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Tomorrow’s News: Models For An Everyone Is Media World

Video Description

We are witnessing the destruction of the old media order—and the noisy, thrilling invention of something new. Tectonic shifts in technology and human behavior have changed forever the way we create, deliver, and consume information. The result: a host of emerging models from around the globe that thrive on connection and community, promising previously unimagined opportunities to engage people as active, change-making citizens. This session will examine levers of power in a world where everyone can be an editor — and demonstrate why, far from mourning the demise of journalism, there’s reason to celebrate a new generation.

Speakers

  • Founder and CEO, Ashoka, Ashoka
    Bill Drayton is a social entrepreneur with a long record of founding organizations and public service. As the founder and CEO of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, Bill Drayton has pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship, growing a global association of over 3,900 leading social entrepreneurs who work together to create an ‘Everyone a Changemaker’ world. Ashoka Fellows bring big systems-change to the world’s most urgent social challenges. Over half have changed national policy within five years of launch. As a student, he founded organizations ranging from Yale Legislative Services to Harvard’s Ashoka Table, an inter-disciplinary weekly forum in the social sciences. After graduation from Harvard, he received an M.A. from Balliol College in Oxford University. In 1970, he graduated from Yale Law School. He worked at McKinsey & Company for ten years and taught at Stanford Law School and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. While serving the Carter Administration as Assistant Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, he launched many reforms including emissions trading, a fundamental change in regulation that is now the basis of much global as well as US regulatory law, including in fields beyond the environment.  Bill launched Ashoka in 1980; in 1984, he used the stipend he received when elected a MacArthur Fellow to devote himself fully to Ashoka. Bill is Ashoka’s Chief Executive Officer. He also chairs Ashoka’s Youth Venture, Community Greens, and Get America Working! Bill has won numerous awards and honors throughout his career. He has been selected one of America’s Best Leaders by US News & World Report and Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. In 2011, Drayton won Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias Award and, in 2019, Drayton was elected as member of the American Philosophical Society. Other awards include Honorary Doctorates from Yale, NYU and more.
  • Co-Founder, Parlamentwatch (NGO)
    Gregor Hackmack founded the dialogue and transparency website parlamentwatch.org together with his colleague Boris Hekele in Germany. On parlamentwatch.org citizens can post public questions and receive public answers. Thus over the time a virtual voter’s memory is being generated. In 2008 Gregor was awarded an Ashoka Fellowship.
  • Vice President / Strategic Initiatives, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
    Paula Ellis oversees the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s national programmes, new initiatives, the Transformation Fund and evaluation work and is a member of the Executive Committee. Paula was formerly vice president for operations at Knight Ridder overseeing 15 newspapers. She was a member of the company’s management committee and led companywide reader innovation and cost containment initiatives. She was the president and publisher of The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C.; managing editor and assistant to the publisher of The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C.; and editor in the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau and at The Post-Tribune in Gary, Ind.
  • Senior Researcher , Centre for Policy Alternatives
    Sanjana Yajitha Hattotuwa is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives and Head of ICT and Peacebuilding at InfoShare, both located in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has an Advanced Masters in Conflict Resolution and International Relations at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and an honours degree in English from the University of Delhi, India. Sanjana is an internationally recognized thought-leader in the use of ICT and new media for peacebuilding and is the founding Editorof Groundviews (www.groundviews.org), a pioneering and award-winning web based citizen journalism initiative in Sri Lanka. http://sanjanah.wordpress.com
  • Managing Director, Media Development Investment Fund
    Sasa Vucinic is co-founder and Managing Director of Media Development Loan Fund. MDLF is a social investment fund for independent news outlets in the developing world. It provides low cost capital, new technology solutions and management knowhow to assist journalists in challenging environments in building sustainable businesses around professional, responsible, quality journalism. MDLF was founded in 1995 and has provided $90 million in affordable financing to independent media companies in 24 countries. From 1993 to 1995 Sasa worked as a Media Consultant to the Soros Foundation network. Prior to that he was the General Manager and Editor-in-Chief of Radio B-92 in Belgrade. Sasa is a graduate of the University of Belgrade Law School.