian Grabowski’s research focuses on Open Data, Open API, interactions between users of telecommunications networks and the Internet as well as issues related to Open Government. For the past 12 years he has been involved in the telecommunications industry, currently he works in Orange Poland. He is the Director of Orange Poland RnD Center . He is a co-founder of the Open Middleware 2.0 community – a program bringing together different communities of developers, researchers, technology suppliers and IT companies near the world of Telecommunications and IT.

Senator Ron Wyden represents the people of Oregon in the United States Senate, a seat he’s held since 1996. He serves on the Committees on Finance, Budget, Aging, Intelligence, and Energy and Natural Resources. He chairs the Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness and the Senate Energy Subcommittee on Public Land and Forests. As the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel recently put it: “He’s best described as a wonk, a workhorse, a doer.”

Always citing the need to “throw open the doors of government for Oregonians,” he holds an open-to-all town hall meeting in each of Oregon’s 36 counties each year. Thus far he has held more than 600 meetings. Wyden’s dedication to hearing all sides of an issue and looking for common sense, non-partisan solutions has won him trust on both sides of the aisle and put him at the heart of nearly every debate. In 2011, the Almanac of American Politics described Wyden as having “displayed a genius for coming up with sensible-sounding ideas no one else had thought of and making the counter-intuitive political alliances that prove helpful in passing bills.” The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein wrote: “The country has problems. And Ron Wyden has comprehensive, bipartisan proposals for fixing them.”

His lone stand against the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and its predecessor, the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeit Act (COICA), put a spotlight on the problematic legislation being fast tracked through Congress and served as a rallying point for the historic Internet protests that ultimately toppled the bills. He stood alone on the floor of the Senate to block right wing efforts to overturn Oregon’s Death with Dignity law; a law that Oregon voters have passed twice. He went head-to-head with the E.P.A. to reduce cancer-causing benzene in gasoline sold in Oregon, and his relentless defiance of the national security community’s abuse of secrecy forced the declassification of the CIA Inspector General’s 9/11 report, shut down the controversial Total Information Awareness program and put a spotlight on both the Bush and Obama Administration’s reliance on “secret law.”

Wyden has taken the lead on policies that are helping to grow the economy in areas like clean energy, improved infrastructure through his Build America Bonds program, micro and nano-technology, and e-commerce. He has won countless awards for his pioneering role in establishing a free and open Internet, is known for his commitment to an open government, having authored the “Stand By Your Ad” law and the resolution ending Senate Secret Holds, and he has been routinely recognized as one of the Senate’s foremost health policy thinkers.

Wyden began college at the University of California-Santa Barbara where he won a basketball scholarship and played in Division I competition for two seasons before transferring to Stanford University where he completed his Bachelors degree with distinction. He earned his law degree from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1974, after which he taught gerontology and co-founded the Oregon chapter of the Grey Panthers, an advocacy group for the elderly. He also served as the director of Oregon Legal Services for the Elderly from 1977 to 1979 and was a member of the Oregon State Board of Examiners of Nursing Home Administrators during that same period. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1981 until his election to the U.S. Senate.

Senator Wyden’s home is in Portland; he is married to Nancy Wyden, whom he wed in September 2005. He has four children: Adam, Lilly, Ava and William.

Serenety Hanley has spent the last 14 years working in politics, technology and online grassroots activism. She had the honor of serving President George W. Bush as the first woman to hold the title of White House Internet Director, and as the first Director of the Office of Web Communications at the Environmental Protection Agency. Previously, Serenety was the first Director of Political Technology at the Republican National Committee where she developed and managed innovative and first-its-kind political technology projects, including GOPTeamLeader.com, Voter Vault and the Wireless 72 Hour get-out-the-vote program. Last year, Serenety was named an Innovator of the Year by Campaigns & Elections for her work to include more citizens in the political process through new technologies. Recently, Serenety opened her own social media grassroots consulting firm, The Social Shack.

Sergio Maistrello is a freelance journalist and consultant.
He’s been working at the intersection of Internet and society for more than 20 years, helping different kinds of organizations to experiment and adapt to the new digital communications environment.
Sergio teaches Social Media at the Master of Science Communication at Sissa, in Trieste, Italy. He is also the co-founder of the international conference State of the Net.

As an author, he published La parte abitata della Rete (Tecniche Nuove, 2007) e Giornalismo e nuovi media (Apogeo, 2010). His latest work is Fact checking. Dal giornalismo alla rete (Apogeo Sushi, 2013).

Seth is the founder & CEO of Amicus, a social good startup that helps nonprofits turn their supporters into fundraisers and advocates. Having graduated from Y Combinator, Amicus has raised nearly $4M from some the the world’s most prestigious investors.

After Amicus was used to power the Human Rights Campaign’s digital organizing efforts in the successful 2012 marriage equality fight, Seth was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Social Entrepreneurship. Since the age of twelve, Seth has been volunteering for, founding, and working for advocacy organizations, including the Obama campaign in 2008. After many years of frustration with the state of technology in the nonprofit world, he founded Amicus in an effort to fix it.

An avid chess player, Seth can often be found in Union Square Park attempting to hustle the chess hustlers.

Seth Godin is the author of 17 books that have been bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than 35 languages. You might be familiar with his books Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip and Purple Cow.

In addition to his writing and speaking, Seth is founder of squidoo.com, a fast growing, easy to use website. His blog (which you can find by typing “seth” into Google) is one of the most popular in the world.

Recently, Godin once again set the book publishing on its ear by launching a series of four books via Kickstarter. The campaign reached its goal after three hours and ended up becoming the most successful book project ever done this way. His latest, The Icarus Deception, argues that we’ve been brainwashed by industrial propaganda, and pushes us to stand out, not to fit in.

Find out why American Way Magazine called Seth Godin, “America’s Greatest Marketer.”

Seth Schultz is the Director of Research, Measurement & Planning at C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. In this role, Seth is responsible for organizational accountability and visibility through implementing a comprehensive and cohesive research strategy. Seth works to ensure that global best practices are applied locally through specific data analysis. He is also a frequent speaker about the breadth and depth of climate actions being taken by C40 Cities and their impact around the world. Prior to this role, Seth helped create the Climate Positive Development Program (CPDP) — developed in partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). CPDP supports the development of large-scale urban projects striving to reduce the amount of on-site CO2 emissions to below zero. Seth’s background includes more than 10 years of consulting experience in the environmental field, in which he was responsible for managing multiple contracts and clients at the city, state, regional and federal level. He has managed nationwide U.S. federal contracts with EPA and NOAA and overseen research projects on emergency response work conducted at the World Trade Center cleanup, Hurricane Katrina and others. He holds a bachelors degree in Environmental Science from Binghamton University and oversees C40’s office in New York City.

Shaifali Puri is the former Executive Director of Global Innovation at NIKE Foundation where she helped drive innovation across all aspects of the Foundation’s work. Before that as the Executive Director of Scientists Without Borders Shaifali raised millions of dollars to support open-source innovation in the sciences with partners that range from Johnson & Johnson to Pepsico. At NIKE Shaifali continued her quest to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges—ranging from health to innovation from poverty to gender equality and beyond.

Shaka Senghor is a writer, mentor, and motivational speaker whose story of redemption has inspired young adults at high schools and universities across the nation. He is founder of the Live In Peace Digital and Literary Arts Project, a recipient of the 2012 Black Male Engagement (BMe) Leadership Award, and a 2013 MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow.

Shaka was once an angry and bitter teen who, like many other youth, kept his emotions bottled up and often lashed out in violence towards others. At the age of nineteen, he shot and killed a man during a drug-related argument and ultimately served nineteen years in prison. While he was incarcerated, Shaka transformed his life and discovered his love for writing. He has written a memoir about his life in the streets and in prison entitled Writing My Wrongs and recently published a book of his writings entitled Live in Peace: A Youth Guide to Turning Hurt into Hope, a companion piece to his mentoring program. Shaka is passionate about mentoring youth and hopes that by sharing his experiences, they will avoid the path that led him to prison. In his work with youth, he uses his experiences as a launching pad for discussing issues of abuse, abandonment, addiction, consequences, accountability and personal transformation.

Shannon Chatlos is Managing Partner and Political Practice Lead at SalientMG where she advises and implements marketing efforts and market growth strategies for tech industry companies and political technology products. Shannon also works with clients to develop impactful digital marketing, advertising, and campaign strategies. She has worked in the Political Technology industry since 2000 with a background in digital advertising, compliance software solutions, voter data, “Big Data” platforms, fundraising solutions, political field operations, as well as campaign and PAC fundraising.

During the 2012 election cycle, she was the Dir. of Business Development for conservative/Republican clients at Resonate where she implemented dozens of digital media campaigns using Resonate’s unique “big data” platform. Before joining Resonate, Chatlos held a 12 year position with Aristotle, where she worked with clients on both side of the aisle; she has worked with hundreds Federal and Statewide campaigns, Super PACS, and campaign organizations, assisting them with their technology needs. Shannon is also a board member at the Naval Academy Primary School and has been an active volunteer for non-profits, military organizations, and political campaigns since college. She holds a Bachelors in Journalism from the University of Georgia, and now lives in Annapolis, MD where she resides with her husband and two children.

A co-founder of Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (publiclab.org), Shannon is based in New Orleans as President of the organization. Public Lab is a recipient of an Honorable Mention in the 2013 Buckminster Fuller Institute Challenge, a runner-up for the Ars Electronica Digital Communities prize and a two time Knight Foundation, Knight New Challenge winner.

With a background in community organizing, environmental education and anthropology, Shannon held positions with Louisiana State University as a Community Researcher and Ethnographer on a study about the social impacts of the BP oil spill in Louisiana and was Oil Spill Response Director at the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, conducting the first on-the-ground health and economic impact study in Louisiana post-spill. Shannon is specifically interested in infusing traditional organizing methods of the environmental sector with new media technologies and tools.

Shannon has an MS in Anthropology and Nonprofit Management and has worked with nonprofits for over fourteen years. She is a 2013 Environmental Leadership Program Fellow and current Senior Fellow, a 2012 Loyola University Institute for Environmental Communications Fellow, on the advisory board of Global Community Monitor, a current member of the Public Participation in Scientific Research web and communications steering committee, a member of the Louisiana Bar Association technology committee and a consultant for the New Orleans Food and Farm Network.