Katie Jacobs Stanton, vice president of international market development at Twitter, will join former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, chairman of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), at an April 24 panel of experts discussing the impact of technology on democracy and global affairs. At Twitter, Stanton is responsible for partnerships, driving user growth and other key efforts in strategic markets around the world. Before joining Twitter, Stanton worked for the White House, U.S. State Department, Google and Yahoo!.

WHO: Secretary Albright; Stanton; Moisés Naím, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of The End of Power; Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media; Swati Ramanathan, co-founder of the Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy in India; and Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Media.

WHERE: Computer History Museum, Hahn Auditorium, 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd, Mountain View, Calif.

WHEN: Wednesday, April 24. Registration opens at 11:30 a.m., luncheon program begins at 12 p.m., panel begins at 12:30 p.m.

WHAT: The panel discussion will explore the implications of rapidly changing technology on global affairs and democracy. It will examine the types of assistance needed to help representative democratic institutions in developed and developing democracies adapt to technological changes. Panelists will discuss the implications of these changes on international affairs, diplomacy and development. The panel will take questions from the audience.

The following people will be available for interviews after the panel:

• Cristiano Ferri Faria, developer and manager of the Legislative e-Democracy program at the Brazilian House of Representatives. The e-democracy program aims to expose and involve a wide range of citizens to the legislative process, especially minorities or those not affiliated with an existing special interest group.
• January Makamba, member of parliament in Tanzania’s National Assembly; deputy minister of communication, science and technology; and young global leader of the World Economic Forum.
• Salvör Nordal, director of the Centre for Ethics at the University of Iceland. Iceland recently crowdsourced its constitution by opening up the draft to input and suggestions from citizens.
• Tiago Peixoto, open government specialist at the World Bank Institute, who works on technology and citizen engagement initiatives and blogs at democracyspot.net.
• Oras Tynkken, member of the Finnish parliament, vice chairperson of the Finnish Green Party and vice chairperson of the parliament’s Committee for the Future. The Finnish parliament recently enacted an initiative to consider any legislation that gets enough support through e-petitions.
• Tomicah Tillemann, senior advisor to the secretary for civil society and emerging democracies, U.S. Department of State.

If members of the media would like to arrange interviews, please contact Francoise Stovall directly at 703-727-6629 or [email protected].

This event will be streamed at www.ndi.org/live. Follow #tech4dem for updates.

The panel is the culminating event of a two-day conference, "Governing Democratically in a Tech-Empowered World," organized by NDI, Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Omidyar Network and International IDEA.

NDI is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government. For more information, visit www.ndi.org.