Andrew Rasiej

Andrew Rasiej is a social entrepreneur, futurist, and Founder of Personal Democracy Forum, an annual conference and community website focusing on and promoting 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 voter generated content (a term he coined) is affecting the campaign. In the 2004 Presidential race he served as Chairman of the Howard Dean Technology Advisory Council. In 2005 he 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 internet access to all New Yorkers. He writes a bi weekly column for www.politico.com and he appears as an expert on the Internet and politics on major media channels including CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, FOX, BBC, SKY News, the Daily Show, and is quoted regularly on this subject by major newspapers internationally including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, La Monde, The Financial Times, etc, and major magazines including The Economist, Wired, Time, Newsweek, Fast Company, and Popular Science among others.

Mr. Rasiej recently co-edited a volume of essays by the world’s leading experts on technology and politics on the subject of democracy in the 21st century titled: Rebooting America. In October 2008 the World e-Democracy Forum named him Person of the Year for his ground breaking work covering and analyzing the elections and bridging the digital divide.

Mr. Rasiej 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 oversight.

Mr. Rasiej is the founder of www.MOUSE.org (Making Opportunities for Upgrading Schools and Education), an educational non-profit organization started in 1997 to connect public schools to the internet. Currently, MOUSE trains students in public schools to provide technology support for their schools, teachers, and fellow students. Mouse is active in over 100 public schools in New York City and has programs based on its student led tech support model operating in over 20 countries around the world.

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 over the web to English speaking governments, corporations, media, and educational institutions.

In the aftermath of the September 11th tragedy, Mr. Rasiej helped organize local technology professionals to provide relief and recovery to small businesses and schools in lower Manhattan. Soon after, he proposed the creation of a National Tech Corps that would augment 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 and is now being implemented by the Department of Homeland Security.

Prior to a life in politics and education, Mr. Rasiej founded several music related enterprises including Irving Plaza, a world famous live music venue in New York, The Digital Club Network, the first streaming live music channel on the Internet, Plug-In, the first and largest digital music conference. While operating Irving Plaza he also founded the New York Night Life Association to promote the hundreds of clubs and live music venues in New York as an integral part of its cultural scene.

Mr. Rasiej is a member of the Board of Directors of www.poptech.com an annual social innovation conference. He serves on numerous advisory boards for technology firms and various not for profit organizations. He is a graduate of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and past recipient of the prestigious David Rockefeller Fellowship Program administered by the New York City Partnership. He lives and works in New York City.