2: Background: The Founders of Public-Democracy Pty Limited are Eric Gyors and Gary Davis. Here you can read background information covering their professional careers and the historical evolution of the Public Group.
Founder and Director Eric Gyors
Eric Gyors has more than 25 years experience in the political arena, as a State and Federal Campaign Director for a large political party (The Australian Democrats). He is accredited with the election of a number of politicians to State & Federal Parliaments and has worked extensively on campaigns for the Australian Democrats, The Australian Greens, various Federal Independent candidates as well as providing electoral and campaigning consulting work to the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Liberal Party.
Prior to this he founded and led “Australian Real Estate Computer Systems” (ARECS), the largest creator/supplier of turn-key computer systems for the Real Estate Industry in the southern hemisphere, at the time.
He is one of two principal founders (with Gary Davis, see below) of “iPowow Ltd.” This company, currently head-quartered in the U.S.A., is the single most successful supplier of second screen technology - the interaction between viewers and TV shows in a real time environment. It utilizes a second device such as a smart phone or tablet allowing for interaction with TV programs and is being used by major networks (FOX, NBC, CBS, Disney, ESPN). Eric and Gary were instrumental in developing and patenting a continuous, interactive ‘dial-testing’ system, better known in the industry as “The Worm”.
Founder and Direcor: Gary Davis
Gary Davis has been involved in a number of successful Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), which included ProMedia Limited and Tribeca. He was a Founding Director of Tribeca, an on-line compliance training business, which was sold to a subsidiary of The Washington Post.
He was a founder of AdStream, a company that developed tools enabling the circulation of advertising messages in real time in all media environments.
He was a founder of Enhanced Energy Recovery Limited (EER), which delivers enhanced oil recovery technology in an environmentally sustainable way. He has an ongoing involvement with this business in an advisory capacity to the Board.
He was also a principal founder of iPowow Ltd.
Public-Democracy Pty Limited
Public-Democracy Pty Limited (PDPL) is an Australian company incorporated in July 2015 with its main office in Sydney and a subsidiary office in Washington D.C. Its directors are Eric Gyors and Gary Davis.
Public Democracy America Inc.
Public-Democracy Pty Limited (PDPL) has a US subsidiary company, Public Democracy America Inc. (PDA), of which it is a part owner, with an option to acquire a controlling interest.
The Founders and Directors of PDA are Eric Gyors, Gary Davis, Eric Sapp and Burns Strider.
Eric Sapp has spent much of his career focused on the intersection of faith and politics. He is a founding partner of the Eleison Group, the primary political consulting firm working with Democrats and the progressive faith community on outreach and communication to faith, veteran, and values voters. Eleison was one of the lead consultants on the DCCC's '08 "Red to Blue" program and has received numerous awards for its work on a number of successful Democratic and progressive campaigns.
Eric also serves as Executive Director of the American Values Network, a faith and values based non-profit that has received significant recognition the last few years for its successful media campaigns targeting faith, veteran, and independent voters on climate, national security, and economic justice issues.
Prior to founding Eleison, Eric was Senior Partner at Common Good Strategies (CGS), a firm that rose to national prominence following the success in ’06 of its new approach to faith outreach and messaging for the DSCC, US Senators Casey and Brown, Governors Strickland, Granholm, and Sebelius, Rep. Shuler, and the Michigan, Kansas, and Oregon state Democratic Parties.
Before joining CGS, Eric worked as a legislative aid for Representative David Price and Senator Edward Kennedy on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Eric is a regular speaker on faith and politics on television and radio shows, most often providing a Democratic perspective on conservative broadcast programs.
He was born in Durham, NC and grew up in south Florida. He graduated with honors from Davidson College and received a Master of Divinity and a Master of Public Policy from Duke University. Eric has served for five years in the parish, and lives in northern VA with his wife and high school sweetheart, Julie and their son, Beckett.
Burns Strider is a founder and principle of Eleison Group LLC. Eleison Group is the nation’s leading consulting firm committed to creating common ground between the political, business, and non-profit worlds with America’s diverse values-based communities.
Strider advises a broad clientele including Reverend Jim Wallis and Sojourners, The Democratic National Committee, The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, NRG Energy Corporation, the United Methodist Church, Catfish Growers of America, The Faith & Politics Institute, Oxfam America, Bread for the World, Harbor Wing Technologies and has advised over the past 3 electoral cycles on more than 100 U.S. House, Senate, statewide and national campaigns.
The American Values Network (AVN) is a nonprofit committed to educating, enrolling, and activating Americans in progressive causes. In its first year, AVN had a budget of over two million dollars largely focused on climate change and clean energy initiatives. A TV advertisement written and produced by AVN calling for ratification of the New START Treaty was recognized by the 'Campaigns and Elections' as the best issue advocacy advertisement in the nation for 2010.
American Bridge, its Correct the Record Division, employs a dedicated research, video, tracking, communications, and digital operation providing rapid response to false attacks from Republican politicians, party committees, and rightwing interests groups to meet its mission of electing a Democratic President in 2016.
Strider has served in an array of positions including Director of Policy for the U.S. House Democratic Caucus, Senior Advisor to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Director of the U.S. House Democratic Faith Working Group and Rural Working Group, regional Communications Director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Chief of Staff to U.S. Congressman Ronnie Shows (D-MS).
Strider began his career as an intern in the early 90’s for then-Congressman Mike Espy (D-MS) and then-Senator Al Gore (D-TN). He also served as speechwriter to Mississippi Secretary of State Dick Molpus.
In the mid-90's Burns spent three years in Hong Kong as a Missionary with the Southern Baptist Convention serving as youth minister at International Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist mega church on Hong Kong Island.
He has been a commentator for National Public Radio and has taught and lectured at various universities and workshops around the nation including Trinity College, University of Virginia, Ole Miss, Mississippi State University, Georgetown, Delta State University, Princeton, Harvard, Democratic National Conventions, Young Democrats of America and Camp Wellstone. He is a contributing blogger on Huffington Post, Faithful Democrats and The Mississippi Business Journal.
He is the son of the late and legendary Grenada County Sheriff Jesse A. “Big Daddy” Strider, who served Grenada County, Mississippi from 1966 – 1984 bringing about racial reconciliation, tearing down barriers and building bridges. He endorsed a young Mike Espy for Congress in 1986. This endorsement and the subsequent television advertisements help make Espy the first African American Congressman in Mississippi since reconstruction. David Halberstam, among others, has written about Sheriff Strider and his efforts for racial justice.
Burns’ oldest brother, today, serves as Grenada County sheriff and his family, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and others, live in Grenada, many on the Strider family farm.
Strider and his wife, Karen, a native of Kentucky, live in Washington, DC. They raise two nearly perfect boys, Will (12) and Pete (10). They are members of First Baptist Church of Washington.
The PDA offices are located in Arlington, Virginia, an outer/adjacent area to Washington D.C.
History iPowow! was formed as a public company by Gary Davis and Eric Gyors in late 2005, to deliver communications services to politicians and political parties. Davis & Gyors were instrumental in designing and patenting a series of ‘second screen technology View and Vote Communications tools’. From its inception iPowow! was a public company trading under the ‘ASSOB’ umbrella, during which time the company raised a substantial amount of capital through a number of public offerings.
In 2007 and again in 2010 iPowow! covered, along with the legacy/major TV networks (ABC, SBS, channels 7, 9 & 10), the Australian federal election. They broadcast the election count and live results, direct from the Federal Tally room in Canberra and were the first organisation to ever provide live coverage of an election via the Internet.
Although no longer on the board, the two founders are still the major shareholders in iPowow! Ltd.
2009 – 2014 Gyors spent several years travelling predominantly in Europe, where he forged relationships with a number of highly placed officials in government, in several of the EU countries (Italy, The Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Portugal). During this time he also reworked the original concept of interactive political communication, test-driving a proto-type in Australia, in conjunction with the Australian Government.
Over the same period Davis spent considerable time developing an environmentally sustainable oil recovery system, and dealing extensively with highly placed officials in the US, personally presenting in the White House Oval Office. The system has now been delivered around the world with legislation having been introduced to enforce some of its innovations in the US.
In 2014 Eric Gyors and Gary Davis decided the time was right to rekindle the original vision, with the aim of bringing about major changes to the political democratic process. They formed Public-Democracy Pty Limited in order to bring communications and empowerment tools to the public and their elected representatives. Building on their cumulative years of experience and their product knowledge, they redesigned the original products that they had created to provide these services and with the help of a highly skilled development team, supplied to them by Google, they created the basis of their current offerings.
In 2015 PD acquired a 50% (with an option to go to 60%) interest in a newly formed subsidiary company in the US. This company is Public Democracy America Inc. (PDA) which, apart from holding the exclusive US licence for the PD engagement Platform also owns one of the single largest databases in the US. This database comprises of 114 million verified and current persons of voting age (1 in 2 adult US citizens), with in excess of 10 years of attitudinal and behavioural data – data points on file are numbered in the billions.
The Board of Public Democracy Inc. consists of the following 4 Directors: Eric Gyors, Gary Davis, Eric Sapp (our original US associate and former Director of Eleison, LLC) and Professor Rob Lalka. Rob is Professor of Practice at Tulane University, Executive Director of the Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and co-founder of Medora Ventures. He has been extremely valuable in helping to draft our “White Paper”, which essentially forms the basis of our US strategic and business plans for the coming year.
