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Public Service & Politics series: Digital Media, Political Speech and Voting: Lessons from 2020

Please join our panelists as they hold a discussion around their evolving expertise on social media platforms' affect on the elections and civic engagement, the evolving role of data, disinformation shifting in its source, the problems with polling, etc.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Jeff Glueck (1992) is co-founder of Hawkfish, a Democratic data and digital agency backed by Mike Bloomberg. In 2020, Jeff’s team worked on projects across seven battleground states, to turn out youth and voters of color, as well as on persuasion, environmental advocacy, and election integrity. Hawkfish also helped shift popular expectations by 30 points nationally with its “Red Mirage” prediction for extended vote counting. The Analyst Institute recognized Hawkfish with an EXPY Award for 2020 innovation in digital GOTV.

Before, Jeff served as CEO at Foursquare, reimagining the company from a consumer service into a B2B location technology leader, and as Chief Marketing Officer at Travelocity. Business Insider named Jeff one of 22 executives shaping the Future of Marketing Technology in 2019. Jeff was a White House Fellow in the Clinton administration. He is also a longtime activist, currently Vice Chairman of Friends of the Earth (FOE.org).

Jeff was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford (M.Phil IR) and holds a BA from Harvard.

Swati Mylavarapu ('05 Florida & Wolfson) is the founder of Incite.org, a values-based investor that provides catalytic capital and guidance for world positive start-ups, non-profits, and activists. Swati is also co-founder of the Arena, which trains the next generation of progressive candidates and campaign staff. Throughout her career, from her work as a Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to her role as National Investment Chair for Pete Buttigieg's Presidential campaign, Swati has focused on finding rising leaders, investing in them, building teams around them, getting other like-minded supporters involved, and helping them grow in impact. Swati graduated from Harvard with an AB in Development Studies, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and was a Truman Scholar. She also holds an MPhil in Economic History from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar and now serves on the Board of Rhodes Trust.

Jeremy Smith (2011) is the Founder and CEO of Civitech, a public benefit company that builds technology for civic organizations. He also runs Register2Vote, a 501c3 nonprofit that provides free tools to people and organizations that help anyone in America register to vote regardless of means. During the 2020 election, Jeremy led some of the largest efforts in the country to register voters, help them vote-by-mail during the pandemic, and protect election integrity during the counting period after Election Day.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Nabiha Syed (2010) is the President of The Markup, a new investigative journalism startup that explores how powerful actors use technology to reshape society.

Previously, she was Vice President and Associate General Counsel at BuzzFeed. As the company's first newsroom lawyer, she oversaw litigation, including the "Steele Dossier" litigation, as well as select intellectual property, security, international, and cross-company strategic initiatives. Nabiha has been described as “one of the best emerging free speech lawyers” by Forbes magazine.

Before BuzzFeed, Nabiha was an associate at Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz, a leading media law firm, and the First Amendment Fellow at The New York Times. She has worked on legal access issues at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; represented asylum-seekers in south Texas; counseled on whether to publish hacked materials; and spoken about misinformation at the inaugural Obama Foundation Summit. For her work, Nabiha was named a “40 Under 40 Rising Star” by the New York Law Journal in 2016, a finalist for the Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year Award from the International Bar Association in 2017, and received an inaugural Reporter's Committee for the Freedom of the Press award in 2018. She holds a law degree from Yale Law School and from Balliol College, Oxford University, which she attended as a Marshall Scholar.

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The Marshall Arts & Humanities Series: To Be A Man by Nicole Krauss (1996)

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February 19

The Marshall Arts & Humanities Series: The Meritocracy Trap