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.
Stuart Shapiro is President of iConstituent, which is the parent company of Constituents Direct and DemNet, the leading e-communications companies that specialize in Internet and email systems for the US House of Representatives, the United States Senate and numerous other state legislatures and politicians. Shapiro, is one of the pioneers of constituent e-communications as one of the first people to use e-mail as a form of mass marketing constituent communication for elected officials. Shapiro is a founder of several Internet communication ventures, including Woodstock.com, Firstlook.com, and Killerfonts.com. Mr. Shapiro partnered with Danny Goldberg and Todd Rundgren to launch ArtistEnt and Patronet, one of the first artist music subscription services. Shapiro is credited with producing the 72 hour live Webcast of Woodstock99, at the time, the largest Internet live music event in history.
Shapiro’s diverse background as an author, producer and director include the DVD and book titled, “This is Today”, a history of NBC’s Today Show, and “Flash Frames”, a book and DVD-ROM featuring the best of Flash art from the Internet. Shapiro created, directed and produced the award winning series, “Night Flight”, which series ran for 8 years on the USA Network. He also produced numerous feature films including, Mondo New York, Comedy’s Dirtiest Dozen which helped launch the careers of Tim Allen and Chris Rock, and Only The Strong, the soundtrack of which he produced which contained the original now famous Mazda song, “Zoom Zoom Zoom”. Shapiro is a graduate of Union College, Institut Americain in France, and Worcester Academy.
Sunita Bose established the policy team at Change.org, an Internet platform that empowers millions of people worldwide to create petitions on issues that matter to them. She has led the redevelopment of the company’s Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Community Guidelines, and other policies to make Change.org an open, safe and empowering platform and company. Before joining Change.org, Sunita most recently led the global communications strategy for Oxfam International’s food security and climate change work. She has spent seven years supporting advocacy and fundraising efforts at Oxfam and UNICEF to encourage companies and governments to do more to address injustice and inequality in the developing world. Now based in San Francisco, Sunita is from Australia and has a Masters of Policy from the University of New South Wales.
Sunita Grote is the Innovation Fund Manager at UNICEF’s Office of Innovation, based in New York. The Innovation Fund is supporting early-stage projects that explore how open source technology can improve the lives of children and young people. Prior to working on the Innovation Fund, Sunita facilitated the expansion of private sector support of UNICEF Innovation projects. Previously, Sunita spent 10 years working in the global HIV and health response, managing grants and technical support for community leaders and organizations working with marginalized groups. She has a background in innovative financing for development and a Master in Business Administration from INSEAD.
Susan Crawford is an Associate Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School (http://www.cardozo.yu.edu) in New York City, teaching cyberlaw. Ms.Crawford received her B.A.and J.D. from Yale University. She was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (Washington, D.C., now WilmerHale) until the end of 2002, when she left that firm to enter the legal academy. Prof. Crawford writes about communications policy, digital copyright issues and Internet governance, and is a member of the ICANN board of directors. She is planning OneWebDay, a holiday for the internet scheduled for September 22, 2006.
Susie Gorden oversees the professional development of congressional staff and internal management of CMF. She comes to CMF with over 15 years’ experience in policy, government relations and advocacy.
Susie has extensive experience in the nonprofit sector, for organizations small and large. Most recently, she was the Policy Director for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. She was also selected by her peers to chair the Washington Group of the National Collaboration for Youth, which provides a unified voice for over 50 national nonprofits working to better conditions for America’s youth. Prior to that, Susie was a liaison to Congress for Capitol Advantage (now part of CQ Roll Call). In that role, she interacted with dozens of congressional offices and advocacy groups to improve constituent communications and citizen engagement. She came to Capitol Advantage after a stint as a Legislative Assistant for an influential member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Susie also has a background in research, as co-author of a National Library of Medicine project.
Sylvia Morse is the Project Coordinator in CFL’s Cooperative Development Program, where she is helping to implement initiatives to scale immigrant worker-owned cooperative businesses in New York City and nationally. Since September 2016, she has focused her time on the development of Up & Go, a web app for booking home services from worker cooperatives. Prior to joining CFL, Sylvia worked in housing policy and participatory planning. Sylvia is a lifelong New Yorker, and earned her Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from the City University of New York Hunter College.
A serial entrepreneur and angel investor, Tariq has a passion for building highly disruptive new products.
He is founder and CEO of Jolicloud, a pioneer in personal cloud computing. Prior to Jolicloud, Tariq founded Netvibes, the personal start page used by millions around the world.
A thought leader and regular speaker at global technology and media conferences, he was recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the world’s “Top Innovators Under 35” (2008), by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader, and most recently was honored by the President of France as Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
Since 2013, he is vice president of the French Digital Council.
(Photo credit: Rodrigo Sepulveda)