PROGRAM

Andrew Rasiej, founder and publisher of Personal Democracy Media and producer of the Personal Democracy Forum, discussed how technology and new media are affecting the political landscape, and in particular, how they are shaping the 2012 Election.  In the video below, Rasiej was introduced by Julia Kohn, Interim Director of the Public Policy Program at Hunter College.  The conversation and public Q&A was led by Professor Andrew Lund, Director of the Integrated Media Arts (IMA) Program at Hunter College.

SPEAKERS

Andrew Rasiej  Founder of Personal Democracy Media

Andrew Rasiej is Founder of Personal Democracy Media, which produces Personal Democracy Forum and other events about how the intersection of technology, politics, and civil society is empowering new levels of citizen engagement. Among its offerings are TechPresident an award winning blog and Personal Democracy Forum, an annual conference held in New York City in June. He is also the Founder a not for profit organization called MOUSE.org focused on 21st century public education, Co-Founder of Mideastwire.com, and serves as Senior Technology Advisor to the Sunlight Foundation a Washington DC focused on using technology to help make government more transparent.. Andrew coined such terms as: We-Government, Voter-Generated Content, and Videracy, to help describe the expanding digitally connected world we all now live in.

Andrew Lund  Director of the Integrated Media Arts MFA Program at Hunter College

Andrew Lund is a filmmaker, entertainment lawyer and Associate Professor and Director of the Integrated Media Arts MFA Program at Hunter College. His recent films Brief Reunion and My Last Day Without You won awards at the 2011 UFVA conference and 2011 Brooklyn International Film Festival, respectively. Andrew is the Executive Producer of nine feature films and has directed five short films. Andrew founded and curates CinemaTalksand created the Short Film Repository.

RESOURCES

• Personal Democracy Media
  

  Personal Democracy Media is an independent media company focused on the intersection of politics and technology, that has produced the annual Personal Democracy Forum conference since 2004 and publishes the award-winning news site, techPresident.com. ~ via personaldemocracy.com



• Ushahidi
  

  ‘Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, is a website that was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Since then, the name “Ushahidi” has come to represent the people behind the “Ushahidi Platform”. Ushahidi has its roots in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis. The original website was used to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phones. This website had 45,000 users in Kenya, and was the catalyst for us realizing there was a need for a platform based on it, which could be used by others around the world.

  Since early 2008 Ushahidi has grown from an ad hoc group of volunteers to a focused organization. Their current team is comprised of individuals with a wide span of experience ranging from human rights work to software development. They also built a strong team of volunteer developers primarily in Africa, but also Europe, South America and the U.S.’ ~ via Ushahidi.com (mentioned by Andrew Rasiej in his presentation)