Alec Ross

In April 2017, Ross launched a campaign for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Maryland in 2018. In February 2018 he announced as his running mate Julie Verratti, a craft brewery co-owner, former Senior Advisor at the Small Business Administration, and LGBT political activist. In June 2018, Ross finished seventh in the nine candidate Democratic primary with 2.4% of the votes.

In addition to concerns over countries increasing surveillance capabilities, Ross highlighted cases where businesses prioritized profit motives over the potential harms of technologies. In 2011, he publicly "criticised the developers of internet surveillance equipment who were willing to sell their services to repressive regimes and allow governments to censor their citizens.”

In April 2009, Ross joined the State Department as Senior Advisor on Innovation. Hillary Clinton described his work by saying that "Alec Ross has been my right hand on all that we're doing for internet freedom." Alec worked with Hillary Clinton instituting Civil Society 2.0.

Through his work at the State Department, Ross institutionalized ways to use Web video and social networking sites. In 2009 he told U.S. News and World Report, "It's about how can you reach large numbers of people who otherwise would be difficult to impossible to reach." Ross argued that governments using modern communications technologies can be more creative and responsive in how they enable people to engage directly with each other and with other countries.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Ross played a key role in developing then-Sen. Barack Obama's technology and innovation plan, convening more than 500 advisors in the process of cultivating the candidate's innovation agenda.

In 2000, he co-founded One Economy, a global nonprofit that uses innovative approaches to deliver the power of technology and information about education, jobs, health care and other vital issues to low-income people.

After graduating in 1994 from Northwestern University with a B.A. in history, Ross moved to Baltimore to work at Booker T. Washington Middle School as a Teach for America AmeriCorps Member. Ross taught for two years and then accepted a position as special assistant to the president of the Enterprise Foundation. He focused on developing business, technology and fundraising strategies.

Alec Ross (born November 30, 1971) is an American technology policy expert who was Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the duration of her term as Secretary of State. After leaving the Department of State in 2013 he joined the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University as a Senior Fellow and is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Industries of the Future. The Industries of the Future has been translated to fifteen languages, and was named the 2016 Book of the Year by the TriBeCa Film Festival's Disruptive Innovation Foundation. Ross is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins University. He is also a Board Partner at Amplo, a global venture capital firm.