Net & Politics 2009 (Top 10)
The Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics
PoliticsOnline and the World eDemocracy Forum are proud to announce the list for nominations of the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics. For the tenth year in a row, PoliticsOnline subscribers and visitors from around the world are invited to help select the top 10 individuals, organizations and companies having the greatest impact on the way the Internet is changing politics.
This prestigious award seeks to recognize the innovators and pioneers, the dreamers and doers who bring democracy online. This year marked the toughest year ever in choosing the 25 finalists. The integration of politics and the Internet are reflected in this year's diverse, international nominees.
The winners, those top 10 nominees who receive the most votes, will be invited as honored guests to the world eDemocracy Forum October 8-9, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, (Paris, France), where they'll take part in an awards ceremony and other special programs throughout the two-day forum.
Please review the 26 finalists below and then select one who has had the greatest influence on the world of ePolitics in 2009.
Note: The description of each nominee are listed as submitted.
The Nominees for 2009
Alexander Trechsel, Italy
euprofiler.eu
Alexander Trechsel is the Project Developer of the EUProfiler. It is a Voting Advice Application (VAA) - an impartial tool designed to inform potential voters and other interested users about the political landscape in Europe ahead of the European Parliament elections in June 2009. We got 2.5 million Europeans on the EUProfiler, of which 900,000 have fully filled in everything and got their profiles. In the context of the European elections this is a huge success. The Profiler is offered in 24 languages and contains codes of party positions for almost 300 parties and on 30 proposals for each (roughly 9,000 documented positions).
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Beth Simone Noveck, USA
nyls.edu/faculty/faculty_profiles/beth_simone_noveck
Beth Simone Noveck is Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for Information Law and Policy and the Democracy Design Workshop at New York Law School as well as Visiting Professor at Stanford University. She currently serves as Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government at the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy. Dr Noveck is a founder of Bodies Electric LLC, developer of the Unchat software for real-time structured and democratic group deliberation in cyberspace. She has dealt with collaborative online participation in the USA, Europe and Asia for many years and was, for instance, involved in setting up the Peer to Patent program run by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Her brilliant mind, judgment and communication skills have enabled her to achieve considerable progress in the use of the Internet for public affairs and the interests of all Internet users. She succeeded in realizing value-added sense of new communication and information technologies.
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Blue State Digital, USA
bluestatedigital.com
These guys represent the future of online politics. They're extremely competent and creative and offer just the right combination of "get it done now" and "get it done right". For anyone that doesn't already know, Blue State Digital played a huge part in the Obama campaign. They built the awesome website and tools that allowed all of us to work for the campaign from our homes across the nation. Overall, they're a great group of folks. There are some many groups doing great things but my vote goes to Blue State Digital.
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Bob Fertik, USA
democrats.com
Bob Fertik of Democrats.com keeps us informed about what's happening, and exactly what we can do to have an impact, in a timely way. He mobilizes thousands of people to make a difference in a minute. He deserves the award! From 2000 to 2004, Democrats.com published the first and only daily news service by and for Democratic activists. Each newsletter contained roughly 20 links to the most important stories published that day, both in the mainstream media and on progressive Web sites. We also organized online and offline campaigns on important issues like opposing the invasion of Iraq and impeaching George W. Bush for lying and war crimes. For more details, read our History. On Election Day 2004, Democrats.com switched to a blog format. We now serve as many as 260,000 pages per week, which makes us one of the most popular Web sites for Democrats. Our e-mail list of subscribers and supporters totals over 350,000, which makes us one of the most powerful and effective Democratic activist groups.
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cafebabel.com, France
cafebabel.com
Citizen participation and democracy in Europe- the two pillars upon which the political conviction of www.cafebabel.com is formed, creating an innovative journalism in 6 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Polish and Italian. Founded in 2001, the philosophical aim of cafebabel.com is to promote a European public sphere by creating the first multilingual pro-am journalist media, giving voice to Europeans no matter what language they speak. Today, cafebabel.com has a 350 000 monthly readership and 300 European 'babel-bloggers' on its multilingual platform. Cafebabel.com publishes a unique content realized by an online community of 8 000 volunteer babelians present in 30 European countries. Having a profile on cafebabel.com, users can interact, launch their own blogs, translate and write articles edited by professional journalists. Recently www.EUdebate2 009.eu a participatory journalist website was launched covering from a citizen and bloggers' perspective the European elections.
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Craig Thomler, Australia
egovau.blogspot.com
Craig Thomler authors eGov AU - Craig Thomler's personal eGovernment thoughts and speculations from an Australian perspective blog - http://egovau.blogs pot.com/. He works for the Australian Government in the eGovernment area, developing online strategy and communications while managing the websites and intranet of the federal Department of Human Services (http://www.h umanservices.gov.au/) and Child Support Agency (http://www.csa.gov.au/) with the help of a great team. Craig has engaged the Australian Government web community with some great examples from within Australia and overseas of how they can provide better government service to Australian citizens using web 2.0 technologies.
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DiploFoundation, Malta, Geneva, Belgrade
diplomacy.edu/ig/
DiploFoundation is the leading international organization in building an inclusive global Internet governance and policy environment. Diplo's capacity building programme consists of policy training, policy research and policy immersion. More than 1000 diplomats, officials and civil society representatives, mainly from small and developing countries have been involved in Diplo's capacity development activities. Today, it is difficult to find Internet governance and policy boides (ICANN, IGF, LACNIC, AfroNIC) without an active participation of Diplo's former students. One of the main contributions of Diplo to the global community is awareness-building, both on specific Internet governance issues and on the need for inclusive Internet governance.
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Eleana Gordon, Cairo, Amman, Washington D.C.
activisminstitute.org
Eleana Gordon is the Founder of the Center for Liberty in the Middle East (CLIME) and the visionary behind the "Online Activism Institute" (www.activisminstitute.org), whose goal is to teach activism through e*learning, activist videos and virtual mentoring. The "Online Activism Institute" is a pioneer in using the Internet to teach tools of democratic participation in Arabic. After a year of development, it launched in 2009 in Egypt and Jordan with training for 90 women on its flagship online course, "Create Your Activism Plan." The Online Activism Institute is a consortium of NGOs, web-development, and academic partners in the Middle East and United States, who work together to provide state-of the-art training and resources through an e-learning platform. The consortium is based in Cairo, Amman and Washington, D.C. with plans to expand to more locations in the future. The Online Activism Institute is funded through the U.S. Department of State's Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). MEPI supports efforts to foster reform throughout the Middle East and North Africa. More information about MEPI can be found at their website.
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Hany Ibrahim Fahmy, Egypt
nazaha-eg.net
Mr. Ibrahim is an Egyptian creative pro democracy advocate. Mr. Ibrahim has developed many online tools to promote democracy and human rights in the Arab World in general and in Egypt in particular. He has created the first Arabic portal to combat corruption. The portal is called Nazaha which means in Arabic Integrity and Transparency www.nazaha- eg.net. The portal provides daily coverage for corrupt practices and success stories in fighting corruption. It has many Arabic resources for journalists, NGO leaders, pro democracy advocates, and policy- makers. These resources were rare before creating Nazaha. Mr. Ibrahim has a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the American Uinversity in Cairo. Currently, he is working to develop an online institute for promoting peace in MENA region and enhance the capacity of NGOs in Arab World in conflict management. Mr. Ibrahim utilizes his professionalism in linking between the virtual world and the challenges of the local communities. He deserves it.
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Hellmut Hattler, Germany
myspace.com/hellmuthattler
With his online campaign, only on YouTube, Hellmut Hattler draws attention towards the occupation of Palestine - and gets positive feedback from allover the world. Lots of artists and activists ask for projects that could be done together. Hellmut Hattler is a world-renowned bass guitarist from Germany (Kraan, Tab Two, Hattler). Some years ago he wrote an energetic song on the Israel/Palestine conflict, called "Assalamu Alaikum". During the Gaza war in winter 2008/2009, filmmakers Damian Léman and Thierry Miguet decided to make a film about the song for YouTube. The concert film focuses on Israel´s separation wall, as one symbol of the conflict. Now the band already received an invitation to play a concert in Palestine. Interestingly, a Middle East expert of the US government judged the song as being "out of the peace business". Journalist Max Blumenthal loved it, and Arab-American comedian Dean Obeidallah put it in a nutshell: "That is a great music video. It's good when art challenges people!"
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Internet Advocacy Roundtable, Washington, D.C.
americanprogressaction.org/events/IAR.html
Alan Rosenblatt's Internet Advocacy Roundtable has been one of the key gatherings for spreading ideas and information about how the Internet is and can be used for advocacy to change the world. I consider this one of the original Washington DC meet-ups for political and social advocacy. Just reviewing the past events is a testament to this fact and I believe without this kind of work we all would be further behind in our collective knowledge.
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Iranian Protesters, Iran
Search Iranian Protesters
With their courage and perseverance, as well as the ingenuity they have shown in their usage of social networking tools--they have truly "led the way in this revolution." The Iranians are blogging, posting to Facebook and, most visibly, coordinating their protests on Twitter. They use Twitter to organize and spread the word. Twitter had planned to go down for 90 minutes Monday for maintenance but was asked by State Dept to keep operating so the Iranian protesters can send out their messages after the crackdown on the traditional media by the Iranian govt.
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Joe Rospars and the Obama for America New Media Team, USA
my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/rospars
Joe Rospars is the 27-year-old director of Obama's new-media department, helped Barack Obama raise half a billion dollars online in his 21-month campaign for the White House. Rospars ushered in a new digital era in presidential fundraising through the campaign's use of e-mail, text messages and social networking sites. He is now the New Media Director for Obama for America. A true pioneer in the field of politics and technology, Rospar and Obama's New Media Team brought us the first truly 21st century political campaign and changed the way American politics and fundraising will be done from here on out.
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Marcio Lacerda, Brazil
portalpbh.pbh.gov.br/pbh/
Belo Horizonte City Hall initiated the participatory budget in 1993. Since 2006, it has its web's modality, called Digital PB (OP Digital in Portuguese). In its second run, last year, it achieved 124 thousand voters, designating the City resources and choosing among five big interventions. For that, I suggest the current Mayor, Marcio Lacerda, in the name of the City Hall, gets the award.
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Marko Rakar, Croatia
pollitika.com
One of the earliest adopters of internet on Croatia is also founder of collaborative blog site pollitika.com. His 1st web site mrak.org in 2004 was awarded and still considered one of the most influential blogs in Croatia. His topics are economy, politics and media. In 2006 he founded blog site pollitika.com which is the largest politics oriented community in Croatia with members including present, former (and future) politicians, parliament members, judges, lawyers, NGO activists, academics journalists and interested citizens... Pollitika.com grew up to be central spot in Croatia for citizens politics, source of (usually) unpleasant information for the government and also a cradle for a number of initiatives.
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Pambazuka News, Africa
pambazuka.org/en/
Whether it's Kenya's electoral crisis or the mass killings in Darfur, Pambazuka News is the source of authentic voices of Africa's social activists and analysts - a platform for voices that challenge mainstream perceptions and biases. Published in English, French and Portuguese and with a readership of over 500,000, Pambazuka comprises a social network of more than 1,500 academics, activists, women's rights campaigners, bloggers, artists and commentators who together produce insightful and thoughtful analyses that make it one of the most innovative and influential sites for social justice in Africa. Bridging the gap between activists and scholars, Pambazuka publishes e- newsletters, podcasts, radio programmes, videos and books. It fosters a community of African citizens who hold their governments to account, supports pan- African campaigns for human rights and social justice, and enables African women and marginalized groups to develop their own blogs, podcasts and mobile phone campaigns.
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Personal Democracy Forum, USA
personaldemocracy.com
Technology and the Internet are changing democracy in America. This site is one hub for the conversation already underway between political practitioners and technologists, as well as anyone invigorated by the potential of all this to open up the process and engage more people in all the things that we can and must do together as citizens.
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Peter Greenberger, USA
google.com
Google's move into politics helped make campaign 2008 the year of the Internet. YouTube debates allowed citizens to ask candidates their own questions; Google Maps helped voters find polling locations; and Google Docs allowed campaigns and volunteers to collaborate. But it was Google ads that built supporter lists, brought in legions of new donors, and enabled campaigns to reach voters at their moment of decision. Peter is the public face and leader of Google's successful political ads team - Obama spent $7.5M with Google, by far the largest chunk of their Internet spending. In the wake of Obama's success, political campaigns are adopting online advertising as a must-do in '09 and '10. Peter continues to evangelize the use of Google ads and is largely responsible for the Google Network Blast tactic used successfully in NY-20 and the VA primary. Peter is also working with legislators to improve communication with their constituents and to make government information more accessible.
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Petrobras, Brazil
www.blogspetrobras.com.br/fatosedados
The Petrobras´ blog Fatos e Dados, is the most important thing that has happened to Brazil's people in recent years because provides a democratic real freedom - that was impossible with the traditional newspapers and TVs broadcast. Brazilian people feel hopeful that this blog Fatos e Dados has changed forever the face of the information we have from now on.
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Robert Krimmer, Austria
e-voting.cc
Robert Krimmer is the Director and Founder of the Competence Center for Electronic Voting and Participation (E-Voting.CC), and one of the leading experts in the field of electronic voting worldwide. He was one of the key players in the first binding internet elections in Austria, working as a consultant for the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research. Mr. Krimmer is a consultant for the Council of Europe for e-voting and e-democracy. He was also working as an election observer with special focus on e-voting in Estonia, Venezuela, USA, and Russia. He organizes the international conference EVOTE, a Global meeting point for e-voting experts from all over the world. He is a speaker at international conferences, has published over 50 international publications and edited 3 books. He has received prestigious awards from BMW and New York University. He publishes the bi-annual magazine 'Modern Democracy - The Electronic Voting and Participation Magazine', a global e-voting discussion forum.
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Senator Kate Lundy, Australia
katelundy.com.au
The Hon. Senator Kate Lundy MP is widely recognized as an Australian political pioneer in the use of the internet for Australian politics, being one of the first parliamentarians to launch (and manage her own) website and an early adopter of political blogging, wikis, online video and Twitter. She deserves recognition for the series of Public Sphere community forums she is currently running, which draw together virtual and physical forums in a series exploring the impact of the internet on Australian government. These events involve the use of online blog and wiki-based consultation, physical events that are simultaneously video streamed and liveblogged online, with supporting Twitter feeds. These events are opening the door for Australian politicians to more interactively engage online and generating interests at all levels of Australian politics and the public sector.
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Slugger O'Toole, Ireland
sluggerotoole.com
The Slugger O'Toole website is already a Northern Ireland institution - offering a conversational political space in a hotly contested political policy. All sides contribute to the dialogue - adding, challenging, probing, learning, conceding even... and the site is known to attract all the main politicians and players as 'lurkers' if not commentators. The site's owner Mick Fealty adds content himself, moderates and develops new ideas and options (Twitter, live VIP Chat, Adverts, Think pieces, archive etc). Last year, the innovative Slugger Awards brought Northern Ireland's fractious politicians together in the same venue for the first time ever to celebrate each other's successes - another Slugger triumph!
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The Democracy Center, Bolivia
democracyctr.org
For more than a decade our organization, the Democracy Center in Cochabamba, Bolivia, has pioneered the use of Internet communications to bring global attention to developing country issues that would otherwise be ignored. The most well-known of these was our use of the Internet to launch a global advocacy campaign that successfully forced the Bechtel Corporation to drop a $50 million legal case against the people of Bolivia following the Cochabamba Water Revolt. More than 300 organizations in 43 countries joined that effort, leading to Bechtel's settlement of the case in 2006 for thirty cents. Today, through a widely read Blog, on-line video, and other creative uses of Web technology, we are showing how the Internet can link activism in the global north and global south in powerful ways.
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Twitter, USA
twitter.com
Twitter has allowed people around the world to communicate more effectively. Twitter has been responsible for communications in Iran and Moldava at a time when the governments there have been trying to clamp down on communications. Twitter has been aiding in communications during political protests, natural disasters such as the California and Australia wildfires and social movements providing activists a new means to communicate and organize online.
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Whitehouse.gov, USA
whitehouse.gov
The whitehouse.gov website has a transparency and usefulness for the individual citizen that has not been seen before. A wealth of information, videos and resource links for programs and results affecting individual citizens appear prominently right on the home page. You don't have to do multiple searches through governmental departments or internet searches to see the work that is being done on behalf of the citizens. It is totally Barack Obama and his capacity to effectively touch and inspire the individual and continue his theme of being there for the people, not for the grandeur. In this case, he provides the individual citizen information on programs and resources which may impact their daily lives. The bureaucratic information is accessible on the lower part of the page. The focus is on continuing his ability to reach millions of Americans in an important way through the internet.
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WorldPublic Opinion.org , Washington D.C.
worldpublicopinion.org
WorldPublicOpinion.org brings the voice of the public from around the world into the policy discussion. On important international issues - climate change, human rights, peace and security, economic development and trade, international institutions - the views of the public are studied and reported. The audience for this public interest polling is the policy community, media, governments, and people in countries across the globe. The objectives of this site are fundamentally democratic - the values and views of the public should contribute to the process of forming policy. The voice of people less often heard in the global media is expressed, people from Nigeria, Kenya, China, Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan, and many other countries. Public opinion can be a medium for understanding of different nation's point of view.
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