Dan teaches media entrepreneurship and digital-media literacy at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. A longtime journalist, he spent more than a decade as business and technology columnist at Silicon Valley's daily newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News, where he launched one of the first blogs by a journalist for a traditional media company. He worked earlier at the Detroit Free Press, Kansas City Times and several newspapers in Vermont. He won the EFF Pioneer Award in 2002 and the World Technology Award for Media & Journalism in 2004. He is the author of 'We the Media', which describes rise and importance of citizen media,  and 'Mediactive', a book on modern media literacy. Dan has co-founded two startups, has invested in and/or advised a number of others, and is on several boards. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian on media and technology, and is working on a new book to help people deal with digital threats to their security and liberty.