As a live blogger, I'm here to make sure you get all the info you need -- straight from the N2Y3 conference. So here goes...

The NetSquared Y3 conference at Cisco kicked off this morning with Daniel Ben Horin, one of TechSoup's three CEOs, talking about the roots of the organization and one of the key players in its success.

Vince Stehle -- Program Officer of the Nonprofit Sector Support Program at the Surdna Foundation, a family foundation based in New York City -- has been at CompuMentor's side since the beginning. Stehle not only helped TechSoup in its infancy, but he's been involved in Net2 from the outset and gave funding to continue the work of the conference.

For the first time, said Ben Horin, TechSoup has resources to create an ongoing Net2 program. With that, Stehle took the stage and sang the praises of Net2 and its benefit to nonprofits.

"At Net2, you don't just sit back and listen to a procession of people telling you what you already know," he said. You actually get to decide who among the social innovators has the best idea, and attendees get to make the projects better.

It's actually a democratic process. Because one thing philanthropy is not is democratic. Net2 is helping philanthropy to be more democratic because it's harnessing the wisdom of crowds in picking the projects for social change and everyone gets to vote at the end.

The British band Radiohead offered its music for free and asked fans to pay what they thought it was worth; it could be $0 or $10 or $100. Though the band didn't release figures on what it made from this little experiment, this model was revolutionary. That's why one of the most important areas in conference is the DonateNow Mashup Challenge and make it as easy as possible for users to make donations and do so in a democratic way.

Stehle made reference to a couple of projects at Net2 and the effect of working in a democratic environment -- some projects take off and others are shut down. And even competitors become collaborators.

"That's another thing about Net2," he said, "if you learn your project isn't going to go anywhere, you make that determination quicker and shut it down before you waste your time and other people's money."

With that, the 21 featured projects at N2Y3 began their two-minute introductions.