Personal Democracy Forum

Aurelie Valtat is driving the digital communication strategy of the Council of the European Union. She is a self proclaimed European, lover, mother of two, avid traveller and into all things politics and tech.

She is an experienced political and corporate communications specialist, in both non-profit and intergovernmental organisations. A freelance journalist, copywriter and translator. Her current focus is on change management, mediation and delivering public innovation in the public sector. Before joining the European institutions, she was the online communications manager at EUROCONTROL, the European air traffic management agency. She also has previous experience in European lobbying (at PostEurop), in cultural heritage management (at UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre), in internal and external communications (at the Alliance Française in Brussels), and as a freelance journalist.

She holds an MA in Political Science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, a postgraduate degree in International Public Administration and a BA in Anthropology from the Sorbonne University.

Since April 2014, Axelle Lemaire is Deputy Minister for Digital Affairs in the French government.
Lemaire was elected MP in June 2012, representing the Third constituency for French overseas residents (Northern Europe) in the National Assembly, the lower house of the Parliament in Paris.

In the National Assembly, she acts as Secretary of the Law Commission and is also part of the European Affairs Committee. At the European Affairs Committee, she is rapporteur on the subject of digital economy. In fall 2013, she published a report on the European strategy for digital, and passed a unanimous parliamentary resolution on this issue.

In the National Assembly, she works the protection of fundamental rights and public freedoms, European policy, digital industries and innovation, entrepreneurship and banking regulation.
In the Law Commission, she was rapporteur of the banking law, and then responsible for the Socialist group of law transposing directives and for the international human rights group (that introduced crimes of slavery and forced labor in the criminal law). She also sponsored a law on equality between women and men.

A French and Canadian citizen, Lemaire grew up in Quebec and later moved to France. She studied Modern Literature and Political Science at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and then went on to study Law. She holds a Ph.D. in International Law at King’s College (London) and a Law degree at the University Paris Sorbonne.

She practiced law as an international lawyer in law firms and academic research institutes and worked several years in the British House of Commons as a parliamentary aide.

Appointed Chairman of the Parliamentary Friendship Group France/Great Britain and Northern Ireland, she continues to maintain direct political dialogue with her British counterparts, to work for bilateral and European cooperation and friendship between our two countries .

Lemaire lived in England for 12 years. She has two children.

Baratunde Thurston is conscious comic and vigilante pundit who has successfully merged his interests in technology, politics and comedy. He blogs at Jack & Jill Politics, The Huffington Post and his own site www.baratunde.com. He has authored three books, including Keep Jerry Falwell Away From My Oreo Cookies, was nominated for the Bill Hicks Award for Thought Provoking Comedy, declared a Champion of the First Amendment by Iowa State University, and called “someone I need to know” by Barack Obama.

Baratunde was an early member of Laughing Liberally, and his stage presence has earned him emcee duties at the National Conference for Media Reform, Netroots Nation and South by Southwest. He has been featured in various media outlets including NPR, the BBC, CNN, The Boston Globe, The UK Independent, The New York Times, C-SPAN and ComedyCentral.com.

Baratunde speaks at colleges and conferences around the country and performs regularly in New York City, where he lives and works by day as an editor for The Onion.

Director of the Department of Information at the City Hall in Gdansk. She focuses on the work towards changing the role of IT in the organization as a service provider in Municipalities based on the Shared Services Centre and has been working in public administration for 5 years. Prior experience in large manufacturing companies ( unit production and serial production) . She has many years of experience in IT management. In Gdynia Shipyard SA she was responsible for the development and implementation of IT strategy , organization and coordination of projects for the improvement and integration of processes supported by IT solutions . Parallel – 2 years Management Representative in terms of overhaul – organization restructuring project based on the Balanced Scorecard . In-depth management experience through participation in Supervisory Boards . Over two years working with a consulting company in the field of Business Intelligence solutions , ERP and BSC mainly in the field of heat and energy . Member of the Polish Information Processing Society , and the Chamber of Appraisers – participation in the development of strategies PTI . Certified auditor ‘s leading information security standard ISO 27001 .

Bardhyl Jashari is the director of Metamorphosis Foundation (Macedonia). His professional interests are mainly in the sphere of new technologies, media, civic activism, e-government and participation. Previously he worked as Information Program Coordinator of the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia. In both capacities, he has run national and international-scope projects, involving tight cooperation with other international organizations, governmental bodies, the business and the civic sector. He is a member of the National Council for Information Society of Macedonia and National Expert for Macedonia of the UN World Summit Award. In the past he was a member of the Task Force for National Strategy for Information Society Development and served as a commissioner at the Agency for Electronic Communication (2005-2011). Bardhyl holds a master degree at Paris 12 University-Faculty of Public Administration (France) and an Information System Designer Degree from University of Zagreb (Croatia).

Bart is one of the founders of Countable. Countable is an iPhone app, Android app and website where users can learn about issues, influence their representatives in government, and rally their community and friends around those issues. Prior to starting Countable Bart worked for IBM Global Services and then helped to build several consumer internet companies including SideReel.com which was acquired by ROVI Corp. in 2011.

Bartosz T. Wieliński (b. 1978) – a journalist of the foreign department of Gazeta Wyborcza, specializing in foreign affairs, especially Germany. A graduate of journalism at the University of Silesia and the International School of Political Sciences in Katowice. He has been working at Gazeta Wyborcza since 1998, during the years 2005-2009 he was a correspondent in Berlin. In 2013 he won the Grand Press for press reportage.

Since 2004, Beatrice Costa has been working for ActionAid, an international NGO committed to the independent struggle against poverty, where she is currently Head of the Programmes in Italy.

Previously, she also worked on gender issues and women’s empowerment coordinating the program for women’s rights at ActionAid.
She co-edited (with Elena Sisti) the book “Women rule the world. Insights women to change the economy” for the publishing house Altreconomia

Born in Milan in 1981, Beatrice Costa graduated in International and Diplomatic Sciences at the University of Turin in 2005.
In 2010 she got another degree in Religious Studies at the Institute of Religious Sciences in Novara and then attended the M.A. in Bible and European culture at the University Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan and the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy.

Becky is a TechPresident contributor. She researches digital privacy and security issues for Tactical Technology Collective in Berlin, and is independently documenting the history and development of community wireless networks in the United States and Europe. She received her master’s degree from ITP — the Interactive Telecommunications Program, at NYU. In the past, Becky served as as a consultant on media rights and tech policy for the Ford Foundation’s Freedom of Expression Unit, and designed games and systems of play aimed at encouraging civic participation, for the Come Out & Play Festival, Area/Code, and Unicef.

Ben Balter is a gov 2.0 evangelist working to hack government from the inside out, a GitHubber making government better, one repo at a time, and an aspiring attorney passionate about the disruptive potential of technology.

Named one of the top 25 most influential people in government and technology and described by the US Chief Technology Officer as one of “the baddest of the badass innovators,” and by the White House Director of Digital Strategy as “lightning in a bottle,” Ben is a Government Evangelist at GitHub — the world’s largest software development network — where he leads the efforts to encourage adoption of open source, open data, and open government philosophies across all levels of government.

Previously, Ben was a member of the inaugural class of Presidential Innovation Fellows where he served as entrepreneur in residence reimagining the role of technology in brokering the relationship between citizens and government. Before that, he was a Fellow in the Office of the US Chief Information Officer within the Executive Office of the President where he was instrumental in drafting the President’s Digital Strategy, on the SoftWare Automation and Technology (SWAT) Team, the White House’s first and only agile development team, and as a New Media Fellow, in the Federal Communications Commission’s Office of the Managing Director where he played a central role in shaping the agency’s reimagined web presence. His paper, Towards a More Agile Government was published in the Public Contract Law Journal, arguing that Federal IT Procurement should be more amenable to modern, agile development methods.

Ben holds a J.D. and an M.B.A. from the George Washington University. When not trying to change the world, he enjoys tackling otherwise-impossible challenges to sharing information using nothing more than duct tape, version control, and occasionally a pack of bubblegum.

Ben is a proud resident of New Haven, CT. The inspiration for SeeClickFix came from a desire to improve his own community with his neighbors and his government. At SeeClickFix he is CEO and a Co-Founder. Ben was named Huffington Post’s 2010 Tech Gamechanger.

New York City Council Member Ben Kallos was praised by the New York Times for his “fresh ideas” and elected in 2013 to represent the Upper East Side, Midtown East, Roosevelt Island and East Harlem along with all 8.4 million New Yorkers in the New York City Council. As an attorney and free and open source software developer he serves as Chair of the Governmental Operations Committee where he has sought to root out patronage, eliminate billions in waste, and to use technology to improve access to government. He has become a leading advocate for education, affordable housing, public health, sustainable development and transportation as well as Universal Broadband, Open Data, and Digital Democracy. He is also the founding co-chair of the Free Law Founders, a national coalition of leaders in and around government to set the law and legislative process free. His office is open and transparent, with constituents invited to decide on how to spend one million dollars on local projects in the district as well as to join him in a conversation at First Fridays each month.

Ben Moskowitz leads new program development at the Mozilla Foundation and its work in gigabit communities. He has previously led development on Popcorn.js, Popcorn Maker, the Knight Mozilla news fellows, and other initiatives in Mozilla’s portfolio of media projects.

He is an Adjunct Professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, teaching open source development and new media production, and the co-director of the Drones & Aerial Robotics Conference at New York Law School.

Previously, he directed the Open Video Conference (http://openvideoconference.org), a gathering of international technology, creative, and policy leaders shaping web video standards and practices.

Ben is the founder and CEO of Change.org, the world’s fastest-growing platform for social action, and leads the company’s strategic vision and product development. A graduate of Stanford University and the London School of Economics, Ben is a frequent public speaker about the intersection of technology and social change. He was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2012.