Andrew Rasiej

Personal Democracy Forum 2011

Welcome to the eighth annual Personal Democracy Forum, the world's biggest conference on how technology is changing politics, government and civic life. 

Whether this is your first time attending, or your eighth, we hope you will make the most of these two days to learn, share, network, brainstorm, conspire, and celebrate together.  While you may be here because of our stellar array of speakers, don't forget to connect with your fellow attendees. Among them you will find top digital strategists for both parties; new media directors for many government agencies; leaders of many of the most important political technology vendors and platform providers; top journalists, bloggers and new media gurus; foundation executives and university leaders; and the coders and hackers who are inventing the future.

This year, we're putting to rest the question of whether technology is changing politics; the debate is over. Instead, we're going to look at two closely related issues. First, in the ongoing struggle of people around the world to free themselves from repressive regimes and govern themselves democratically, how are people using technology to challenge the status quo, and how are the powers-that-be responding? How much of an edge do networked organizers have and will it last? And what are the responsibilities of governments and private platform providers to protect user rights? With a rich array of speakers from the Middle East and Africa, this year's PdF will look deeply at these issues through the lens of current events. 

Second, in places like the United States where we are, relatively speaking, free to connect, create, and speak our minds, how is being networked changing everything from government to culture to civic life? What are the benefits of open data, open standards and open collaboration? We'll get at these questions from many angles, hearing from change-makers inside government, media, philanthropy, science, and especially political organizing.

At this year's PdF you will hear keynote talks from some of the most creative and forward-thinking people on the planet, exploring ideas that you will surely be hearing much more about in the years to come. Only at PdF you get to hear them first. Can we build internet that is genuinely free and distributed beyond anyone's control? How should we applythe insights from the explosion of businesses built around sharing of data and products to the processes and goals of government or the philanthropic world? Can we have more of a user-driven democracy? What does foreign policy look like in an age of do-it-yourself action?

Lastly, if you are here to learn about the basics of online organizing or the latest in mobile tactics, social networking strategies or personalized targeting of constituents, or to dig deeper into the details of the revolutions underway in Egypt and Tunisia and want to understand better how human rights activists can use technology to advance their causes, we've included an amazing array of more than twenty breakout sessions across the two days to cater to your interests.

This year's conference marks the first time in our history that we've achieved two important goals that we've worked at for a long time. First, as a crosspartisan event dedicated to creating a place where everyone from across the political spectrum can get together, put aside partisanship, talk shop and explore the bigger picture, we're proud to say that we've achieved some real political balance among our speakers. Indeed, in terms of people who wear a party label next to their name in their professional lives, we have more Republicans than Democrats speaking this year, a PdF first.

Second, as an organization dedicated to expanding participation in public life, we're equally glad to announce that of our nearly one hundred speakers, half are women and half are men. This is the first time we've achieved gender parity among PdF speakers, and as far as we know, the first time any technology conference of our size has managed to change the ratio. We know we still have work to do to make PdF as diverse as our country is, but believe that it won't be long before we hit that goal as well.

As always, we wlecome your comments and ideas, and hope that we can all benefit from teh opportunity to gather under one roof for two-plus days and meet each other. Don't forget to join Personal Democracy Plus, our (rebranded) online community for professionals in the poli-tech arena. And let's keep the conversation going year-round at PersonalDemocracy.com and techPresident.com.