- Pritzker Fellows
- Former Fellows
- Shomik Dutta
Shomik Dutta
Co-Founder of Higher Ground Labs
Biography
Shomik has built a diverse career in politics, renewable energy, and finance. He is a veteran of several Democratic campaigns and served as the Mid-Atlantic Finance Director for the '08 Obama Campaign. Shomik worked in the Obama White House as special assistant to the White House Counsel and then served as an Advisor to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Shomik later worked on President Obama's re-election campaign as a fundraiser.
In 2013, Shomik co-founded a private equity firm focused on renewable energy and infrastructure. He oversaw the planning, financing, and development of two utility-scale solar plants in Asia and in Sub Saharan Africa. He quit his job the day after Trump was elected to get back in the fight. Shomik holds a B.A. from Williams College and a M.B.A from The Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania.
Seminars
“The Future of Political Tech”
*This is a joint seminar series with Betsy Hoover
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.