I was a panelist for Newsweek/Daily Beast’s recentDigital Power Index. Though the Revolutionaries group was more representative of nationality, ethnicity, and gender than the rest of the list, I’d like to share my original list of 10 nominees, and also take an opportunity to highlight some of the world’s best digital activists.

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6) Gilad Lotan

Gilad Lotanis passionate about big data visualization. He’s also extremely good at it. He leads the data science team at SocialFlow, a firm whose software creates beautiful visualizations from online data. Gilad loves data, but he also loves politics and social justice.

His data visualizations have helped digital activists understand their own work in a new and powerful way. From the 2009 Iranian protests to the Arab Spring to Kony2012 video to Occupy Wall Street, Gilad has created free public visualizations of how information flows online, particularly on Twitter. Gilad’s work demonstrates has geeks can use their skills to support and explain digital activism in a way that is not only empirical but also artful.