- hitesh and friend were in mumbai at the time of the attacks

- started facebook: “ending terrorism with non-violence”

- started wondering bout how to empower all these groups

- talked w/ 20+ groups

- how can these groups help each other?

- how can they form one achievable goal?

- what is available now in terms of tech?

-- digg-style lists

-- obama’s campaign methods

--- this is actually hitesh’s inspiration.  They talked with Chris Hughes.  the common goal was to get obama elected, but they used various different methods.

--

- “causes” app on facebook focuses on generating money and members, but Hitesh’s goal is different: how to opensource the social movement

- can you think of a person who emerged frim the noise w/o having a pre-existing political presence? (Christine)

-- generating “cult of personality around a change-maker”

-- do online tools accelerate or are they the genesis?