Archive: Year: 2016

It would be wonderful if all the passionate intensity now on display among Democrats, Republicans, and independents was somehow channeled into meaningful and ongoing mobilizations to hold that president accountable to his or her promises, and to put similar pressure on our lower-level representatives to serve us more effectively. But for that to happen, we have to understand why relying on voting won't do the job alone....

[caption id="attachment_4512" align="aligncenter" width="654"] The crowd at a breakout session at Personal Democracy Forum 2015[/caption]While the bulk of Personal Democracy Forum 2016's main hall program is largely complete, we're still hard at work fleshing out the details for two days of more than 25 breakout sessions and workshops. So if you would like to submit a proposal for a session, now is your chance. Submissions are open through the end of April and will be responded to on a rolling basis, so don't delay. We are open to proposals on a wide variety of topics, including organizing, activism, digital strategy, civic tech, media, tech policy, the 2016 election, and beyond. Panels should relate at least generally to the overall conference theme of "The Tech...

[caption id="attachment_4509" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Workshop on "Build With, Not For" civic tech at Personal Democracy Forum 2015[/caption]The theme of Personal Democracy Forum 2016, our thirteenth annual gathering, is The Tech We Need.From our neighborhoods and our cities, to our governments, our society and our environment—all of them need our help. But technology, as the historian Melvin Kranzberg memorably put it, is neither good nor bad in how it affects our world. Nor is it neutral. So we are going to come at this question of The Tech We Need from several inter-related angles, including looking at what we don't need, and whether what we need is something beyond what we ordinarily think of as "tech."Here's a taste of what to expect...