Speakers
John Bebow is president & CEO of the Center for Michigan, a public engagement and journalism “think and do tank” founded in 2006. The center publishes Bridge Magazine, Michigan’s leading nonprofit news source, and serves as convening partner for the Detroit Journalism Cooperative. Bebow worked previously as an investigative reporter at The Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News and other Michigan newspapers. He covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq for the Detroit News and Gannett newspapers and also served as editor-in-chief of MLive.com, Michigan’s largest online news and information service. He has a bachelor’s degree with honors in English from Western Michigan University and a MBA with distinction from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. He has served on numerous nonprofit boards, including the board of directors of the Michigan Press Association.
Asiaha Butler is a longtime resident of the Greater Englewood community of Chicago and is determined to uplift, inspire and change the perception of her neighborhood. A co-founder of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood, known as RAGE, she has worked with educators, concerned citizens and parents to develop a comprehensive educational plan for schools in the community as well as engage residents in school repurposing efforts and other community development initiatives. Butler recently earned her master’s in inner city studies education at Jacob Carruthers Center of Inner City Studies of Northeastern Illinois University.
Emmett D. Carson, Ph.D., is the founding CEO of Silicon Valley Community Foundation. An international thought leader in the field of philanthropy, in 2006 he led the unprecedented merger of two community foundations, creating SVCF. With a growth in assets from $1.4 billion to over $6.5 billion, it is the nation’s largest community foundation and in the top 10 among all types of foundations. Previously, Carson had a distinguished 12-year career as CEO of The Minneapolis Foundation, and prior to that oversaw the Ford Foundation’s U.S. and global grantmaking program on philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. Carson received both his master’s and Ph.D. in public and international affairs from Princeton University and his bachelor’s degree in economics, Phi Beta Kappa, from Morehouse College
Stuart Comstock-Gay is president & CEO of the Vermont Community Foundation, where he works with charitably-minded Vermonters and friends of Vermont to support organizations and issues across the state. His career has revolved around issues of civic engagement, encompassing voting rights, civil rights and liberties and foundation work. He has written and spoken widely on a wide range of topics surrounding community betterment. Comstock-Gay holds an MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s. in political science from Bucknell University.
Susan Crawford is the John A. Reilly Visiting Professor in Intellectual Property at the Harvard Law School and a co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. She is the author of “Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry” and “Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age,” and a contributor to Medium.com’s Backchannel. She served as Special Assistant to the President for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy (2009) and co-led the FCC transition team between the Bush and Obama administrations. She also served as a member of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Advisory Council on Technology and Innovation and is now a member of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Broadband Task Force. As an academic, she teaches Internet law and communications law. Named one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology (2009) and one of TIME Magazine’s Tech 40: The Most Influential Minds in Tech (2013), Crawford received her bachelor’s and law degree from Yale University.
Chris Daggett is president and CEO of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, one of New Jersey’s largest private foundations, which supports arts, education, environment, media and poetry. Daggett’s interest in media stems from 30 years spent in New Jersey’s public policy arena, concern about cutbacks in investigative and local journalism and a deep belief in the importance of a thriving free press to democracy. In 2009, Daggett ran for governor of New Jersey. Endorsed by the state’s leading newspaper, he was the first independent to qualify for public matching funds and to participate in debates with the major party candidates. Previously, Daggett served as Deputy Chief of Staff to New Jersey Governor Tom Kean; Regional Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency; and Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. He received a bachelor’s degree with honors in interdisciplinary studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a doctorate of education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Chastity Pratt Dawsey has been the urban affairs reporter for Michigan’s Bridge Magazine since 2014. Prior to Bridge, she provided authoritative coverage of Detroit schools for the Detroit Free Press. The native Detroiter also was a reporter at Newsday in Long Island, and The Oregonian newspaper in Portland. She started her career as an intern at The New York Times. Her work also has appeared in USA Today, Essence Magazine and the Investigative Reporters & Editors Journal. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan.
Alejandro de Onís is Knight Foundation’s director of digital strategy. Previously, he was director of digital strategy for the documentary production company Skylight Pictures, where he increased social impact and audience engagement with platforms that made it easy for people to get involved with social issues. Some projects include The Toolbox, Granito: Every Memory Matters, and International Justice Central. De Onís has also worked on various programs for PBS, The Discovery Channel, National Geographic and A&E. In years past, he dabbled in freelance photography, composing music for broadcast television, and was the co-owner of a successful restaurant in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Kathleen Dickhut is deputy commissioner of the Sustainability and Open Space Division of the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development. The division develops public open space, manufacturing and food policies and neighborhood land use plans. The division acquires and funds new parks, trails, community gardens and urban agriculture sites and develops policies and programs for green infrastructure, manufacturing and local food systems. Dickhut has a master’s of science in landscape architecture from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a bachelor’s degree in psychology and anthropology.
Eric Dregne joined the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque in 2010 after a 20-year career in retail executive management. As Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, Dregne leads collaborative efforts focusing on the areas of youth, education, workforce and diversity/inclusion as well as the foundation’s grantmaking initiatives. As a volunteer prior to joining the foundation, Dregne held leadership positions in initiatives including: Envision 2010 – community visioning (Dubuque, IA); Vision2020 – community visioning (Galena, IL); Every Child/Every Promise – a youth-focused organization; and Dubuque 2.0 – a community information and engagement initiative around sustainability.
Demond Drummer is Managing Director of The Connect Chicago Challenge, a comprehensive effort to make Chicago the most dynamic digital city in America. As part of the Connect Chicago Collaborative team, Drummer coordinates a cross-sector partnership to align, support and scale technology initiatives citywide. Prior to the Challenge, Drummer was the Smart Communities tech organizer in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, where he facilitated digital leadership trainings with block club members, parent leaders and business owners. His projects included Englewood Codes, a summer youth code camp, and LargeLots.org, a community-driven effort to reclaim city-owned vacant lots. The combined efforts of the Smart Communities program drove a 17 percent increase in home broadband subscriptions in the Englewood neighborhood. An alumnus of Morehouse College, Drummer was previously an organizing fellow with the New Organizing Institute and a field organizer for Barack Obama’s primary campaign in South Carolina.
Vincent Duffy has been news director at Michigan Radio since May 2007. Michigan Radio provides statewide, regional coverage of Michigan issues on multiple platforms. Duffy has worked in public radio and television news nearly 30 years. He is a former chair of the Radio/Telvision/Digital News Association and is currently a director-at-large on its board. The association is the nation’s largest organization representing electronic journalists. Duffy has political science and telecommunications degrees from Kent State University and a master’s in mass media from Miami University of Ohio. He has covered news in Australia, Europe and Africa.
Mary Lou Fulton is a senior program manager at The California Endowment, where she leads strategic communications for the foundation’s Health Happens in Schools and Neighborhoods campaigns focused on how community environments shape our prospects for living a healthy and successful life. Her work includes funding journalism, communications research, youth media, polling, media outreach and other approaches to help expand public understanding of health and prevention. Previously, Fulton worked for 20 years in the media and communications field, including positions at The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, America Online and GeoCities.com. A native of Yuma, Arizona, and a second-generation Mexican-American, she holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Arizona State University.
Henry Gonzalez is Tiffany & Co. group director, Mid Atlantic South and has been with Tiffany & Co. since 1977. He was born in Buffalo NY, and raised in Miami. His career has focused on client development and community support, while employed at Tiffany & Company. Since 1997, Gonzalez has been promoted seven times, and opened five stores, one in Brazil and Seattle and three in Florida. He is a two-time “Winner’s Circle” winner. This award is presented to an employee who has had consistent outstanding performance above and beyond expectations. Five times, stores under his leadership have won “Store of the Year” for the country. Gonzalez has been involved with many community-based organizations both in this country and abroad.
Karen Hanson is the manager of partnerships and interagency affairs for the BroadbandUSA initiative within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Karen is responsible for promoting the BroadbandUSA initiative amongst stakeholders and coordinating federal policy efforts to promote investments in broadband. Previously, Hanson served as a federal program officer with NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. There, Hanson managed a $70 million portfolio of Public Computer Center and Sustainable Broadband Adoption grants. Prior to joining NTIA, Hanson worked at the National Council of La Raza as an education policy analyst, and at ZeroDivide, a foundation in California dedicated to promoting adoption within underserved communities. Hanson has a bachelor’s from Duke University in public policy studies and an MBA from the University of Southern California.
Stephen Henderson, a Detroit native, has been editorial page editor for the Detroit Free Press since January 2009. Prior to that, he was a reporter, editorial writer and editor at the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune, the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader and the Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau, where he covered the U.S. Supreme Court from 2003-07. Henderson’s work has been honored with more than a dozen national awards, including the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Henderson hosts a weekly talk show, “American Black Journal,” and co-hosts the weekly news wrap-up show “MiWeek,” both on Detroit Public Television.
Alberto Ibargüen is president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. He is the former publisher of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. During his tenure, The Miami Herald won three Pulitzer Prizes and El Nuevo Herald won Spain’s Ortega y Gasset Prize for excellence in journalism. He studied at Wesleyan University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Ibargüen serves as a member of the boards of PepsiCo, American Airlines Group and AOL. He is a former chair of the World Wide Web Foundation, founded by Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee to promote a free and universal Web. Over time, he has served on the boards of arts, education and journalism organizations, including the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Wesleyan University and Smith College. He also chaired the board of PBS and served on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee to Protect Journalists and ProPublica.
LuAnn Lovlin is director of communications at The Winnipeg Foundation, Canada’s first community foundation. In her role, she is responsible for the foundation’s strategic communications and marketing initiatives, including print, television, web, radio, social media and community information programs, including Community News Commons. LuAnn is a past chair of CommA, the communications affinity group of Council on Foundations.
Cara Matteliano, vice president for community impact at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, has over 25 years experience in not-for-profit leadership, program development and grantmaking. She has created and facilitated collaborations such as Buffalo’s Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, the Coalition for a Lead Free Community and the Western New York Environmental Alliance. She has led many efforts to attract national support for Buffalo causes, multiplying the foundation’s investments. She serves on the steering committee for the National Healthy Homes Funders Forum and is co-chair of the New York State Grantmakers for Community Engagement. Her work has been recognized by the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Sierra Club.
Laurenellen McCann is an organizer, artist and tech policy expert. A fellow with the Open Technology Institute at New America, consultant with Smart Chicago Collaborative and founder of The Curious Citizens Project, a culture lab. McCann’s work is dedicated to putting people before production. She writes and speaks often about inclusive strategies for building social impact tools “with, not for” communities. Previously, McCann was the Sunlight Foundation’s first national policy manager and director of one of the largest open government gatherings in the world, TransparencyCamp. In 2013, TIME Magazine named her one of 30 Under 30 Changing the World.
Daniel X. O’Neil is the executive director of the Smart Chicago Collaborative, a civic organization devoted to making lives better in Chicago through technology. Smart Chicago was founded by the City of Chicago, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The Chicago Community Trust and works to apply the transformative power of technology to solve problems for the people of Chicago. Prior to Smart Chicago, O’Neil was a co-founder of EveryBlock, a neighborhood news and discussion site serving 16 cities. He was responsible for uncovering new data sets through online research and working with local governments. In August 2009, EveryBlock was purchased by msnbc.com. O’Neil serves on the board of Voqal, an organization that works at the intersection of media and technology to advance social equity, and the Sunlight Foundation, which advocates for open government globally and uses technology to make government more accountable to all.
Jennifer Preston is Knight Foundation’s vice president for journalism. Previously, Preston was an award-winning journalist for The New York Times for almost 19 years, with broad experience as a digital journalist, reporter and senior editor. In 2009, she became the company’s first social media editor. In 2011 she returned to a reporting role where she focused on the impact of social media in politics, government, business and real life. Since 2007 she has taught journalism, primarily at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. Preston is the winner of several awards for reporting, including the New York Press Club’s Gold Typewriter Award for Public Service and the New York State Bar Association’s Award for investigative reporting. She graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with a degree in journalism. She is the author of “Queen Bess,” a biography of Bess Myerson.
Kelly Ryan is president and CEO of Incourage Foundation, where she focuses on the principles of access to accurate information, opportunities to make informed decisions and the capacity to engage with others for self and community benefit. Ryan is leading the redesign of Incourage to connect all of its capitals in furtherance of its vision – an adaptive community that works well for all people. Ryan serves on several national boards, and speaks and writes frequently about the opportunity for philanthropy at the intersection of people, place and prosperity.
Michelle Srbinovich is the general manager of WDET 101.9FM, Detroit’s public radio station, where she is driving the growth of the first working U.S. model of mainstream, major market, multi-ethnic public radio. She has earned national respect for her work at WDET and her commitment to bringing new audiences to public service media. A passionate advocate for the city of Detroit, Srbinovich is deeply involved with the city’s advertising, technology and nonprofit communities. She is the co-founder of the Detroit chapter of Girl Develop It and the Chair of the Belle Isle Conservancy’s Emerging Patrons Council.
Sree Sreenivasan is the first chief digital officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the latest step in what he calls “a three-decade, one-way love affair with the world’s greatest museum.” At the Met, he leads a team of 70 working on topics he loves: digital, social, mobile, video, data, email apps and more.He joined the Met after spending 20 years at Columbia University as a member of the faculty of the Columbia Journalism School and a year as the university’s first chief digital officer.In 2009, he was named one of AdAge’s 25 media people to follow on Twitter and in 2010 was named one of Poynter’s 35 most influential people in social media. In 2014, he was named the most influential chief digital officer in the US.
Amy Webb is a digital media futurist and founder of Webbmedia Group, a leading digital strategy consulting firm for emerging technology advising in media, entertainment, advertising and technology companies, and for higher education, nonprofits and government. Webbmedia Group researches near-future trends in digital media and technology, and develops business strategies to help clients engage bigger audiences and capture more market share. She is a Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and a lecturer on emerging technology and media at Columbia University. She is also the co-founder of Spark Camp, a next-generation convener that facilitates important conversations on the future of a better society. She is a contributing editor at Inc. Magazine, where she writes about the future of business. In 2013, Webb published “Data, A Love Story” (Dutton/ Penguin), a bestselling book about the world of online dating, consumer behavior and finding love via algorithms. Her TED talk about Data has been viewed more than 3.5 million times and has been translated into 31 languages.