Omar Ahmad — Jordanian Activist

Omar Ahmad was the founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington D.C.-based Muslim civil rights organization. He also worked for the Islamic Association of Palestine, a precursor to CAIR. He was born in Amman, Jordan. He holds a Masters in Computer Science from Santa Clara University as well as a Masters in Political Science. He also served on the Board of Trustees for the Santa Clara City Library for 8 years... (wikipedia)

We live in a digital world, but we're fairly analog creatures.
Letters actually work. Even the top dog himself takes time every day to read 10 letters that are picked out by staff. I can tell you that every official that I've ever worked with will tell you about the letters they get and what they mean.
One of the things that defines a TEDster is you've taken your passion, and you've turned it into stewardship. You actually put action to the issues you care about.
When you start to think about politicians, you've got to realize these are strange creatures. Other than the fact that they can't tell directions, and they have very strange breeding habits, how do you actually work with these things?