Home -> Who is Involved -> Michael Maranda

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Michael Maranda advocates and organizes around media policy issues and the
public use of technology. He fights for digital literacy, access & equity as executive
director of CTCNet Chicago and founding chair of the Illinois Community
Technology Coalition. As president of the Association For Community Networking
(AFCN), Michael promotes local and regional networking—the foundation of the
global community information and communications technology (ICT) movement.

Michael bridges community media and technology sectors locally through Let's Talk Media networking events. He established Get Illinois Online [GIO] as the center of statewide dialogue and as a rallying cry for broadband deployment proponents of all stripes. Among community technologists, he actively applies the principle of Movement as Network, opening space for cross-sector dialogue and partnership.

While serving as development director, and later acting executive director at Korean American Community Services (KACS), a Chicago-based social service agency, Michael successfully launched programs in Women's Wellness, Workforce Development and several Community Technology initiatives, including the KACS' CTC, YCTP and the Girls Get Digital Projects. Michael joined the Board of CTCNet Chicago, the first regional chapter of the Community Technology Centers' Network, as a representative of KACS.

An avid proponent of community-owned and driven solutions, Michael is dedicated to promoting cooperative solutions and creative support structures in the non-profit/voluntary sector. Michael is a co-founder of NPOTechs, a Chicago volunteer network bringing open source and free technologies to non-profits. He serves on the Board of CAAAELII, the Coalition of African, Asian, Arab, and Latino Immigrants of Illinois, a community network fostering civic participation and community organizing in the tradition of the Freedom Schools.

A New York native, Michael resides with wife and daughter in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, dreaming of finishing his Ph.D. in Sociology.

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