[Hidden-tech] Local Startup Looking for a CTO

[Baer Tierkel]

A startup out of UMass that I have been advising is looking for a  
founding CTO.  The project is a social media approach to local citizen  
engagement - giving voters a way to discuss local issues and local  
leaders a way to access that discussion.

The contact is the founding CEO, Conor White-Sullivan who can be  
reached at conor at localocracy.org

Regards,
Baer Tierkel

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Company

Localocracy is an online platform that uses voting, ranking and  
tagging to determine what registered voters believe are their  
community's most pressing problems and the most efficient means of  
solving them.  We have demonstrated some credibility for the business  
model by winning two Business Plan competitions at UMass Amherst and  
are seeking an experienced CTO to build the product and help bring it  
to market.

Need

Many people are trying to do good things in their communities and  
local political issues are often the ones that hit closest to home,  
yet there is currently no online space where individuals who want to  
improve their community can efficiently collaborate and debate to  
determine what their most pressing problems are and the most efficient  
ways of solving them.

Any individual can now initiate a blog, a forum, an online petition,  
or an email campaign, but these are insufficient for mobilizing and  
demonstrating support for an initiative as they can not currently  
confirm that the users are real individuals who live in the community  
at hand and are using their real names.

Solution

Localocracy provides a website for each city and town where residents  
can quickly see: Who in their community has posted what initiative?   
How many registered voters in the community support or oppose that  
initiative?  What has each side ranked as the best arguments for their  
position? and What interest groups (local and national) have a stake  
in the initiative and are trying to influence its outcome?

Our approach maximizes the strength of existing social technologies by  
allowing users to draw in supporters from existing communities (blogs,  
forums, social networks) and push updates through twitter, newsfeeds,  
text-messaging and widgets.

Our method of verifying the identity and residency of voters makes the  
platform statistically relevant and reliable.


Conor White-Sullivan
CEO/Founder Localocracy
413 259 7840
553 Main St. Amherst Ma
conor at localocracy.org


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