Former State Sen. Sam Blakeslee, founding director of the Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy (IATPP) at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, is keynoting the 2015 California Technology Forum today in Sacramento.
Blakeslee was elected to the California State Assembly in 2005 and later to the State Senate in 2010. While in office, Blakeslee founded and chaired the Task Force on Energy, the Environment and the Economy – a group known as “E3.” The group developed strategies to bridge the divide between the environment and the economy by applying emerging technology.
Blakeslee’s institute, started in 2012, aims to develop and deploy practical solutions to societal challenges in open government, education and energy. This year, IATPP launched an interactive platform called Digital Democracy that enables users to conduct detailed searches of legislative video footage.
Blakeslee earned a Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara for work in seismic scattering, micro-earthquake studies and fault-zone attenuation. He later worked as a strategic planner and senior research scientist for Exxon.
Blakeslee graduated from UC Berkeley with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geophysics.
The California Technology Forum, hosted by Techwire’s parent company e.Republic Inc., features a full day of keynotes, leadership discussions, breakout sessions and timely topics for state and local government IT professionals.
For more information about the event, click here.
