professional bio

Ivan Boothe is the creative director of Rootwork, and works as an Internet strategy coordinator with the Genocide Intervention Network, which empowers individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide.

Ivan is continually exploring the possibilities of online organizing and social networking for social change, and has been a featured speaker at the New Organizing Institute, the Internet Advocacy Roundtable, NetSquared Philadelphia, NetSquared Washington D.C. and the Web Executive Seminar; his writings have appeared in Idealware. Ivan's proposals for the Genocide Intervention Network were featured projects at the 2007 and 2008 NetSquared Conferences. His technical skills include more than a decade of web development, including semantic, standards-compliant XHTML and CSS, as well as extensive work with the Drupal content-management system.

Ivan holds a degree in peace and conflict studies and authored a thesis on third-party nonviolent intervention. He co-authored a paper on the same topic, "Privilege, Empowerment, and Nonviolent Intervention" (PDF), with Lee A. Smithey, which appeared in the January 2007 edition of Peace & Change. Ivan was a co-founder of why-war.org, which launched a nationwide campaign of electronic civil disobedience against the voting machine manufacturer Diebold in 2003.

all the rest

I am passionate about quirky art, good books, community empowerment, organizing for antiracism, radical praxis and meticulously gorgeous code.

I live in West Philadelphia in an apartment with a gorgeous view out my sunny bay windows. I'm a member of the local food co-op and have been known to show up at a basement show or radical puppet performance. I'm a member of the Philadelphia Handbell Ensemble, have volunteered a bit with the local chapter of Soulforce, and do some co-counseling.

college

I am a 2005 graduate of Swarthmore College, where I majored in peace and conflict studies and authored a thesis on third-party nonviolent intervention.

While in college, I helped start a nationally-recognized anti-war organization, was active in folk dance and queer rights organizations, and served in a variety of positions, from news editor to chief copy editor to layout editor, at the student newspaper, The Phoenix. I appeared in four plays, including a 24-hour theatre festival which I helped to organize.

jobs

Prior to working with the Genocide Intervention Network, I worked for the Pendle Hill Peace Network for two years, helping to organize a lecture series on antiracism and empowerment.

I was also a docent in Swarthmore's List Gallery, and worked for a year in the grantmaking department of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends.

website experience

After creating a series of personal websites in junior high school, in 1995 I created a website for Exotica Jewelry, for which I also serve on the board of directors. The website went through multiple iterations before arriving at its current Drupalific ecommerce state.

In high school I created a number of websites for the United Methodist Church and Future Business Leaders of America, all of which have now, sadly, gone offline. I also designed and implemented the online presence for Eldercare Advocacy & Management.

In college, I worked on the design end of Why War's primary website, and also built a small website for the Pendle Hill Peace Network.

More recently, I designed the websites DarfurScores.org and AskTheCandidates.org for the Genocide Intervention Network. These are the most comprehensive websites I have built to date.

I am committed to standards-compliant, accessible websites. I am adept at semantic HTML markup and cascading stylesheets, and have significant experience with dynamic PHP sites such as this one. I have extensive experience developing with both WordPress and Drupal.

electronic civil disobedience

In 2003, internal emails from the electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold emerged that suggested the company had misled voting officials in numerous states about the security of its machines, had violated contracts with states by installing new software that had not been certified, and had knowingly implemented voting systems with severe security vulnerabilities. Investigative journalist Bev Harris and the UK Independent had documented some of the serious problems, but few had taken notice, and Harris had been repeatedly threatened by her ISP, fearful of repercussions from Diebold's lawyers.

In September, a member of Why War? posted an archive of the internal files on his website. After Swarthmore threatened to shut off our Internet access in the face of baseless copyright infringement claims from Diebold, we initiated a global campaign of disobedience, in which students at universities would post mirrors of the files on their own servers, staying ahead of each specious take-down request. At its peak, more than 50 different colleges and universities around the world had copies of the documents and 50,000 viewers were visiting our site each day. Simultaneously, another group of students at Swarthmore, led by Nelson Pavlosky, Luke Smith and Branen Salmon, pursued legal action against Diebold through the Electronic Frontier Foundation for abusive copyright threats.

The combination of civil disobedience and civil action paid off handsomely. Within two months, Diebold backed down from their legal threats and resigned themselves to the damaging information about them now in the public domain. Dozens of newspapers began their own investigations, and Diebold was decertified as a voting machine supplier in multiple states. Since that time, “verified voting” — the use of electronic voting machines with paper receipts and strict regulations — has become a political priority being pursued by dozens of members of Congress, governors, independent analysts and political action groups. Suspicion of Diebold and other electronic voting machine manufacturers — and, thus, consistent investigation into their practices — remains high. I am honored to have been a part of the student groups that set this movement on its course.

early years

I grew up in Clarkdale, Arizona, a small town of about 2,500 people about 25 miles from the more well-known Sedona. I was a valedictorian at Mingus Union High School (class of 2000), where I spent most of my time presiding over the Future Business Leaders of America (as silly as it seems now, I actually won three national medals). I also helped found a chapter of Amnesty International and helped lead a successful campaign to prevent the high school from "closing" the campus during the school day.

As a result of my parents being craftspeople, as a young person I traveled to many art and craft fairs around the country. Although I've never really traveled outside the United States, I have been to 43 states. But I'm always looking for new places to go.