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About Shared Nation

Who We Are

What would happen if millions of people across the planet combined their resources to solve shared global problems like climate change and poverty? We are a group of concerned people who, since 2014, have come together to think hard about that question. We’ve experimented with several ideas and have created an experience that participants have called easy, fun and rewarding. We think there is real promise here. After all, the Internet has revolutionized banking, music, shopping, medicine and so much more. Isn’t it time it revolutionized democracy?

Why We're Doing This

We all know that the world is facing massive problems, like climate change, extreme poverty and refugee crises. As individuals, we often look on and feel helpless to do anything in response. But history teaches us that large numbers of people acting together toward shared objectives can achieve amazing things. With the Internet and other advances, collective action is possible at a scale and speed never dreamed of before.

We believe people around the world can join forces and combine their money, time, and wisdom to identify and accelerate the best solutions to our biggest problems. We’ve designed a way to make collective decisions that is quick, engaging, and satisfying.

Governments, market-forces, and even well-meaning billionaires are not equipped to solve some of the world’s greatest problems. We're launching Shared Nation because we believe large-scale, digitally-coordinated, collective action can complement these institutions. We can have wisdom without ego. We can act swiftly, yet with tremendous deliberation. Most importantly, we can apply massive resources while being immune from special interests. In our system, nobody has enough power to be worth lobbying. 

We’re serious about creating a new, intensely democratic, virtual community of people from around the world. As fellow citizens with a common cause, we can become an important alternative to existing power structures that are too entrenched in the status quo to enact the change we need to save our planet and create an equitable world.

Our Core Values

While the values of the Shared Nation will ultimately represent the cumulative values of the community, we begin with these premises:

  • All people are welcomed into this community as equals. Anyone over the age of 18, and anyone aged 14 to 17 with parental consent, can take part as citizens, regardless of race, creed, wealth, background or nation of origin. The votes of each person in Shared Nation count exactly the same amount in all of our decisions; no matter how much they contribute, every person who joins gets the same number of votes. 
  • We treat one another with civility and respect.
  • Everything we do is transparent to one another.
  • Citizens can actively help to shape the way the Shared Nation works (including having an input on these values).
The terrific people listed here helped advise and build Shared Nation between 2017-2019. We are so grateful for their contributions! To learn more about Shared Nation in its current form, please contact team@sharednation.org.

Our Advisors

Abi Brittle

Abi Brittle advises Shared Nation on its strategy for engaging high school-aged students. She is a high school student and professional actress from Seattle, WA. She is also a big sister, trapeze enthusiast, and aspiring activist. She is eager to motivate teens to care about social change and to use their collective voice for good. Abi can currently be seen on the Netflix Original Series Everything Sucks!

Alex Xiao

Alex Xiao is a law student at Duke University. Alex has worked as a research assistant at Harvard University, and he is a graduate of Brandeis University.

Becky Margiotta

Becky Kanis Margiotta is the CEO and President of The Billions Institute. Before that Becky led the 100,000 Homes Campaign for Community Solutions, and she has commanded two Special Operations companies in the US Army. Becky was recognized by the White House as a Champion of Change in 2013 and by the Schwab Foundation as a Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2015.

Imam Taymullah Abdur-Rahman

Imam Taymullah Abdur-Rahman is an educator and former Harvard University chaplain. He hosts a podcast called Exconversations and is the founder of Young Merchants Club, a life-skills company for youth.

Jose Saenz

José Saenz earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University (USA) in 1999 and a M.S. in Mechatronics from Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg (Germany) in 2004. He is a Senior Research Scientist and has been at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation in Magdeburg (Germany) since 2000. His main research interests are in the fields of safe human robot collaboration, mobile manipulation, inspection and cleaning service robots, and safety sensor development.Jose has been a reviewer for numerous conferences and has published over 30 articles in peer-reviewed conferences and journals.

Kedar Mate

Kedar Mate, MD, Chief Innovation and Education Officer, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), oversees the development of innovative new systems designs to implement high-quality, low-cost health care both in the US and in international settings. He graduated from Brown University with a degree in American History and from Harvard Medical School with a medical degree.

Nana Twum-Danso

Nana Twum-Danso is a public health and preventive medicine physician and a social entrepreneur. She is the Founder and CEO of MAZA, an emergency health transportation network in rural northern Ghana. Previously, Nana was a Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the director of Project Fives Alive.

Pedro Delgado

Pedro Delgado, MSc, is the Head of Europe and Latin America at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Pedro is a driving force in IHI’s global strategy and has led the design and implementation of many large-scale health system improvement efforts and networks around the world including diverse topics such as reducing C-sections in Brazil, improving early years education in Chile, improving patient safety in Portugal and strengthening mental health in London.

Rhea Boyd

Rhea Boyd is a pediatrician, medical educator, and child and community health advocate who lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is passionate about advancing justice and eliminating structural barriers to health through interdisciplinary community partnerships, tech innovation, and medical education.

Our Team

Ana Licona

Ana is a community organizer in Phoenix, Arizona. Her passion for social justice and civic engagement drives her to dismantle barriers which underrepresented communities face. Ana works with youth and empowers them to become the next generation of community leaders. Ana is a proud first-generation Mexican-American graduate from Arizona State University. Previously, she worked in the Obama White House Office of Presidential Personnel.

Dominic Surrao

Dominic Surrao is a software developer with more than fifteen years of experience developing web and mobile technologies, with a specialized focus on electronic medical records and healthcare informatics. Dominic is also a Math tutor at a local community college.

Emily Belyea

Emily Belyea is a web designer and brand strategist for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Emily works alongside Shared Nation in developing the brand’s visual identity and designing the website. Emily has a B.S. degree in Marketing Communications from Emerson College.

Joe McCannon

Joe is the founder of Shared Nation and co-founder of the Billions Institute. He was an Obama administration appointee and served as Senior Advisor to the Administrator at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Joe was also previously a Vice President at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement where he directed the 100,000 Lives Campaign. Joe is a graduate of Harvard University and was a Reuters Fellow at Stanford University.

Jonathan Schwartz

Jonathan Schwartz is a web application and database architect with over 15 years of experience. Jonathan has spent the last 7 years as a full time contractor through his JAS Technology consulting company. Jonathan works alongside Shared Nation in developing the pair-wise voting platform. Jonathan received a B.A. degree in Computer Science from Hamilton College.

Keith Farrell

Keith Farrell is the project manager at Shared Nation. Keith comes to the work with a background in education and political organizing. Keith is currently pursuing an MPA degree from Northeastern University and has a BA in mathematics and political science from Connecticut College.

Naseem Makiya

Naseem is a software engineer who is focused on growth including analytics systems, web scraping, data pipelines, referral programs, on-boarding flows, communication systems and building one too many dashboards. In 2017, he founded Code for Community to focus on supporting and empowering citizens with better software.

Neal Lesh

Neal Lesh is the chief strategy coordinator at Dimagi. Neal is a computer scientist with field experience in applying information technologies to help organizations address poverty in low-income regions. Neal is currently coordinating a Harvard-funded research project in South Africa. Neal holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Washington and a masters degree in global health from the Harvard School of Public Health.

The 2018 Shared Nation Fellowship.

Shared Nation selected 2018 Summer Fellows from high school and college to help us grow our community and improve our user experience. They came together with us in Boston in June (pictured below) and wowed us with their ideas and insights!