Micah Sifry

Visiting Murrow Lecturer of the Practice of Press and Public Policy
Shorenstein Center
Office Address
Taubman-240
Mailing Address
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Mailbox 113
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Contact
Phone: 617-496-9068
Email: Micah_Sifry@hks.harvard.edu
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Profile

Micah L. Sifry is the Visiting Murrow Lecturer of the Practice of Press and Public Policy. Since 2004, he has been co-founder, editor and curator of the Personal Democracy Forum (PdF), a website and annual conference that covers the ways technology is changing politics. He is also the editor of TechPresident.com, PdFs award-winning group blog on how politicians are using the web and how the web is using them. Sifry also speaks and writes widely on the topics of technology, politics and transparency and consults on how political organizations, campaigns, non-profits and media entities can adapt to and thrive in a networked world. He is the author or editor of six books, most recently WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency (ORBooks, 2011); the former associate editor of The Nation magazine, and a graduate of Princeton University (BA Politics, 1983) and New York University (MA Politics, 1989). He lives with his wife and two children in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Sifrys work with Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident have won him wide recognition. In awarding TechPresident the 2007 Knight-Batten Award for Innovation in Journalism, the judges said, The site not only reports on, but encourages, citizens to participate more directly in the political process. Its an amazing source of information from a non-traditional news outlet. The Washington Post has called TechPresident the Internet citizenrys new consensus taker, and has recognized PdF as the worlds largest annual gathering of political technology geeks.

As a consultant, Sifry has been a senior technology adviser to the Sunlight Foundation since its founding in 2006, and has played a central role in crafting its overall mission and strategy, and assisting in its growth to the leading national transparency organization in the country, with nearly forty staff members and a budget of $7.5 million. He also joined the board of directors of Consumers Union in October 2010.

Courses

Spring

  • DPI-665 The Politics of the Internet

Media Expertise

Micah Sifry welcomes media inquiries on the following subjects:

Additional experts may be found by clicking on each subject listed. You may contact faculty directly or if you need assistance contact the Communications Office at 617-495-1115.