Camper Bios
Knight Community Info Challenge Boot Camp
October 27-30, 2013
presented by
Knight Digital Media Center
USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
in partnership with the
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
PARTICIPANTS
Matt Agustin
Data Analyst, Advancement Project CA
Project: Los Angeles Budget Project
Matt Agustin is currently a data analyst at Advancement Project CA, a nonprofit, social justice research and action organization, based in Los Angeles. Prior to joining Advancement Project in 2010, he received a master’s in Urban & Regional Planning from the University of California Irvine that same year. In his time with Advancement Project thus far, Agustin co-wrote a training curriculum, aimed at community advocates, on how to read and use public budgets in Los Angeles. Additionally, he had significant data and research roles in projects involving early childhood education advocacy, community health analysis and community mapping.
Project Summary: The Los Angeles Budget Project is an easy-to-use online forum and information source about the 600-page L.A. City budget, helping diverse audiences analyze funding that has significant impact on the quality of life for low-income communities.
Laura Amico
CEO, Glass Eye Media
Project: Learning Lab
Laura Amico is CEO of Glass Eye Media, a media consultancy and software group providing narrative-data services to newsrooms. She was a 2012-13 Nieman-Berkman Fellow in Journalism Innovation at Harvard. In 2010 she launched the award winning Homicide Watch DC, which is now in newsrooms including the Chicago Sun-Times and Trentonian. Amico is a New York Times Chairman’s Award winner, a Knight News Entrepreneur Boot Camp alum, and has held fellowships with the Online News Association and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America. She is a board member of Criminal Justice Journalists.
Project Summary: Learning Lab, a partnership of Glass Eye Media, WBUR and the Boston Foundation, is a statewide education reporting project examining the scope and impact of reform initiatives, building tools for parents, educators and policy makers and creating space for thoughtful conversation around improving schools in Massachusetts. Glass Eye media is a non-profit journalism organization run by Chris and Laura Amico, the founders of the HomicideWatch.org.
Anthony F. Balzebre
Principal, New Equity Partners
Project: Florida Pro Se Mobile
In his current position, Anthony Balzebre currently works on questions of community health and engagement in urban areas. In addition to research and evaluation around health related issues, he works on communications and social networking, designing outcomes-focused websites and marketing and outreach strategies. His project management and research skills have been employed in the management of community-based projects from neighborhood redevelopment to public hospital strategic planning. Prior to joining New Equity Partners, Balzebre served as a senior project development specialist for the Collins Center for Public Policy, a Miami-based think tank, working in project implementation, research and development, donor relations, and business development.
He began his career working for the State of Rhode Island Office of Higher Education, monitoring legislation and education-related matters throughout the state. He then went on to Fidelity Investments in Boston, assisting high-net-worth clients with asset management as well as philanthropic planning through the company’s Charitable Gift Fund. In 2007, Balzebre founded and continues to serve as vice president of the non-profit Bread for Bread, a charity dedicated to combating food insecurity in major municipalities.
Project Summary: Budget shortfalls, increased workloads, and federal sequestering forces government to do more with less resources. Opening up information about public programs in more accessible ways can save money and empower citizens to learn about, self-direct and apply for public services. The P. L. Dodge Foundation seeks to create an open government public self-help opportunity in legal aid services by offering a free mobile application, or app, for low income residents in Miami-Dade and South Florida. Florida Pro Se Mobile will empower low income South Florida residents to conduct basic legal affairs as a do-it-yourself service (known as pro se legal representation) by using a mobile app for information and instruction instead of publicly-supported legal aid providers and private attorneys.
Daniel Bevarly
Principal/CEO, Public Communication Management Strategies
Project: Florida Pro Se Mobile
Dan Bevarly's professional experience in marketing, communications, public administration, economic development and citizen engagement spans the public, private and non-profit sectors. PCMS leverages traditional management practices with emerging social media technologies to build thriving, collaborative people networks that increase the value and impact of organizations. A Louisville, KY native, Bevarly now resides in Southwest Florida.
Project Summary: Florida Pro Se Mobile seeks to improve the lives of South Florida’s low-income residents by empowering them with education and instruction to help themselves to resolve basic legal matters via mobile and other web devices. This project will have a social, economical and institutional impact on the legal community and may disrupt and realign bureaucratic public service delivery systems and the traditional legal services delivery system. In any industry system, public or private, nothing has had a more dramatic impact for positive change than creating within them the consumer “self-help model.” However, despite potential implications for conventions around the delivery of legal services, the project promotes the empowerment of low-income residents and broadens accessibility of critical knowledge needed by low-income residents.
Nathan Dickerson
Executive Director, ProgressLex
Project: EngageLex
Nathan Dickerson obtained his BA in public policy studies and a minor in computer science from the University of Kentucky. During his college career, Dickerson was honored to be both a Gaines Fellow and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He was also on the student advisory board for Campus Progress, a project of the Center for American Progress, and has published a field report in The Nation webzine. Since college, he has worked in politics, state government, and with nonprofits. He was a recent graduate of the New Leaders Council. Dickerson is currently the executive director of ProgressLex, an organization that is focused on making Lexington, Kentucky a place that talented and creative people want to live and work.
Project Summary: EngageLex is a program that will build the capacity of Lexington’s change agents. The program includes five weekend seminars that will cover local government, citizen journalism, communications skills, storytelling and media production—an education that will enhance their ability to be effective social innovators. Fellows will also have access to media production technology, which they will use to create short films as capstone projects. With knowledge, production skills and confidence, EngageLex fellows will form a community and culture of engaged residents who feel ownership over their government and can tell the story of their community from the inside out.
Patrick Dougherty
Senior News Executive, Anchorage Daily News
Project: State of Intoxification
Patrick Dougherty is the senior news executive at the Anchorage Daily News, a general circulation newspaper and news website in Anchorage, Alaska. The newspaper has a paid circulation of about 35,000, and its website, adn.com, serves about 12 million page views a month.
Dougherty was promoted to editor from managing editor in 1998. He joined the Daily News and the McClatchy Co. in 1980. At the News, he has worked in a variety of positions, including city editor, magazine editor and copy desk chief. Dougherty was the principal editor of the series "A People in Peril," which was awarded the 1989 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service. He has twice served as a Pulitzer Prize juror. He was one of 12 U.S. journalists selected as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1988. He leads the editorial board of the Daily News.
Project Summary: The newspaper is spending a year documenting and examining the problems and social costs associated with the use and abuse of alcohol. This project comes almost exactly 25 years after the Pulitzer-winning series “A People in Peril,” which examined the high rates of premature death, much of it directly associated with alcohol, among Alaska Natives. In the current project, we are focusing more broadly, looking at issues like drunk driving, fetal alcohol syndrome and child abuse and neglect, categories of social dysfunction in which Alaska consistently ranks high.
Nate Hill
Assistant Director, Chattanooga Public Library
Project: The Chattanooga Open Government Collaborative
At the Chattanooga Public Library, Nate Hill leads The 4th Floor project. The 4th Floor is a 14,000 square foot flexible community library space: some days it is a makerspace, others it is a coder dojo or hackerspace, and still others it serves as an event, production, and presentation space. In addition to his work in Chattanooga, Hill serves as a co-chair of the Digital Public Library of America's Marketing and Outreach Committee, and he's been recognized by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as an American representative for the International Network of Emerging Library Innovators (INELI) program. In 2012, Hill was also named a "Mover and Shaker" by Library Journal. Before taking his position in Chattanooga, He worked for the San Jose Public Library (CA) and the Brooklyn Public Library (NY).
Project Summary: The Chattanooga Open Government Collaborative (COGC) will help to bring Chattanooga to the forefront of the Open Government movement, by opening up unprecedented access to city data and building the capacity for citizens to engage around and utilize the data to address community issues. At the end of one year, they will have not only a substantive platform for releasing city and community data to the public, but also an engaged community of data consumers that are helping to identify community needs that can be addressed through open data, as well as designing and utilize open data tools to address the community's needs.
Richard Leverett
Chief of Staff, City of Gary, Indiana
Project: Data-Driven Gary: Overcoming Blight Through Efficiency and Engagement
Richard Leverett was recently appointed chief of staff for the city of Gary, Indiana but had been a member of the law department working on commerce and policy issues prior to his promotion. As a city attorney, he was responsible for supporting the finance and insurance departments, as well as several planning, zoning and redevelopment functions. On the policy side, Leverett has been involved in a variety of projects for the city including collaborations with the HUD-EPA-DOT Sustainable Communities team, the University of Chicago Harris School and Indiana University Northwest, as well as being the city’s lead on the Code for America Peer Network and for the team’s Bloomberg Challenge Grant application. Always calling the Midwest home, Leverett was born and raised in Gary, and is a graduate of The University of Chicago Law School and Butler University.
Project Summary: The purpose of this project is to provide residents with vacant property and clean-up data through Civic Insights’ Blight Status and enable more efficient code enforcement and service delivery by the city of Gary. As part of the city’s data strategy, it will formulate a systematic approach to data collection and reporting across key departments. Decision-makers and citizens will have access to a shared online resource containing the most up-to-date, relevant information on and community actions towards resolving blight.
Tom McDonald
Owner-Manager, Gazette Media Services
Project: The Community News Exchange
Tom McDonald is owner-manager of Gazette Media Services (gazettemediaservices.com), which provides a variety of services to and through the media. After launching GMS earlier this year, McDonald’s first entrepreneurial venture was to organize the New Mexico Community News Exchange (CNEx), a statewide news-sharing service for small-town newspapers. McDonald is a 1992 graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock who worked at newspapers in Little Rock, Maumelle, Conway and Pine Bluff, all in Arkansas, before leaving his native state to run community newspapers in Springfield, KY, and Las Vegas, NM.
Project Summary: The Community News Exchange, or CNEx, has been described as “an AP for small newspapers.” It’s a news-sharing service currently consisting of 14 New Mexico newspapers — mostly small-town, locally-owned weeklies — that provide content to CNEx editor McDonald, who selects stories of broader interest, then edits them into briefs and “stand-alone” stories before transmitting them, along with some original work, to all participating newspapers. Plans for 2014 include growing CNEx to 20-plus subscriber newspapers as it expands its focus on issues relevant to small-town and rural residents in New Mexico.
Tim Moreland
Principal Planner, Regional Planning Agency
Project: The Chattanooga Open Government Collaborative
Tim Moreland works as a principal planner at the Regional Planning Agency. There his focus is on managing some of the agency’s larger planning projects. Previous to his work as a principal planner, Moreland worked on land use modeling and scenario planning with a heavy emphasis on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and transportation planning plans and projects. A self-identified nerd, he is keenly interested in how technology can be leverage to make the planning process more effective and inclusive. Outside of work Moreland is involved in several “open cities” initiatives including; contributing to OpenStreetMap and OpenChattanooga, the local Code for America Citizen Brigade.
Project Summary: The Chattanooga Open Government Collaborative (COGC) will help to bring Chattanooga to the forefront of the Open Government movement, by opening up unprecedented access to city data and building the capacity for citizens to engage around and utilize the data to address community issues. At the end of one year, they will have not only a substantive platform for releasing city and community data to the public, but also an engaged community of data consumers that are helping to identify community needs that can be addressed through open data, as well as designing and utilize open data tools to address the community's needs.
Steve Myers
Managing Editor, The Lens
Project: New Orleans Government Contracts
The Lens is an in-depth, nonprofit news site in New Orleans. Before joining the staff in September 2012, Myers was managing editor of Poynter Online, the preeminent source of news and training about the journalism industry. At Poynter, he wrote about emerging media practices such as citizen journalism, nonprofit news sites and real-time reporting via social media. He was a 2006 Ohio State University Kiplinger Fellow and an Open Society Institute Katrina Media Fellow. He spent about 10 years at newspapers, including five as a local government reporter in Mobile, AL. He has spoken at South by Southwest Interactive twice, about the man who live-tweeted the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound and about the fact-checking movement. He wrote an essay on fact-checking for the Poynter Institute’s new book, “The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century."
Project Summary: A new news technologist will obtain and make public every government contract in the area, rendering them fully searchable and presenting them online in a way that will create a new revenue stream for The Lens, adding to our long-term sustainability. The news technologist will build a web scraper to download the latest documents from nola.gov, the largest depository of active contracts in the area. From there, we’ll work to mesh our contract database with an existing website at Tulane University of 140 satellite government agencies. The news technologist will also acquire large data sets — public payrolls, lists of ongoing public-works projects, blighted properties — and determine the best way to make them accessible and appealing to the public. We’ll work to monetize these information services with sponsorships, Google consumer surveys and other means.
Juan Ozuna
Station Manager, Radio KDNA (91.9 FM)
Project: Yakima Valley Community Information Connection
Juan Ozuna started working for Northwest Rural Opportunities (NRO) 35 years ago as a bookkeeper. NRO morphed into what is now known as Northwest Communities Education Center (NCEC), the licensee of Radio KDNA, a community Spanish language public radio station located in Granger, WA. Ozuna eventually became the comptroller of NCEC/Radio KDNA. In January 2013, due to staff reductions, he assumed the additional role of general manager of Radio KDNA. Ozuna diligently oversees the radio's operations by ensuring that KDNA produces and airs quality programs in Spanish on a variety of subjects as well as encourages the community to become engaged in topics that affect their daily lives.
Project Summary: This project will increase knowledge and understanding of local issues facing Yakima Valley residents in ways that increase civic participation, education, economic opportunity, and health. We will achieve this change by producing local news stories in English and Spanish and bringing together established radio news broadcasters and educational institutions to provide information across the multiple socio-economic and cultural boundaries of the Valley.
Jenny Park
Senior Planner, Chattanooga-Hamilton County RPA
Project: The Chattanooga Open Government Collaborative
Jenny Park is a senior planner at the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency (RPA), an agency within the City of Chattanooga organization. Specializing in multimodal transportation, she has worked on both planning and implementation projects for the RPA/City over the past three years, though it was during her first year in local government that Park recognized the need for better communication and information sharing between citizens and government. She joined local Code for America brigade Open Chattanooga in 2012 to begin working on open government issues and has helped plan two hackathons and worked with the mayor's office to develop open data strategies. In June 2011, Park was featured as one of CityScope Magazine's "30 Under 30: Leading Ladies."
Project Summary: The Chattanooga Open Government Collaborative (COGC) will help to bring Chattanooga to the forefront of the Open Government movement, by opening up unprecedented access to city data and building the capacity for citizens to engage around and utilize the data to address community issues. At the end of one year, they will have not only a substantive platform for releasing city and community data to the public, but also an engaged community of data consumers that are helping to identify community needs that can be addressed through open data, as well as designing and utilize open data tools to address the community's needs.
John Paxson
Director of News and Current Affairs, The Murrow College of Communications (Washington State University)
Project: Yakima Valley Community Information Connection
John Paxson is the director of news and current affairs at the Murrow College of Communication, Washington State University. He also serves as news director of Northwest Public Radio. He has been in this post for two years. Previous to this he worked for CBS News for 25 years. The first half of that was as a radio and television producer in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas. The second half—12 years—was as vice president and London bureau chief. In that position he managed CBS News operations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Paxon planned and carried out coverage of the wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. He was awarded three national Emmys for coverage of Princess Diana’s death and burial. Before the stint with CBS News, Paxon worked for 11 years as a correspondent for the Voice of America in Washington and Chicago.
Project Summary: The project that brings Paxon to Chicago is called the “Yakima Valley Community Information Connection.” It is a partnership between Yakima Valley Community Foundation, Northwest Public Radio (NWPR), The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University and Radio KDNA. A key element of the project is a bilingual news team at NWPR and KDNA. The two reporters, supported by one or more interns from WSU’s Murrow College of Communication, will prepare news reports for air on both stations, through the Internet and smart phones and for distribution to other news outlets such as NPR and the Northwest News Network.
Tina Rongers
Interim Vice President, Legacy Foundation
Project: Data-Driven Gary: Overcoming Blight through Efficiency & Engagement
As interim vice president, Tina Rongers oversees the Knight Community Information Challenge Grant and the newly-created Neighborhood Spotlight Program at Legacy.
Rongers is also founder and president of Karnerblue Era, LLC, a sustainable development consultancy. Karnerblue is an Indiana-based woman-owned business that works with government and non-profits to maximize client achievements in economic development, community development and the environment. She also currently serves as secretary of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, and is a member of the American Planning Association. Her awards include the 2012 Influential Women of Northwest Indiana, Up and Coming in Economic Development, the 2007 Business & Professional Women’s Young Careerist Award in Indiana, and a 2007 Red Cross Hero medal.
Project Summary: The purpose of this project is to provide residents with vacant property and clean-up data through Civic Insight’s Blight Status and enable more efficient code enforcement and service delivery by the city of Gary. As part of the city’s data strategy, it will formulate a systematic approach to data collection and reporting across key departments. Decision-makers and citizens will have access to a shared online resource containing the most up-to-date, relevant information on and community actions towards resolving blight.
Lori Thompson
Manager of Online and Digital Initiatives, Advancement Project
Project: Los Angeles Budget Tool
Lori Thompson is passionate about social justice and curious about its relationship to technology. As manager of online & digital initiatives at Advancement Project, she manages website design and development, training, and communications efforts for the Healthy City Program. Thompson has extensive experience managing complex, multi-dimensional GIS mapping projects and online campaigns with a range of partners. Through her work, she looks to increase the accessibility of data and information to impact community transformation. Her first exposure to GIS mapping and data visualization was at Tufts University where she received her bachelor's degree with a double major in environmental studies and Japanese. Upon graduation, Thompson worked in Kobe, Japan for two and a half years as a project manager at an English Conversation Academy. She moved to California and began work at ERDT/Share! a global non-profit educational foundation before joining Advancement Project in 2006.
Project Summary: Our project aims to increase transparency in Los Angeles by creating an easy-to-use online forum and information source about the Los Angeles City budget. While L.A.’s budget is publicly available, its data is embedded in hard-to-navigate documents numbering more than 600 pages. The online comparison tool will aid diverse audiences in analyzing funding changes for departments that have a significant impact on the quality of life for low-income communities, including housing, public works, transportation, parks and recreation, and services for the elderly. Message boards and social media integration will allow open discussion on the quality of city services and finances. Through the tool, the project hopes to engage more Angelenos in city government by helping them uncover and understand government data that represents their community’s needs.
Löki Gale Tobin
Communications Specialist, The Alaska Community Foundation
Project: The Alaska Community Foundation
Löki Gale Tobin is the communications specialist for The Alaska Community Foundation. Previously, she worked as a program specialist for an Alaska Native nonprofit in her hometown of Nome, Alaska. Her most notable job was with the U.S. Peace Corps, where she served from 2008-2011 as a youth development specialist in the Republic of Azerbaijan. During her service, she earned her Master of Arts degree through the University of Alaska Fairbanks Peace Corps Master’s International program, writing her MA thesis on indigenous inherent rights and acculturation.
Project Summary: The Alaska Community Foundation is the fiscal sponsor for the Recover Alaska Media Project, a collaboration between Alaska-based funding organizations and Alaska’s largest newspaper, Anchorage Daily News. Recover Alaska Media Project is a yearlong journalistic investigation of the impact of alcohol in Alaska. As part of its work, the Knight Foundation Community Information Challenge grant will be used to train newspaper staff around Alaska to access and deploy data driven journalism for compelling stories.