Personal Democracy Forum

Sharon Paley is a leading organizer of Baltimore’s innovation and civic hacking communities. Working with the federal, state, and local governments, Sharon has organized hackathons focused on healthcare, parks and recreation, and Baltimore’s chapter of the National Day of Civic Hacking.

She recently cofounded Hack Baltimore, a nonprofit that helps the people who improve Baltimore make better connections, identify available resources, and find support and like-minded folks.

As Chief Operating Officer for Greater Baltimore Technology Council, Sharon spearheaded numerous events like BmoreFail, a discussion of the importance of risk taking, and unWIREd, an unconference that explored out-of-the-box ideas for improving quality of life in Baltimore. She also provided mentorship and connections to early-stage startups, helping move them toward real, sustainable revenue.

Sharon oversees operations of DreamIt Health Baltimore, an accelerator designed to speed the growth and success of early-stage health IT companies in Central Maryland.

Sharon Rubinstein is a lawyer and former journalist with extensive communications and advocacy experience in the non-profit world. For nearly a decade, she was Communications Director at Advocates for Children and Youth in Baltimore, where she was also a lobbyist. She has been a communications consultant for numerous clients, including Medicaid Matters Maryland, Health Care for All, the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute, and New York’s Teaching Matters, Inc. In 2012, she was certified as a Licensed Consultant by the Standards for Excellence Institute, and she was named one of ten “leaders” by the Moving Maryland Forward Network.

Some of Ms. Rubinstein’s writing credits include BusinessWeek Magazine; Newsweek International; CNN; CBS News, and the Baltimore Sun. Much of her writing has concerned social issues. She has been active in academia as well, and was a Senior Fellow at the University of Baltimore School of Law’s Center for Families, Children and the Courts, which operates a Truancy Court Program that addresses student attendance problems. Ms. Rubinstein taught child advocacy courses at the University of Maryland’s College Park Scholars program, and taught law and education policy for the George Washington University Graduate School of Education. Much earlier in her career, she was a federal law clerk. Ms. Rubinstein has a J.D. from the University of Michigan’s School of Law, and a B.A. from Cornell University.

Shaun co-founded Urban.Us to fund & serve startups that make cities better. Urban.Us currently works with 15 startups and a global network of more than 400 advisors. Startups work on problems including low energy buildings, water management, personal mobility, parking systems, social services, e-waste, paperless government and resilient connectivity.

Before Urban.Us Shaun was an active angel investor, investing in 25 firms between 2007 and 2013, including ZocDoc, Trialpay (acq Visa), Refinery29, Skycatch and Tonx (acq Blue Bottle Coffee). These firms have attracted more than $300m in funding from some of todays leading venture investors.

Crowdstorm, his first book, is a guide to working with large online crowds to find and evaluate ideas. The book is a result of his experiences running innovation challenges with clients such as Starbucks, $300 House and Life Edited. He has presented and written for organizations such as The Economist Intelligence Unit, The Huffington Post, GigaOm, NYU, Wharton and SXSW.

Shaun has an MSc from MIT, an MBA from Berlin School of Creative Leadership and BSc from University of Cape Town. He grew up in Cape Town, an accent in NYC, wiser in Berlin and now calls Miami home. He is papai to Max and Oli and number one fan of his partner and artist Andrea Nhuch. When he is not at work or with his family, you will most likely find him swimming or Onewheeling.

Shauna Dillavou is the executive director and co-founder of CommunityRED, whose mission is to improve the digital security of journalists and activists in conflict zones. Shauna previously worked as a global security analyst, focusing on the intersections of social media, politics, and transnational crime in Mexico and Latin America. Her work in security began with a National Security Education Program Boren Fellowship to research political tolerance in Beijing. Shauna has presented her work on Mexican drug cartels and their use of social media at SXSW and the Gatlinburg Law Enforcement Conference. Shauna speaks Spanish and Mandarin.

Shelby first tried carsharing when his car died after a cross-country move to California. He loved living a car-free life, but thought carsharing would work better and grow faster if it was “for the people, by the people”, a neighbor-to-neighbor experience. So he founded RelayRides. Shelby obtained his MBA from Harvard, where he cultivated his passion for entrepreneurship and social impact. Before Harvard, Shelby helped launch three socially focused startups. He was an early employee at Kiva.org, one of the fastest-growing nonprofits in history, where Shelby provided strategic direction while building internal systems to scale the organization. Previously, Shelby worked at Oliver Wyman as a management consultant, advising Fortune 500 companies on strategy and operations. Prior to Harvard, Shelby graduated with a degree in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern.

Sherry Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author, most recently of the best-selling Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age and Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Lesss from Each Other. A Harvard trained sociologist and licensed clinical psychologist, Turkle now focuses her research on the social, psychological, cultural, and political implications of social media, sociable robotics, mobile technology, and virtual reality.

Shruti H. Sannon is a Research Assistant at The Governance Lab, a MacArthur and Knight Foundation-funded center that explores ways in which technological advances can be used to re-imagine governance structures and solve intractable social problems.

Shruti has conducted qualitative research in multiple countries, including consumer research and ethnographic fieldwork to inform brand strategies and communications campaigns across a variety of media platforms. During her time in advertising, she developed communications strategies for multinational clients across a range of industries (including financial services, consumer goods, and non-profit) in Singapore, Dubai, and New Delhi.

She holds a Master of Arts degree in Media, Culture, and Communication from New York University, with a specialization in Technology and Society. Her interests include technological innovation, human rights and development, Internet governance, and women’s advocacy.

Sina is an entrepreneur who’s been working on activism around copyright and privacy issues for the last year and a half. He’s founder of Taskforce.is, a group of volunteer developers, designers and technologists, and has worked on activism campaigns for Stop Watching Us, The Day We Fight Back, and Restore the Fourth. He’s currently working with the EFF on a new set of activism tools including contact-congress, an open toolset for emailing legislators.

Sandor Lederer is the co-founder and CEO of K-Monitor, a watchdog NGO for public funds in Hungary. Sandor holds an MA in International Studies from Corvinus University, Budapest. K Monitor was founded with the aim of raising awareness about the issues of corruption and to bring a new level of transparency in the field of governance for the purpose of fostering democracy and the rule of law in Hungary. K-Monitor operates open data websites, conducts research and advocates for legal reform. In 2012 K-Monitor developed a website called the Network, a database and an interactive map on political and economic elite networks, public procurements, farm subsidies and EU funding.

Sophie Raseman is the U.S. Treasury Director for Smart Disclosure, as well as a Senior Policy Advisor & Co-Chair of the Task Force on Smart Disclosure. She’s a graduate of Yale Law School and has notably worked on New Haven’s Earned Income Tax Credit Outreach and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Campaign, as well published a study showing that peer comparison feedback reduces residential energy usage.

Smart Disclosure is a new set of tools to provide consumers with better access to personal information and product information simultaneously. This can come in the form of a “Blue Button” that allows a user to see their healthcare history, or a “Green Button” that allows them to see their energy usage. In 2012, a Smart Disclosure summit was held by the White House, in conjuction with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and ideas42. The Obama Administration has committed to Smart Disclosure as part of its Open Government Partnership National Action Plan.

Soraya Chemaly is a feminist media critic and activist whose work focuses on the role of gender in politics, religion and popular culture. Her writing appears in Salon, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, Ms. Magazine and CNN, as well as feminist-focused RHRealityCheck, Fem2.0, Role Reboot and The Feminist Wire. Ms. Chemaly is a frequent radio, television and online commentator and speaks regularly on the topic of sexualized violence and free speech. Last year, she was one of the primary organizers of a successful social media campaign demanding that Facebook recognize misogynistic content as hate speech. Ms. Chemaly, who sits on the board of the Women’s Media Center, was the recipient of the 2013 Secular Woman Activist of the Year Award, as well as this year’s Donna Allen Award for Feminist Advocacy. She returned to feminist activism after a professional career in strategic planning in the media and technology fields. You can find her at @schemaly on twitter and on tumblr, where she shares ideas and her work.