The Active Citizen in the Digital Age: Mobilization and Representation

Democracy depends on citizens participating in multiple ways. Digital technologies enable new ways to inform voters, mobilize communities, and connect individuals to the public officials who represent them.

This event brought together three experts in using digital technologies – and protecting against their misuse – in various forms of civic participation. Tanzila Ahmed, Campaign Strategist at 18 Million Rising, organizes Asian American voters on- and off-line through pop culture and 18 Million Rising’s web platform. Alex Niemczewski, CEO of BallotReady, is creating a tool to ensure voters are informed on every part of their ballot, all the way down the ticket. Aditi Mehta, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Toronto, has studied the ways that communities in post-disaster areas use grassroots technologies to rebuild, and reconnect.

The Active Citizen in the Digital Age is an ongoing speaker series highlighting the range of ways people are using digital technologies to make a difference – politically, charitably, as volunteers, and with their career, consumer, and investing choices.

Speakers: Lucy Bernholz, Director of the Digital Civil Society Lab at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society; Alex Niemczewski, CEO of BallotReady; Aditi Mehta, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies, University of Toronto; Tanzila Ahmed, Campaign Strategist, 18MillionRising.org and co-host of the #GoodMuslimBadMuslim podcast.