Andrew Rasiej

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... more

With President Barack Obama off on his first trip to the Middle East, the news media will inevitably spend the next few days analyzing his comings and goings, whom he met with, how he was greeted by Egyptian officials and all the other tea-leaf siftings that make up the bulk of diplomatic coverage. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But as Alec Ross, a top Obama technology adviser who is now the State Department’s senior innovation adviser... more

If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s seventh biggest in terms of population. In terms of the amount of attention it draws daily from its 175 million members — roughly 20 to 30 minutes on average spent updating their profiles, reading about their friends, playing games and sharing news — Facebook could easily power a midsize economy.

Here in the United States, we already know that Facebook is a meaningful platform for political... more

Fifteen months ago, candidate Barack Obama took the stage at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., following six other presidential contenders who had visited the tech industry powerhouse to woo Silicon Valley and demonstrate their 21st-century leadership credentials. For reasons that are now obvious, he got quite a warm reception. In addition to announcing his support for open networks and Net neutrality, Obama laid out a distinctly... more

Lately we’ve been hearing a lot about members of Congress who are Twittering, and the creation of YouTube portals for the House and Senate mark a further embrace of the new media.

While it’s good to see so many incumbents getting on the Internet wagon, in many cases politicians are starting to use these technologies without really understanding their value. They just don’t want to be perceived as “out of touch” or “uncool,” particularly to... more