Gov 2.0 International: Global Innovation Meeting Local Challenges

Laurel Ruma is the Gov 2.0 Evangelist at O'Reilly Media. She joined the company in 2005 after working for five years at various IT analyst firms in the Boston area. Laurel is also co-chair for the Gov 2.0 Expo and co-editor of Open Government, published by O'Reilly in February 2010.

Mark Drapeau is Co-Chair of the Gov 2.0 Expo. He is currently the Director of Innovative Social Engagement for Microsoft’s U.S. Public Sector division in Washington, D.C. He was until recently an adjunct professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University, and an Associate Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at the National Defense University. Some of his NDU research on Government 2.0 was published in a report titled Social Software and National Security: An Initial Net Assessment. He is a frequent guest speaker and blogger on topics related to government, marketing, social media, and science & technology.

Mark is a contributing columnist for O’Reilly Radar and Federal Computer Week, where he writes about emerging media technologies and the government. Mark is also a co-founder of Government 2.0 Club, an international platform for sharing knowledge about the intersection between technology and governance. Mark has a B.S. in evolutionary biology, a Ph.D. in animal behavior, conducted NIH- funded postdoctoral training in neuroscience, studied social behavior as part of the International Honeybee Genome Project, was a 2006-08 AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow in National Defense and Global Security, and is an avid mindcaster on Twitter.