CTY and SNF Agora Institute present 100% Democracy

Celebrating the bold ideas and leadership of Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY) students and alumni who are building an inclusive Democracy

Join us on Sunday, May 1, at the New York Hall of Science for a unique discussion and networking event that explores the challenges and future of democracy. 

We are thrilled to expand our programming and support CTY students, alumni, and friends through a new collaboration with Johns Hopkins University’s SNF Agora Institute. SNF Agora is an academic and public forum dedicated to improving and expanding civic engagement and informed, inclusive dialogue as the cornerstone of global democracy.  

Since 1979, CTY has served over 1 million pre-college students through programs where they tackle advanced coursework, discuss big ideas, form lasting friendships, and find their purpose. CTY brings together the brightest minds of the next generation and offers them unique opportunities like this - to explore the most important social, political, medical, technological, and philosophical challenges of our time. 

Many CTYers and friends of CTY are passionate leaders dedicated to building inclusive spaces for dialogue about social issues. By connecting them with some of the world’s leading scholars at SNF Agora Institute, we’ll help grow their knowledge and leadership skills, and play an active role in building a brighter future for democracy.

We invite you to join CTY for this unique discussion and networking event. Together, we’ll celebrate the bold ideas and leadership of our inspiring CTY students and alumni and their efforts to build an inclusive democracy in their own communities. 
 
Event Details: 
10 a.m. - 12 p.m. (EDT), Sunday, May 1, 2022
New York Hall of Science 
47-01 111th St., Corona, NY, 11368
Phone. 718-699-0005
nysci.org 
RSVP NOW
If you’d like to join us, please RSVP by April 25, 2022. 

Think you’d like to give a 3-minute, “spark” talk highlighting your own work to support democracy or engage your community? Please share your details during registration, and we will follow up.  

SPEAKERS

Sam Novey
Sam Novey is a Baltimore-based civic entrepreneur building diverse and long-lasting coalitions focused on expanding civic engagement at both the local and national level. He is co-founder of the Students Learn Student Vote Coalition, the national hub and largest non-partisan network in the country dedicated to increasing student voter participation. He is also a co-founder of the Baltimore Votes Coalition, which convenes community based organizations in Baltimore City to promote full participation in elections. Other notable growing civic projects Novey has been involved in founding and designing include the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, Party at the Mailbox, Maryland Civics Education Coalition, Ask Every Student, and the National League of Cities “Cities Vote” initiative. He lives in Abell with his spouse Becky, is a member Beth Am Synagogue, and serves on the boards of the Baltimore City Chapter of the League of Women Voters and Maryland Rise.  

Jahnavi Rao 
Following the 2016 election, Jahnavi Rao felt a pervasive feeling of helplessness from her generation, on both sides of the aisle. The decisions being made then affected her and her peers the most, but their opinions were not taken into consideration due to being too young to vote. Because of this as a junior in high school, Jahnavi founded New Voters as a club at her high school, where she registered over 85% of her class to vote and mobilized her peers while she herself was too young to vote. 
 
Since then, Jahnavi and the New Voters team have grown the school club into a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit, working with high school student-leaders across America to help them host highly-successful non-partisan voter registration drives at their schools. Jahnavi’s dream is that youth interests will never be tossed aside again, and that the assumption that young people don’t vote and don’t care will be thoroughly corrected through New Voters’ and other organizations’ work. 
 
Outside of New Voters, Jahnavi serves as Director of High School Engagement at the Harvard Votes Challenge, Co-President of the Harvard South Asian Women's Collective, and an active cast member of the Harvard College Opera Society. In her free time, you can find Jahnavi listening to Taylor swift and watching vine compilations.

Dr. Ashley C.J. Daniels 
Dr. Ashley C.J. Daniels is a recent graduate of the Political Science department at Howard University.  She conducts research in the areas of Black Politics, Black feminist and womanist theory, public opinion, and popular culture. After completing her undergraduate studies at Bowie State University (BSU), where she received a Bachelor of Arts in English, she continued her education by earning Master of Arts degree in Public Administration. Her dissertation, “Unlocking the Power of the Sister(hood) Vote: Exploring the Opinions and Motivations of NPHC Sorority Black Women Supporting Black Women Candidates” examines how Black sorority women evaluate and connect with Black women candidates.  
 
Her writing has been featured in the Washington Post, the Washington and Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper, the blog, ForHarriet, the PHILLIS Journal for Research on African American Women, and the National Review of Black Politics. She has also presented her research at several national and regional conferences, including the National Conference for Black Political Scientists, the Black Doctoral Network, the HBCU Conference on Retention, the American Political Science Association, and Delta Days in the Nation’s Capital.  She is a recipient of several awards including the Organization for Research on Women and Communication, the National Conference for Black Political Scientists, Howard University, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.  
 
Dr. Daniels served for nearly eight years as an administrator with the Delta Research and Educational Foundation.  She currently serves as the 2021-2022 Leading Edge Fellow for the National Conference on Citizenship with the Party at the Mailbox initiative through the Black Girls Vote. She is a native of Baltimore, Maryland and currently resides in Prince George’s County, Maryland.  

Dr Jan Eichhorn
Dr Jan Eichhorn is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on political attitudes and engagement with a special interest in the political participation of young people. Jan has led the main study examining how newly enfranchised 16- and 17-year olds engaged with the Scottish independence referendum through representative data. Building on this work, he has collaborated with researchers in many countries to advance our understanding of how Votes-at-16 can be developed successfully. The resulting book “Lowering the Voting Age to 16: Learning from Real Experiences Worldwide”, co-edited with Johannes Bergh, brings together the collective expertise from countries that have seen an expansion of the franchise to younger voters. Additionally, Jan has co-founded a not-for-profit, independent and non-partisan think tank, d|part, based in Berlin that aims to improve political participation in practice. His research has informed public debates extensively with Jan contributing to many broadcasters in various countries (such as the BBC, CNN or ZDF) as well as his work being featured in many news outlets (including The Guardian, Vice, Le Monde, El País, DER SPIEGEL amongst many others). Using his research Jan has also briefed various public institutions (including the UK Government and Parliament, the Scottish Government, the German Government and the European Commission) as well as a wide variety of civil society organizations and youth groups. 
This free event is brought to you by the Golden Bear Family Fund as part of an effort to examine CTY’s traditions and offerings and to deepen CTYers connections to each other and the world. Local Covid restrictions at the time of the event will apply.