WASHINGTON, DC – The Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based non-profit dedicated to using Internet technology to put information about Congress in citizens’ hands to create greater transparency in government, is announcing the expansion of its Board of Directors and its Advisory Board with leaders in new technology and journalism. “President Kennedy boasted about having the best and brightest advising him, and I’m proud that these four leaders have agreed to join us at the Sunlight Foundation,” said executive director of the Sunlight Foundation Ellen Miller. “The experience, perspective, and knowledge of our new advisors will provide us with immeasurable insight.” Esther Dyson (www.edventure.com) has been elected to serve a term on the Board of Directors. Dyson is a leading expert on emerging digital technology and business models. She is the author of “Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age,” (1997) which explores the impact of information technology on people’s lives, and produced the Release 1.0 newsletter for more than 20 years. Currently, she is an active investor in start-ups around the world and blogs for Huffington Post as Release 0.9. From 1998 to 2000, she was the founding chairman of ICANN, the Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. She began her career as a fact-checker for Forbes magazine and considers that important training for most of her activities since, including her role at the Sunlight Foundation. Joining the Advisory Board are: Jimmy Wales - Wales is the founder of Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com) and the founder of the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit corporation that operates Wikipedia and several other wiki projects, including Wiktionary and Wikinews. He is a member and Chairman Emeritus of Wikimedia's Board of Trustees. He is also the co-founder, along with Angela Beesley, of the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. Charles Lewis –Lewis (www.charles-lewis.com) is the founder and former executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a position he held for 15 years. During his tenure at the Center, Lewis wrote or co-wrote several of the Center's books and studies that systematically track political influence, including The Buying of the President series, The Buying of Congress series, The Corruption Notebooks, and The Cheating of America. Described by the Village Voice as "the Paul Revere of our time," Lewis was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 1998. He now is the president of The Fund for Independence in Journalism. Yochai Benkler - Benkler is the Joseph M. Field '55 Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is the author, most recently, of The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, which examines how new forms of decentralization and networked collaboration could change economy and society. Wales, Lewis and Benkler join Craig Newmark, customer service representative and founder of Craigslist.org, and Kim Malone, director of online sales and operations for AdSense at Google, on the Sunlight Foundation’s advisory board. Craig Newmark – Newmark is the customer service representative and founder of the wildly popular craigslist.org, which allows Internet users from all over the world to write and search free classified advertisements. Newmark has a long-standing relationship with the Sunlight Foundation as an informal advisor, and has donated $10,000 to NewAssignment.net, a distributive journalism project headed by New York University professor Jay Rosen, which Sunlight is also financially supporting. Kim Malone - Malone is the director of online sales and operations for AdSense at Google. In that role, she is responsible for supporting Google's worldwide network of partner publishers. Prior to joining Google, Kim was the CEO and co-founder of Juice Software, a business intelligence start-up based in New York City. Founded in January, 2006, the mission of the Sunlight Foundation is to strengthen the relationship between lawmakers and their constituents. Sunlight puts information and tools in citizens’ hands so they can learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing. Its ultimate goal is full transparency by Congress, its Members and staff will help reduce corruption, ensure greater accountability, and foster public trust in this vital institution of democracy. Since its founding, the Sunlight Foundation has issued $1.6 million in grants to groups that develop and use Internet technology to further Sunlight’s goals. Additionally, the Sunlight Foundation has introduced new technology of its own, and fostered projects that harness the collective energy of Internet users to quickly research everything from Congressional earmarks, to which Members of Congress pay their spouses and children out of campaign accounts. ###
