- Pritzker Fellows
- Former Fellows
- Betsy Hoover
Betsy Hoover
Co-Founder of Higher Ground Labs
Biography
Betsy has deep experience with political technology. Her political career began in 2007 as an organizer on the first Obama Campaign. In 2012, she served as the National Digital Organizing Director, sitting at the intersection of field, digital, and technology. In 2013, Betsy co-founded 270 Strategies - a public engagement firm that works with political campaigns, causes, and companies all over the world. She started HGL because she is still recommending the same tools to clients now that she used as an organizer 10 years ago.
Betsy is an organizer first. She has been recognized by Business Insider as “at the forefront of political innovation" and was featured on Forbes magazine's "30 Under 30: Law & Policy" list for her work on the president's re-election campaign.
Seminars
“The Future of Political Tech”
*This is a joint seminar series with Shomik Dutta
Technology has taken over the way we communicate. It has changed how we internalize the news, speak out on issues we care about, communicate with one another, and even how we run our cities. But for progressives, the technology we use to power our campaigns remains frozen in time. We are facing monopolies and broken innovation cycles that make it hard for us to get ahead. Come hear a bit about the past and present state of political technology, the partisan divide in tech - who’s ahead and who’s behind - and where we see the greatest hope for the future.
Are you ready to tackle some of the thorniest challenges in politics? Great. We need your help. Come join the Higher Ground Labs team to hack on a specific challenge facing the political tech world today. At the opening of this seminar, Betsy and Shomik will introduce a specific challenge we see for campaigns this cycle. It will be up to you and a team of your peers to propose a solution to that problem and present it to the group for feedback. These concepts might be used in the near term as we arm campaigns with the tools they need in 2018. We also need to think about how to make these innovations last - what’s the business case for your concept? How might your technology be adapted outside the campaign cycle? Join us and bring your most creative friends - from aspiring campaign managers to computer programmers, from budding entrepreneurs to hacktivists - with you to brainstorm.