Team
Emily Jacobi, Co-Director in charge of Education, has worked on media, youth development and research projects in Latin America, West Africa, Southeast Asia and the US. She previously worked for Internews Network, AllAfrica.com and as Assistant Bureau Director for Y-Press. Since January 2007 her work has focused on researching and supporting the capacity of local organizations in closed and transitioning societies. For Digital Democracy she spearheads curriculum development, communications and partnerships with grassroots and international organizations.
Contact: ejacobi@digital-democracy.org
Blog: http://gleanandgleam.wordpress.com/
Twitter: emjacobi
Mark Belinsky, Technical Director, brings a background in computer science, sociology and film & media studies. His non-profit ventures and media projects span the globe from France, Israel, the Caucasus, South and Southeast Asia to Southern Africa and the US. In Armenia, he founded a youth progressive action center to support emerging civil society, and remains involved as a board member. Since January 2007 he has worked closely with Burmese populations. For D2 he manages financial, logistical and personnel issues, and oversees technical aspects of programming.
Contact: mbelinsky@digital-democracy.org
blog: http://4hours.wordpress.com/
Twitter: mbelinsky
Liz Hodes, Programs Manager, an accomplished manager and producer, she has been working in film and television for the past six years. She previously worked at Killer Films, Mediaworks and Warner Bros. Currently, Liz is the production coordinator for New York-based television production company Left/Right, which specializes in documentary television programming. She is a founding member of the Digital Democracy team, and since November 2007 she has been the programs manager, advising and assisting with organizational and project development and management, and managing finances, including budgeting and expenses.
Contact: lhodes@digital-democracy.org
Twitter: Red_Banana
Abby Goldberg, Principal for Latin America & Gender, is a human rights activist and educator on gender justice, international law and policy issues. At Digital Democracy she leads Latin America, Caribbean and gender-based programming in addition to advising on organizational development and outreach. From 2005 to 2009, Abby played a leading role in the establishment of the Global Justice Center in New York, which works with women leaders internationally on the strategic and timely enforcement of international human rights and humanitarian law. Abby primarily focused on organizational development, fundraising and strategic communications, though her background in policy and cross-cultural programming led Abby to conduct trainings and workshops in Asia, South America, the U.S. and Europe and work with members of government, civil society, media, and academia to advance global law development. Among other efforts, Abby conceptualized and led a global campaign to raise awareness about ongoing crimes perpetrated by the Burmese junta against civilians in 2008 and spearheaded advocacy campaigns related to Iraq, U.S. foreign policy, reproductive health and rights, and the equality of women in transitional justice and conflict resolution processes. She established many of the Center’s early programs, materials, and systems, communicated widely on behalf of its work, and raised over $3 million in support of GJC programs and operating costs.
Prior to the Global Justice Center, Abby organized educational programs and advocacy on U.S. Latin American policy in Washington, DC for several organizations, including the Hispanic Council on International Relations, the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area, and the Center for International Policy. She created programs for UN Week in Washington; a policy day at the U.S. Capitol on the travel ban to Cuba; and numerous other policy programs. Abby is also a co-founder of All Day Buffet and serves on the Advisory Board of the Man Up Campaign. Abby studied Foreign Policy at American University. She lives with her husband in Brooklyn.
Contact: agoldberg@digital-democracy.org
Twitter: DigiAbby
The Sisi ni Amani Team
Rachel Brown, Sisi ni Amani’s Project Director, will graduate from Tufts University in May with a BA in International Relations and a concentration in Global Conflict, Cooperation, and Justice. Inspired by the many courageous peace leaders she met during her semester studying in Kenya, Rachel wanted to play a supporting role to enhance the work of these individuals by connecting them in strong networks and publicizing their efforts nationally and globally. Rachel has conducted independent research in Kenya, received an ETS/ACTFL rating of advanced level spoken Swahili, and is trained in Ushahidi’s mapping technology. Rachel has also conducted research in D.C. and Guatemala on Guatemala’s attempts to qualify for Millennium Challenge Corporation funds as an Tufts Institute for Global Leadership Research Fellow. She has experience as a tenant organizing intern at the Community Action Agency of Somerville, where she re-activated the tenant’s association at a local housing development, facilitated tenant meetings, organized capacity building workshops, and meetings between tenants and local authorities. In addition, Rachel is a Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service Scholar, and is the two-time recipient of an Active Citizenship Summer Fellowship Program grant. She used the grant towards tenant organizing and starting and co-leading an after-school art program for high schoolers at the CMML High School in Tamil Nadu, India. Rachel was an Institute for Global Leadership Empower Program for Social Entrepreneurship Fellow and interned at Global Financial Integrity, an organization dedicated to curtailing illicit financial flows and is the co-leader of the IGL’s Poverty and Power Research Initiative, a student research group that focuses explicitly on the nexus of elites, poverty, and corruption.
Contact: rbrown@digital-democracy.org
Cody Valdes, Sisi ni Amani’s Project Manager, a student at Tufts University from Vancouver, Canada who will graduate in 2013 with a BA in Political Science and History. He is the founder of the Mango Tree Project, a joint effort of engineers and architects from Tufts University, the U.S. Air Force, and Washington University in St. Louis, which traveled to Rwanda in 2010 to design and propose a renewable energy system for a village of 500 orphans and vulnerable youth. As an Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) Research Fellow, he spent a year conducting research internationally on the role of modern-day oligarchies in perpetuating poverty in the Philippines and the impact of the Olympic Games on the Downtown Eastside, an impoverished urban community in Vancouver. At Tufts, Cody is the co-editor in chief of Discourse, a multi-medium student publication, an IGL Synaptic Scholar, and the co-leader of the IGL’s Poverty and Power Research Initiative, a student research group that focuses explicitly on the nexus of elites, poverty, and corruption. He is also one of the founding members of Solar for Gaza/Sderot, a Climate for Peace initiative advocating for renewable energy-based development as an integral part of conflict resolution and an abrogation of violence in the communities of Sderot and Gaza. He was invited to present the vision for this project at the Sustainable Engineering in the Eastern Mediterranean conference organized by Engineers Without Borders International in Larnaca, Cyprus in April of 2009, and as a member of the conference’s executive committee participated in the second annual conference in March 2010. At home, he maintains close ties with the drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization he volunteered at during his freshman summer in Vancouver, where he made what he hopes will be life-long friendships with formerly homeless and addicted men struggling to rebuild their lives.
Contact: cvaldes@digital-democracy.org
Tegan Bukowski, Sisi ni Amani’s Media Manager, recently graduated from Washington University in St Louis with a double major in Architecture and Environmental Studies. A LEED Accredited Professional, she is supremely interested in environmental justice issues as well as justice through good design. She is also a co-founder of the Mango Tree Project with whom she traveled to Rwanda in the winter of 2010. While in Rwanda, she visited the L’Esperance Childrens Orphanage in Kigarama, launching a working relationship that has included her redesign of their entire online identity in order to streamline and solicit donations in a more efficient manner. She has been doing web design since she was eleven years old, and most recently has been working with the Ushahidi platform for Digital Democracy. At Washington University she was a teacher in the ALBERTI Architecture for Youth program, in which she taught design principles to disadvantaged young people on the weekends and summer. Tegan is the Outstanding Graduate of the Washington University School of Architecture for 2010, recipient of the 2009 AIA Honor Education Award, a Widmann Prize Nominee, Rhodes and Marshall Scholarship nominee, Thomas E. Eliot and Philip Shepley Memorial Scholarship recipient, and a USA Today Academic All American. She is now a graduate student at Yale, working toward two Masters degrees: a Master of Architecture from the Yale School of Architecture and a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and the Environment.
Contact: tbukowski@digital-democracy.org
Twitter: @teganbukowski
