Advisory Board
Ben H. Bagdikian, Advisory Board Member, is dean emeritus of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. His seven books include The Media Monopoly, now in its seventh edition. He has been a member of a group that won a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, a Washington Bureau Chief, a foreign correspondent who has covered a war and a revolution, and an Assistant Managing Editor for National News at The Washington Post, for which he provided The Pentagon Papers.
Jaleh Bisharat, Co-Founder and Advisory Board Member, is Vice President of Marketing at oDesk, the largest and fastest-growing online employment platform. She previously served as V.P. of Marketing at Aliph, OpenTable, and Amazon.com, and has held held executive positions at PointCast, Approach Software, and Lotus Development Corporation. In 1999, Jaleh was named one of Advertising Age’s Power 50 marketing executives; she has also received the Advertising Age Marketing 100 Award. She holds an A.B. in Government from Harvard-Radcliffe and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Paul Braund, Advisory Board Member, is the Co-founder and Executive Director of RiOS Institute, a partnership organization of the United Nations Global Alliance for I.C.T. and Development. Mr. Braund began his career in design and technology development with a leading international consulting group in Silicon Valley, Europe, and Asia and worked for 20 years with startups, multinationals, and government agencies. He is a lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley, focusing on I.C.T. and Development and Social Entrepreneurship, and is head of the the USA World Summit Awards initiative and an adviser to the World Bank Institute. Mr. Braund has an M.Phil. from the Royal College, Industrial Design Engineering London and a B.A. with honors in Design Engineering from the University of Birmingham, England.
Edward J. "Ted" Costa, Advisory Board Member, is C.E.O. of People's Advocate, Inc., a grassroots voice for individual liberty and government by the people. People's Advocate educates the public on issues of taxation, government spending, financing, and local, state, and national government structures. Ted has qualified four initiatives for the California ballot, including the recall of Governor Davis in 2003. He has a deep interest in fair redistricting of legislative districts and was the Proponent for the redistricting initiative that appeared on the November 2005 California ballot. Ted is also an elected member of his local water board in Citrus Heights, California.
Christian Crumlish, Advisory Board Member, is the author of The Power of Many: How the Living Web is Transforming Politics, Business, and Everyday Life, co-author of Designing Social Interfaces: Principles and Practices for Improving the User Experience, and senior director of messaging products at AOL. Christian was among the first credentialed bloggers at the Democratic Party's National Convention in Boston in 2004 and covered the Republican convention from the streets of New York in September of that same year. Christian received his B.A. in Philosophy from Princeton University.
Greg Gretsch, Advisory Board Member, is a managing director at Sigma Partners with a thirteen-year background in technology, largely as an entrepreneur. Most recently he served as Vice President of Electronic Direct Marketing for Kana Communications after joining the company through Kana’s 1999 acquisition of Connectify, Inc., which he co-founded in 1997. His first technology startup was Vicarious, an education and reference CD-ROM publisher, which he founded in 1993 and where he served as CEO. Greg has also held various management positions in IS, marketing, and product marketing with companies including Arthur Andersen, Apple, and Kaleida Labs. He received his B.B.A. in MIS from the University of Georgia.
Brant Houston, Advisory Board Member, is the Knight Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches investigative and advanced reporting. He serves as board president of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and as board chair of the Investigative News Network, as well as being a co-founder of the Global Investigative Journalism Network and former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. Houston is also the author of Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide, the coauthor of The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook, and was an award-winning investigative journalist for 17 years, where, among other accomplishments, he earned a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism as part of the newsroom staff who jointly won for the Kansas City Star in 1982.
Thomas R. Miller, Advisory Board Member, is senior partner in the law firm of Miller & Ngo. Miller serves as General Counsel to Global Exchange, the San Francisco human rights organization, and is on the advisory board of the first Afghan-run microlending fund, Parwaz. He also serves as board chairperson of the Nautilus Institute. During the Vietnam War he established the world's largest plastic and reconstructive surgery center to treat war-injured children. Miller has also served as a consultant for the late Senator Robert Kennedy, UNICEF, the Peace Corps, and various public interest research organizations. He is a graduate of Yale University, Stanford Law School, and Columbia University's Parker School of Foreign & Comparative Law.
Ted Nace, Advisory Board Member, is the founder of Peachpit Press, the world’s leading source of books on computer graphics and desktop publishing. He sold the company to British publishing conglomerate Pearson Plc in 1994. Prior to founding Peachpit, Ted worked as a freelance writer and served as staff director of the Dakota Resource Council, helping rural communities deal with the impact of strip mines and power plants. He has written two books: Gangs of America, a history of how corporations gained legal power, and Climate Hope, about the movement to stop the building of coal plants in the U.S. He also started CoalSwarm.org, an informational website on coal issues.
Craig Newmark, Advisory Board Member, is the founder of craigslist, the web-based platform that has fundamentally changed classified advertising. Craig attended Case Western Reserve University, where he earned a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science. During his business career, Craig worked with IBM, Charles Schwab, Bank of America, and other firms. In March 2011, Craig launched craigconnects, his initiative to link up everyone on the planet using the Internet to bear witness to good efforts and encourage the same behavior in others.
Jeni Sall, Advisory Board Member, is President of Genesis Research Associates, a marketing research consultancy serving the information needs of a wide range of technology, consumer goods, and services firms. Jeni's research helped guide the development of the Macintosh computer, Quicken and QuickBooks software programs, and the Weight Watchers line of frozen desserts. Her clients include Fortune 500 firms like Apple Computer, HP, Intuit, Microsoft, IBM, Xerox, Motorola, Ore-Ida Foods, Nestle, Wells Fargo Bank, and Nissan Motor Corporation. Jeni received her B.A. in Psychology from Hofstra University and her M.A. in Psychology from the University of Hawaii.
