"We have a 100% or Nothing approach to our business," says Tony DeSisto, Managing Director of the company. "Each project is designed to achieve 100% of the money pledged before any contributors are charged, so people can pledge and give with confidence." In addition to his work with Citizinvestor, Tony DeSisto, is a member of Tampa's Citizen Advisory Budget Committee. Jordan Raynor, is Partnership Director and a widely recognized digital strategist. Jordan has spent his career solving difficult problems in government and politics through technology. He previously worked for Engaged DC and with Voting Information, an initiative of Pew, Google and Microsoft that works with election officials to put polling place location data in uniform format.
The co-founders expect to discuss the reasons behind developing Citizinvestor at the collocated BarCamp Tampa Code Camp (http://barcampcodecamp2012.eventbrite.com/). Their background and experience showed them that many forms of government currently have minimal resources and need to look for new and innovative methods of delivering services. Governments need to act more like lean startups, trying new, inexpensive and experimental platforms and programs to find what works best to serve their citizens. A platform like Citizinvestor allows citizens to directly choose the projects where there money is spent.
About BarCamp: BarCamp is an international network of user-generated conferences (or unconferences) primarily focused around technology and the Web. They are open, participatory workshop-events, the content of which is provided by participants. The first BarCamps focused on early-stage web applications, and were related to open source technologies, social media, and open data formats.
About Code Camp: The CodeCamp event creates a new type of community event where developers learn from fellow developers. We also have developer related topics that include software branding, legal issues around software as well as other topics developers are interested in hearing about. All are welcome to attend and speak. CodeCamp was designed by and for the developer community and never occurs during working hours. Sessions will range from informal "chalk talks" to presentations with a mix of presenters speaking on various topics of current interest.