Government as a PRODUCT - Apps for America

Clay is Director of Sunlight Labs. Prior joining Sunlight, Clay was one of the four founders of Blue State Digital, the progressive left’s premier technology and online strategy firm. This firm, which was born out of the Howard Dean campaign, was also responsible for Barack Obama’s Web presence. At Blue State Digital, Clay was responsible for developing the organization’s brand and building its initial client roster. He also had a hand at building some of the company’s early technical tools. Before joining Blue State, Johnson was the lead programmer for Dean for America in 2004, overseeing the development of grassroots tools like GetLocal, DeanLink and Project Commons. Prior to entering politics, Johnson was a technologist at Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com) where he helped to develop the company’s Web syndication product. He also started the first Internet Knowledge Exchange, KnowPost.com, and worked as an entrepreneur-in-residence at a Venture Capital firm, but still claims that he learned the most from his first job—as a waiter at Waffle House in Atlanta, Georgia.

Michael Knapp, Ph.D. founded GreenRiver.org in 2000, and is a co-owner and the Managing Director. He specializes in web-based application development, and has managed the development of dozens of environmental, educational, and public health applications. Prior to founding GreenRiver,org, Michael was Director of Product Development at EdsUp, a web application development and consulting company specializing in the development of online educational environments. Michael was trained as an applied biostatistician, conducting statistical analyses and working with spatial data. Michael received his Ph.D. in Environmental Health Management from Yale University in 1998. His dissertation involved the integration and analysis of spatial and relational data.

Joe has over 10 years experience leading web projects focused on communications strategy, knowledge management, and online community building. He has consulted for a wide range of clients including the federal government, nonprofit organizations, foundations, industry associations, and the private sector and has work experience in 10 countries in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.

He holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Washington and Lee University and an M.S. from the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina.

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Jeremy is the lead developer of DocumentCloud, an open-source repository of documents contributed by journalists and non-profits. DocumentCloud was a winner of the 2009 Knight News Challenge. He works on the Ruby-Processing project for software art, placed in two Apps for America competitions, and lives and works in New York City.

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Dave Augustine is a web/multimedia developer at WestEd, a non-profit educational research organization. Dave is passionate about technology and the web, and strives to be on the forefront of the web development world. A coder with a love of the more visual side of things, he mostly concerns himself with the areas of usability, accessibility, clean code and design. He is one of three developers of govpulse, an Apps for America 2 finalist.

Prior to joining WestEd, Dave was employed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a multimedia consultant in the Digital Media Center, teaching professors, faculty, and staff how to integrate multimedia into their classrooms; he was also a technology consultant for the Center for Biology Education. Dave received a Bachelor of Science degree in History of Science with an emphasis on Computer Science from University of Wisconsin-Madison.