The Future of Public Debate Online

The panel The Future of Public Debate Online will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, April 20th, in Meridian C.

Description
Description: The future of online debate and dialogue panel will examine the many existing online debate and dialogue projects, discuss the implications of this important emerging field of work for politics and democracy, and reflect on how to apply what we've learned to accelerate our civic missions.

Speakers

 * Brooks Lindsay - Brooks Lindsay is the Founder of Debatepedia (www.debatepedia.org), a project known as "the Wikipedia of pros and cons". He founded Debatepedia in 2006 after graduating from Georgetown University. He has worked on the website full-time since. In 2007, he merged Debatepedia with the International Debate Education Association (IDEA), a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to spreading debate and democratic values around the world. Brooks lives in Washington, DC, but takes advantage of his online work to travel the world and work simultaneously. He is the organizer and host of "The Future of the Public Debate" panel, and has dedicated his life to shaping the public debate. You can email him at brooks@debatepedia.org


 * Kamy Akhavan - Kambiz “Kamy” Akhavan has served as Managing Editor of ProCon.org (www.procon.org) since December 2004. ProCon.org is a 501c3 non-profit that comprehensively researches and structures arguments and quotations on specific topics in a simple pro/con format. ProCon.org has in-house researchers who scour diverse sources online, in libraries, on broadcasts, via mail, and through email, phone, and in-person interviews to acquire the best pro and con statements.  The ProCon.org websites are 100% free and contain no advertising. Kamy has over 15 years of experience in making serious educational content entertaining, accessible, and affordable. His work has been published in textbooks, magazines, newspapers, and websites across the United States. He received a BA (magna cum laude) and MA (summa cum laude) in History from the University of California Los Angeles. Kamy was born in Iran, grew up in Southern Louisiana, and has lived in California for about 20 years. He loves music, politics, surfing, running, his wife, and ProCon.org. You can email him at kamy@procon.org.


 * Russell Fine - Russell Fine is CEO and Director of Opposing Views (www.opposingviews.com). Opposing Views acts mainly as an environment for experts in specific, contentious fields to engage in structured pro/con debate. Russell Fine has been an entrepreneur, investor and senior executive at technology and media companies for the past 20 years. Fine is currently chairman of the board at Accuscore, which provides sports forecasting content to such Internet giants as Yahoo!, ESPN and CBS Sportsline. In 1995, Fine co-founded Youbet.com, which recently generated its billionth dollar in transactions. During his tenure, Youbet raised more than $100 million dollars, deployed the world's first online wagering system and forged partnerships with New York Racing Association, Station Casinos, Churchill Downs Inc. and Hollywood Park. He has also acted as a strategic advisor to a variety of companies, including General Motors and Ascent Media, a division of Liberty Media Group. He lives in Los Angeles. You can reach him at rfine@opposingviews.com


 * David Crane - David Crane is the founder of Debatewise (www.debatewise.com). Debatewise is an advanced wiki environment for structuring pro and con arguments on any topic in the world. It is most akin to Debatepedia among the other projects on the panel, although it has developed its own wiki and community platform, as opposed to modifying MediaWiki (what powers Wikipedia) as Debatepedia does. David lives in the UK. You can reach him at dc@23.co.uk.


 * Bryan Orme - Bryan Orme is the Co-founder of CreateDebate (www.createdebate.com). Create debate is an online debate environment where individuals can post their opinions in a structured pro/con format. It is open to all prospective editors and all posts are marked as those of their authors - as opposed to wiki environments in which the objective is to collectively document lines of argumentation without authorship to the editor. Create debate also considers itself a social networking site for those that engage in debate on the site. Bryan lives in Washington, DC. You can reach him at bryan.orme@createdebate.com.


 * Brett Stubs - Brett Stubs is the Co-founder of Convinceme (www.convinceme.net). Convinceme is, similar to create debate, an advanced online platform for structured pro/con debate between users on topics of any kind. Brett lives in Washington, DC. You can reach him at info@convinceme.net.


 * David Price - David Price is the co-founder of Debategraph (www.debategraph.org). Debategraph is a creative commons, social venture that lets people build and share interactive visual maps of complex public debates. It was piloted with the UK Prime Minister’s Office and is currently being used by The Independent newspaper (UK) and the European Commission. David has a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. David lives in the UK. You can reach him at: [mailto:david@debategraph.org david@debategraph.org].

From Brooks

 * Example link - This is an example link. Go ahead and delete/replace it. In the rich editor, create a link by highlighting text and then clicking the world icon above. Don't forget the "http:".

From Kamy
1. www.procon.org - ProCon.org homepage with links to 20 different issue-specific websites

2. Follow ProCon.org on Twitter: http://twitter.com/procon_org

3. Join ProCon.org on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/ProConorg/159593575001

From Russell

 * Example link - This is an example link. Go ahead and delete/replace it. In the rich editor, create a link by highlighting text and then clicking the world icon above. Don't forget the "http:".

From David

 * Example link - This is an example link. Go ahead and delete/replace it. In the rich editor, create a link by highlighting text and then clicking the world icon above. Don't forget the "http:".

From Bryan

 * CreateDebate - CreateDebate is a social debating site for logical and passionate people.
 * Follow CreateDebate on Twitter: CreateDebate's Twitter Site
 * Join CreateDebate's Facebook page.

From Brett

 * Example link - This is an example link. Go ahead and delete/replace it. In the rich editor, create a link by highlighting text and then clicking the world icon above. Don't forget the "http:".

From David Price

 * Debategraph Presentation
 * Debategraph Home Page
 * Climate change map in embedded in The Independent.
 * Map of the Power of Information Taskforce Report
 * @Debategraph

General/from discussion

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