1. Hal Wayne Plotkin was born on September 14,1957 and is an American journalist and activist.
20 Facts About Hal Plotkin
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Hal Plotkin is currently the senior open policy fellow at Creative Commons.
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From 2009 to 2014, Plotkin served as the Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary of Education, United States Department of Education, which has responsibility for all federal US higher education policies and programs.
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In 2003, Hal Plotkin initiated the Foothill-De Anza Community College District's Policy on Public Domain Learning Materials which are now more commonly known as Open Educational Resources.
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Hal Plotkin attended Palo Alto High School, where he was an editor for the student newspaper, The Campanile.
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Hal Plotkin managed to graduate with his high school class in 1975 after administrators gave him course credit for some of his employment activities.
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Hal Plotkin attended college part-time over the next 10 years while working a variety of jobs, including as a Comprehensive Employment and Training Act worker serving as an aide to then-Santa Clara County Supervisor Rod Diridon, Sr.
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In 1979, Hal Plotkin began working as a researcher, writer, editor and broadcaster.
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Hal Plotkin eventually earned his Associate of Arts degree in history from Foothill College in 1985 and his Bachelor of Arts degree in behavioral sciences, with distinction, at San Jose State University in 1986.
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Hal Plotkin was a founding editor of American Public Media's Marketplace program and a former columnist for CNBC.
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Hal Plotkin has written more than 650 articles for a wide variety of publishers, including Barron's, Inc.
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Hal Plotkin received a letter of commendation for his work from David Packard, founder of Hewlett-Packard, and a former Deputy Secretary of Defense.
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Hal Plotkin wrote an early article about Confinity, which was later renamed PayPal.
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Hal Plotkin was the founding editor of the Center for Media Change's first project, www.
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In recent years, Hal Plotkin has devoted much of his time to advancing the Open Educational Resources movement.
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In 1992, Hal Plotkin filed a class-action lawsuit against General Electric Company in connection with the misleading packaging of incandescent light bulbs.
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In 1993, Hal Plotkin won the Democratic party's nomination for a special election to fill Silicon Valley's seat in the California state Senate but was defeated in the general election by Tom Campbell, a former GOP member of the US Congress.
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In 1994, Hal Plotkin served as a senior fellow of the World Economic Development Congress, where he helped organize a conference that brought PLO leader Yasser Arafat and then Israeli-president Chaim Herzog together for peace and economic cooperation talks in Madrid.
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In 2006, Hal Plotkin was the recipient of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Family and Children's Services FAMMY award.
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In 2016, Plotkin was inducted into the United States Distance Learning Association prestigious Hall of Fame.