2012 Innovator Awards

Campaigns & Elections Magazine’s 2012 CampaignTech Innovator Awards presented by

Nominated by their peers, Innovators work in the fields of technology, campaigns, advocacy and government and have developed a legacy of innovation and collaboration using technology to inform, enable and engage voters and constituents on behalf of a political or issue advocacy campaign or legislative office. Winners of the award all demonstrate a visionary approach to the future of digital politics and advocacy.

The recipients below will be awarded in the following four categories on April 19 at the CampaignTech conference in Washington, DC:

· Campaign Innovator – Individuals with a legacy of innovative outreach on the digital campaign trail
· Advocacy Innovator – Individuals who apply their strategic technological minds to issue advocacy
· Capitol Hill Innovator – Individuals in Congressional offices who use technology to communicate with constituents and craft public policy
· Nonpartisan Innovator – Individuals who have made an impact digitally in the nonpartisan world or internationally

Profiles of the winners are below:

Campaign Innovators


Serenety Hanley: Vice President, Grassroots Targeting


Republican


Serenety had the honor of serving President George W. Bush as the first woman to hold the title of White House Internet Director as well as the Director of the Office of Web Communications at the Environmental Protection Agency. Previously, she was the first Director of Political Technology at the Republican National Committee where she developed and managed innovative and first of its kind political technology projects, including the award-winning GOPTeamLeader.com volunteer website which was the first "gamified" political web site that awarded points for recognition and redemption.

Jason Rosenbaum: Senior Online Campaign Director, Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC)

Democrat


Jason is co-founder of the blog The Seminal. Now, at the PCCC, he helped draft Elizabeth Warren into the race for Senate (MA) and helped House campaigns around the country run great new media programs in 2012. He has also aided on issues such as net neutrality, SOPA, and protecting Medicare and Social Security at the PCCC. 

Tom Serres: Founder/CEO, Rally.org

Nonpartisan

As Founder and CEO of Rally.org, Tom is building one of the largest fundraising apparatuses in the world. His product serves 11,000 organizations across the United States and abroad and operates on two continents. Tom was awarded a 40 under 40 award by the New Leaders Council in 2010 and a Reed Award by Campaigns & Elections magazine for Most Innovative Product in 2012.

Stuart Trevelyan: CEO, NGP VAN

Democrat

Stu led the vision for the NGP VAN’s innovative new Social Organizing tool, which allows supporters of a campaign to match their Facebook friends to the voter file. This way, a campaign can create target universes and supporters can use web-based tools like a Virtual Phone Bank to engage their friends in that universe. Following the NGP VAN merger, Stu led the launch of NGP VAN’s new Accelerator digital product, which is now the most widely used website platform among Democratic candidates.

Advocacy Innovators

Charlie Harper: Editor, Peach Pundit


Republican

Charlie's blog, Peach Pundit, is the largest in the state of Georgia and is read on a regular basis by elected officials, political junkies, and the mainstream media. The blog fights for changes to Georgia’s political ethics laws. As part of this, Peach Pundit helped uncover a corrupt Speaker of Georgia’s House, which ultimately resulted in his resignation. The Fix has listed Peach Pundit on its list of influential blogs.

Katie Harbath: Manager for Public Policy, Facebook

Republican


As the liaison for candidates and elected officials at Facebook, Katie is helping to bring the newest Facebook tools to campaigns. Katie regularly works with campaigns to integrate Facebook and strategizes with them to launch new tools on Facebook. Examples include: Tim Pawlenty’s announcement of his Presidential run on Facebook and the first ever Congressional Hackathon. Previously, Katie worked at the National Republican Senatorial Campaign where she was among the first people to start testing and experimenting with mobile.

Rosalyn Lemieux: Founding Partner, Fission Strategy

Democrat

Rosalyn founded Fission Strategy, an award winning, 20 person firm. She is also responsible for building Attentive.ly, a social media platform for non-profits to use the social web. Attentive.ly serves as a bridge from email into social media and makes it possible for organizations to learn more about the people that they communicate with over social media as opposed to email. Previously she served as the Founding Executive Director and Campaign Director at the New Organizing Institute, where she started RootsCamp and Bootcamp.

Capitol Hill Innovator


Seamus Kraft: Digital Director, Committee on Government Oversight

Republican


Seamus has successfully deployed several major improvements on the way that Congress interacts with the American public. As part of the majority, Seamus launched the MADISON Project, a program to enable anyone to comment on specific provisions within legislation, taking the once closed markup process and opening it fully to the public. Several provisions generated by the public on the MADISON platform have already been incorporated into legislation. Previously, Seamus created the Citizen Watchdogs program that enabled the public to submit examples of government waste.

Nonpartisan Innovators

David Binetti: CEO/Co-Founder, Votizen

Nonpartisan

By founding Votizen, David has put the voter back at the center of American politics by creating a new political currency based on voter-to-voter connections, reducing the influence of money and increasing the importance of relationships in civic engagement. Recently, several celebrities have invested $750,000 in Votizen, including Napster co-founder Sean Parker. David is also the founder of USA.gov.

Kahlil Byrd: CEO, Americans Elect

Nonpartisan


Kahlil Byrd has dedicated his career to U.S. domestic politics and international media development. As CEO of Americans Elect, Kahlil is leading the first ever nonpartisan national online presidential primary. For the first time ever, the American people will directly nominate a presidential candidate online through AmericansElect.org, and their choice will appear on the ballot nationwide. Kahlil is combining our newest technologies with our oldest values to create an innovative and more democratic way for Americans to pick a president.

Tom Hallaran: CTO, IB5k

Nonpartisan

Tom cut his teeth as a bio-informatician at Washington University’s Genome Sequencing Center, writing software to automate the genome sequencing and mapping pipeline. Now, at IB5k, Tom helps public servants, non-profits, and civically-minded corporations connect with their customers, audiences, friends, and constituents through a genuine, commonly shared experience. Tom has expertise in planning, building and supporting large scale, high performance sites, applications and campaigns.

Tracy Russo: Director of New Media, Department of Justice

Nonpartisan

Tracy is responsible for development and execution of digital and social media strategy for the Department of Justice. She redesigned and rebranded the department's website, justice.gov, to focus on helping citizens find and get critical information about the department on the web or through major social media channels. She also envisioned, designed and developed FOIA.gov, a key open government web initiative, which provides all citizens with information about FOIA including agency compliance, what the law is, how it works and how to make FOIA requests.