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Súmate ''Súmate'' (Spanish for "Join Up") is a Venezuelan volunteer civil association founded in 2002 by María Corina Machado and Alejandro Plaz. ''Súmate'' describes itself as a vote-monitoring group; it has also been described as an election-monito ...

''. Plaz is a Venezuelan electrical engineer and management consultant who holds three master's degrees (two from Stanford University), and was a Senior partner for McKinsey & Company in

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

, before taking a leave of absence to co-found ''Súmate'' with

María Corina Machado María Corina Machado Parisca (born 7 October 1967, Machado, María CorinaMi experiencia. Es ahora. María Corina. Accessed 25 April 2010. sometimes referred to as MCM) is a Venezuelan politician who served as an elected member of the National ...

Life and education

Plaz was born on December 2, 1955, in Caracas, Venezuela. He attended the Colegio de San Agustín, and graduated from high school at the Colegio La Salle La Colina. He graduated in 1977 with a degree in electrical engineering from the Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas. After working for two years, he left for the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. He stayed there for four years, during which he graduated with a master's degree in electrical engineering from

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

, a master's degree from Stanford University in

industrial engineering Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information a ...

, and a second master's degree from Stanford in

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve decis ...

. He returned to Venezuela at the age of 26, where he took a job with the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where he worked for 23 years. After working for 20 years with McKinsey, Plaz was offered a one-year sabbatical. He used this time to co-found

, a Venezuelan civil organization that monitors elections. Not long after, he started devoting the majority of his time to it.

Work with Súmate

Plaz states that Súmate is not a political organization, but rather a group of concerned professionals such as engineers and others with technical careers who want to see concrete results and effective democracy. Plaz and other members of ''Súmate'' were charged with treason and conspiracy for receiving a $31,000 grant from the

National Endowment for Democracy The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is an organization in the United States that was founded in 1983 for promoting democracy in other countries by promoting political and economic institutions such as political groups, trade unions, ...

which, according to the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

, was "aimed at strengthening citizen participation in the democratic, constitutional processes of their country". The trial was suspended in February 2006 because of due process violations by the trial judge, and has been postponed several times.Human Rights Watch (September 2008).
A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela
(PDF), p. 218. Accessed 24 January 2010

References

External links

Official Súmate website

Bloomberg

El Universal

LA Times

Globovision
{{DEFAULTSORT:Plaz, Alejandro Community activists Venezuelan human rights activists Venezuelan democracy activists Living people 1955 births Simón Bolívar University (Venezuela) alumni McKinsey & Company people