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techPresident was started by Andrew Rasiej and Micah L. Sifry as a crosspartisan group blog covering how the 2008 presidential candidates were using the web, and vice versa, how content generated by voters affected the campaign. Since then, techPresident's coverage has expanded to cover everything from how President Barack Obama is using the web, to how campaigns at all levels are going online, to how citizens themselves are changing politics in the networked world.
The 2008 election was the first where the Internet played such a central role, not only in terms of how the campaigns used technology, but also in how voter-generated content affected its course. techPresident.com tracked all these changes in real-time, covering everything from campaign websites, online advertising and email lists to the postings on YouTube and who's got the fastest growing group of friends on MySpace. These stats are all archived on the site.
TechPresident continues to cover how political campaigns--presidential, congressional and state--are using the web, as well as how voters are using the web to affect those campaigns. We're also keeping a close eye on how the White House and the public are interacting through the web, a topic that we also track for the whole political and civic arena. Our team of bloggers are veterans of the 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections, ranging across the political spectrum. Their expertise covers everything from website design to the latest in mobile tools and social networking sites.
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Personal Democracy Forum Staff:
Andrew Rasiej
Publisher
Micah L. Sifry
Editor
Jennifer Vento
Chief Operating Officer
Nick Judd
Associate Editor
Anthony Russomano
Project Manager
Andrew Rasiej
Founder & Publisher
Andrew Rasiej is the Founder of Personal Democracy Forum , an annual conference and community website about the intersection of politics and technology. He is also the co-founder of techPresident, an award winning group blog that covers how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the web, and how content generated by voters is affecting the campaign. He has served as an advisor to Senators and Congressman and political candidates on the use of Information Technology for campaign and policy purposes since 1999. Among those he has worked with are Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Tom Daschle, Congressman Dick Gephardt, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In 2001, he addressed the United States Senate Democratic Caucus in the US Capital Building on the "Digital Divides Facing Democratic Party" and has been actively involved in the campaigns of many Senators and Congressmen. For the 2004 Presidential race he served as Chairman of the Howard Dean Technology Advisory Council. He recently ran a highly visible campaign for Public Advocate of New York City, running in the Democratic primary on a platform to bring low cost wireless access to all New Yorkers. In the aftermath of the September 11th tragedy, Mr. Rasiej helped organize hundreds of local technology professionals to provide relief and recovery to small businesses and schools in lower Manhattan. From this experience, he proposed the creation of a National Tech Corps that would act similarly to the National Guard and provide emergency technical, communication, and database support in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist strike. This idea, now called NetGuard, was approved in a bill by the US Senate by a vote of 97 to 0 within four weeks from inception and was integrated into the Homeland Security Act and is currently being built by the US Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. Rasiej also maintains the position of senior technology adviser for the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington D.C. based organization that focuses on using technology to expose corruption in Congress and facilitates citizen engagement and oversite.
Mr. Rasiej is the founder of MOUSE (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education), an educational non-profit organization started in 1997 focused on providing technology support to public schools. Originally a volunteer organization MOUSE currently runs a program called MOUSE Squad which trains students to run their school's computer systems and thereby helping them not only to learn lifelong skills but also empowering them to expanding their schools capacity in the use of technology for education. Mouse is active in 100 public schools in New York City and over 90 percent of the students in its programs graduate and go to college. Mouse has also expanded to over 20 countries around the world. Mr. Rasiej has served on the 2001 New York City Board of Education's task force on technology and has spearheaded several other innovative projects that support efforts to bridge the "Digital Divide" in public education.
In addition to work in bringing technology innovation to public schools, Mr. Rasiej is a co-founder of www.mideastwire.com, which is a Beirut based news service which translates opinion pieces from newspapers in all 22 Arab countries, Iran, and the Arab media Diaspora and makes them available to English speaking governments, corporations, media, and educational institutions.
Mr. Rasiej is the former chairman, CEO, and co-founder of the Digital Club Network (DCN) which created the internet's largest live music archive, which is now part of eMusic. In 1996, concurrent with his involvement in music and technology, Mr. Rasiej co-founded the world's best known annual digital music conference, "Plug In," which was attended by executives from major record labels and technology companies.
In 1990 Mr. Rasiej founded Irving Plaza, an internationally known concert venue located in New York City and produced concerts by well-known artists such as Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Dave Matthews Band. Mr. Rasiej was also the Founder and President Emeritus of the New York Nightlife Association, a business trade group representing major New York City nightclubs and bars. NYNA works to create strong neighborhood relationships through community oriented programs and outreach.
Previous to his work in technology and the music industry, Mr. Rasiej had a successful career working in the real estate development working on several high profile projects in New York City including World Financial Center and South Street Seaport. Mr. Rasiej also provided real estate consulting services to various not for profit organizations.
Mr. Rasiej is a member of the Board of Directors of Pop!Tech. He is also a graduate of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and past recipient of the prestigious David Rockefeller Fellowship administered by the New York City Partnership.
Micah L. Sifry
Editor
Micah L. Sifry is co-founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum, a website and annual conference that covers the ways technology is changing politics and TechPresident.com, its award-winning group blog on how the American presidential candidates are using the web and how the web is using them. In addition to organizing the annual Personal Democracy Forum conference with his partner Andrew Rasiej, he consults on how political organizations, campaigns, non-profits and media entities can adapt to and thrive in a networked world. In that capacity, he has been a senior technology adviser to the Sunlight Foundation since its founding in 2006. He and Rasiej also write the “Politics 2.0” column for Politico.
From 1997-2005, he was a senior analyst with Public Campaign, a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Washington, DC working on comprehensive campaign finance reform. Prior to that, Sifry was an editor and writer with The Nation magazine for thirteen years. He is the co-author with Nancy Watzman of Is That a Politician in Your Pocket? Washington on $2 Million a Day (John Wiley & Sons, 2004), author of Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America (Routledge, 2002) and co-edited The Iraq War Reader (Touchstone, 2003) and The Gulf War Reader (Times Books, 1991). In June 2008, his latest book, Rebooting America, an anthology of writing on how the Internet and new technology can be used to reinvent American democracy, co-edited with Allison Fine, Andrew Rasiej and Josh Levy, was published. (It’s available online for free download at rebooting.personaldemocracy.com.) He is also an adjunct professor at the Political Science Department of the City University of New York/Graduate Center, where he teaches a course called “Writing Politics.” His personal blog is at micah.sifry.com.
Jennifer Vento
Chief Operating Officer
Jennifer Vento is PdF's Chief Operating Officer. Jennifer directed the inaugural PdF Conference in 2004, subsequently managed the launch of personaldemocracy.com, and returned in 2010 to manage the organization's day-to-day operations. Prior to returning to PdF, she co-founded a film production company, Framework Media LLC, and worked primarily with the United Nations Development Program to raise awareness about community-based initiatives in developing countries through video storytelling. She has also produced work appearing on ABC, PBS, and CNN, and, in her former life as a consultant, Jennifer played a key role in new media-related projects for organizations including PBS, the US Navy's Maritime Civil Affairs Group, Gilda's Club Worldwide, Public Agenda, and The Nation Magazine. Jennifer began her career in New York's entertainment industry, most recently as head of technology and production for a music company. She holds a BBA from the George Washington University, an MA in International Affairs from The New School, and sits on the Advisory Board of MOUSE.org.
Nick Judd
Associate Editor
Nick Judd writes about civic life and political technology for Personal Democracy Forum and techPresident. He joined Personal Democracy Forum in the fall of 2009 as a reporter/researcher, became assistant editor in March 2010, and associate editor in June 2011. He also wrote and edited Personal Democracy Forum's Who to Hire guide and managed candidate and media partnerships for PdF's 10Questions project.
Prior to signing on with PdF, Judd was a staff reporter at The Riverdale Press, where he covered Bronx politics for about two years and picked up a number of statewide awards, as well as leading coverage that won a national award for spot news coverage.
He has also written for The Jersey Journal and City Limits, and did a brief stint as a research assistant for the public policy think tank Center for an Urban Future. He graduated magna cum laude from New York University in 2007 with a B.A. in metropolitan studies and journalism. You can follow him on Twitter at @nclarkjudd or visit his personal website at nclarkjudd.com. Judd lives in Brooklyn.
Anthony Russomano
Project Manager
Anthony Russomano received a BA in history with a minor in New York City Studies from Pace University in May 2004. While attending Pace University, Mr. Russomano worked in online marketing as the Assistant Director of Marketing for Wall Street Rising, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to restoring the vibrancy and vitality that existed in Lower Manhattan prior to the devastating events of September 11, 2001. During his senior year, in addition to working at Wall Street Rising, Mr. Russomano interned at the district office of New York City Councilmember Alan J. Gerson. There he was responsible for researching and drafting legislation that would become New York City laws. Mr. Russomano currently resides in Brooklyn, NY and enjoys spending time with his goddaughter Antonia and his nephew Angelo.
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