Team and Contact Info

Jacob Colker
Co-Founder and CEO
Jacob [at] BeExtra [dot] org
(773) 742-5515    

Jacob Colker is a recognized leader in political activism and issue advocacy. He has managed political campaigns in California, Illinois, and Maryland, and he was one of the first field directors in the country to leverage social media in a major political campaign to win a statewide election.  Recently, Jacob spent two years managing advocacy campaigns for The International Campaign for Tibet, coordinating with teams in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, Australia, Nepal, and the UK.

Fun Fact - Jacob *loves* playing in rock bands, and is currently building a new music project in San Francisco: http://www.JacobColker.org

Ben Rigby
Co-Founder and CTO
Ben [at] BeExtra [dot] org

Ben graduated from Stanford University with Honors, Distinction, and Phi Beta Kappa. He went on to co-found Akimbo Design, a web design firm that created and managed  award-winning projects and consumer Web sites for marquee brands like Nokia, Sony Pictures, and Calvin Klein. His company produced three Web design books, won dozens of awards, and had work featured in major media publications including The New York Times. In 2002, Ben took a position as CTO of DFILM, a youth entertainment company creating web and mobile applications. In 2004, he founded Mobile Voter, which was the first organization in the world to engage young voters via text messaging (SMS). With grants from Pew Charitable Trusts and MacArthur Foundation, Mobile Voter registered tens of thousands of voters in 2006. In 2007, Rigby wrote the well reviewed book “Mobilizing Generation 2.0: a handbook for using Web2.0 Technologies to recruit, organize, and engage youth.” 

Fun Fact - Ben loves building robots; in fact, he actually engineered and built a robot to be the ring bearer at his wedding.

Sundeep Ahuja
President and COO
Sundeep [at] BeExtra [dot] org

Most recently, Sundeep was a co-founder at richrelevance, a venture-backed startup which powers product recommendations for enterprise-class ecommerce sites, including Sears.com and Burton.com. Prior to richrelevance he was a Product Manager at MySpace, where he owned all "platform" products including search, commerce and photos.  Before that, Sundeep was a Product Manager on eBay's Buyer Activity team, where he earned two awards for his work.  Sundeep also serves as an Advisor to several startups, including Kiva.org where he ran marketing and managed several key initiatives from March of 2006 through June of 2007.  Sundeep holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Fun Fact - Sundeep was an actor in LA for a bit, and while there he got on a few television shows including entourage.  He's now happily back on speaking terms with his patient parents. Check out the clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okiwo-fcuWU

Nathan Freitas
Senior Development Staff
Nathan [at] BeExtra [dot] org

Nathan has been writing code since he was eight and hasn't stopped looking for problems to solve ever since. A lifelong mobile technology enthusiast, his career has included work on DARPA-funded research projects, popular consumer products, award-winning digital art pieces and groundbreaking technology for activists and organizers. You can follow Nathan's own adventures in openness through his blog at http://openideals.com

Dale Zak
Senior Development Staff
Dale [at] BeExtra [dot] org

Dale Zak is a mobile software developer passionate about using innovative technologies for social change.  Over the years, he's helped develop mobile and web applications for large corporate companies like Caterpillar, Ritchie Bros and Pitney Bowes.  As a true believer in dharma, he is excited to shift his focus and utilize his past experience by contributing to the Extraordinaries project.  You can follow Dale's adventures on the east coast of Canada at http://www.dalezak.ca