CivicActions

Fen Labalme is a Lead Technology Consultant for CivicActions LLC. He wears many hats in this role, a Stetson one day as he defines technical strategies and culls the appropriate tools and processes to serve a client’s needs and a ball cap the next as he maintains the technical infrastructure that is the backbone for both internal and external projects.

He managed the technical launch of “ShiftInAction,” a revolutionary new web site for the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Again working alongside his team of technologists and interfacing with key political strategists, he is overseeing the VoterFile standardization process for various CivicActions political clients.

His voterfile work has resulted in a template VoterFile format that will allow activists nationwide to more readily and rapidly engage like-minded voters on issues and campaigns. Similarly, his efforts on the new IONS web site helped to create a real-time, dynamic and rich community environment for the organization’s growing web-savvy membership. It is Labalme’s pioneering work on I-names technology, digital identifiers that allow users greater control over their personal information, that will soon be incorporated into CivicActions-created web sites, allowing users an unprecedented level of freedom and privacy. Fen has recently been active in the successfull deployment of CiviMail, a component of CiviCRM.

While at M.I.T., his seminal thesis on knowledge-based, open-access news and information systems (dubbed “NewsPeek”) was the launch pad for personalized media and sparked his later work in the free and open-source software (FOSS) movement while being the catalyst for numerous digital privacy and identity initiatives. Never one to be all work and no play, Labalme founded the M.I.T. Frisbee Golf Club and is still flinging discs, these days with his wife and four-year-old son.