The man behind US president Barack Obama’s online presidential campaign, Ben Self, director and founding partner of Blue State Digital, will keynote at Media ’09, the annual forecast for digital media professionals being held in Sydney next week.

“We’re thrilled to have Ben join us at Media ’09 to share the insight and genius behind President Obama’s presidential campaign,” says Jack Matthews, chief executive of Fairfax Digital.

Blue State Digital was responsible for Obama’s online fundraising, constituency building, issue advocacy, and peer-to-peer online networking aspects of his 2008 primary campaign. To date, the campaign has mobilised over one million donors to contribute in excess of US$500 million online, inspired over two million social networking participants, and promoted more than 200,000 events across the country.

With a line-up of some of the world’s leading thinkers on new media, including CEOs and senior executives from Washingtonpost.com, Newsweek Interactive, BBC, The Guardian, Google, The Hyperfactory, WidgetBox, Wikipedia, Norwest Venture Partners, New York’s The One Club, Droga5 and Fairfax Digital, Media ’09 provides an ideal opportunity for local digital media professionals to learn about the latest opportunities, business models, content offerings, and marketing strategies, that can help their businesses to survive through these turbulent times.

Presented by Fairfax Digital and powered by X|Media|Lab, the event will be held at Jones Bay Wharf, Pyrmont on February 13. Ben Self’s appearance at Media ’09 is in partnership with the Internet Industry Association of Australia.

For more information visit www.media09.com.