Todays' guest speaker is Nick Troiano, former
National Campus Director for Americans Elect. He will talk about his experiences creating an online presidential ticket and organizing an online convention. Information about his background can be found on his website:
Nick Troiano is the former National Campus Director for Americans Elect, a non-profit organization that will hold the first-ever online convention to nominate a third, non-partisan presidential ticket in 2012.
Nick recently graduated with honors from Georgetown University, where he studied political science and was active in student government. At Georgetown, he spearheaded the establishment of the first student-funded Social Innovation and Public Service Fund (SIPS Fund) – a $1.5 million endowment that supports young social entrepreneurs and volunteers.
Nick is a co-founder of myImpact.org, a Twitter-based Web platform that allows volunteers to record, share and track their impact. He is a former United States Senate intern and Public Policy Fellow with Civic Enterprises in Washington, DC.
Nick is from Milford, PA where he graduated from Delaware Valley High School as student body president in 2007. For three years, he led the non-profit Pike County Youth Coalition (PCYC), which developed "School Board 2.0" – an iniative to live-stream local school board meetings online. He also worked as a writer and photographer for his local newspaper, the Pike County Courier.
Nick has organized campaigns on a local and national level, including Do We Have a Deal Yet?, a coalition of 150+ student body presidents that advocated for a bipartisan deal on deficit reduction. He has also co-produced three award-winning short films: Controversy on the Delaware: A Look Upstream at the Tocks Island Dam Project (2006), Buried in History (2009) and We the People (2010). Along with a business partner, Nick started a time lapse photographyproject of Washington in 2009 and has since published a coffee table book of some of the photos.
Nick is a member of the Concord Coalition Youth Advisory Board. In addition, he is a senior counselor at the Pennsylvania American Legion's Boys State program, which he attended in 2006. Nick is featured in the forthcoming international documentary, "Follow the Leader."
In free time, Nick enjoys photography and traveling (or some combination of the two).
Hi Mr. Troiano,
ReplyDelete(1) While seemingly a neat idea, Americans Elect appears to have failed to reach the online nominating convention stage. In your opinion, why did the organization fail to reach this stage? Was it perhaps a lack of interest? Lack of ideology? Something the organization failed to do?, etc. What advice do you have for those who might attempt something like this in the future?
(2) One of the things that I always find interesting is the question of WHO participates. Do you have any data on the kinds of people that participated in the online nominating process? Younger vs. Older? SES? Attitudes toward government? Attitudes towards American campaigns and elections? Any previous activism? etc.
Thanks,
Jason