najmsheikh/politeia

Politeia is a mobile app that aims to educate and help engage young adults in regards to politics and government.

Update 9.17.2015:	Politeia was lucky enough to be awarded the Audience Choice Award at the 2015 NYC GenerationTech Finals!

Voting is how we participate in a civic society - be it for president, be it for a municipal election. It's the way we teach our children - in school elections - how to be citizens, and the importance of their voice. ~Loretta Lynch

Politeia

There are over 15 million students attending high school in the United States right now. Some are interested in government while most aren’t. There are not many websites or apps that focus on educating teenagers about the government and politics. Many students are unable to answer even the most basic questions regarding the government or politics -- attributing it to the fact that they are not taught as such in an engaging manner.

Politeia aims to solve that by providing engaging infographics, concise news articles, and quick-to-fetch facts on anyone and everyone serving public office (using some nifty facial recognition tech).

Features

Discover

With our discover feature, you can filter on topics you wish to read further about. News topics can be customized by the user. For example, if you’re interested in student loans or foreign policies, you can get news tailored towards those topics. Research shows that young adults have a very short attention span (as well as some adults) and due to this simple fact, we decided to summarize top relevant stories. Articles will be shortened into several sentences. If the user wants to read more, they can click the article and read the full story.

Learn

The Learn feature provides students with topics they care and would like to know more about. In a recent Politeia survey, climate change, internet privacy, and minimum wage were some of the many topics that students were most concerned with. We use custom-built infographics to present the information in a more engaging and visual manner.

Explore

The Explore feature provides detailed politician information such as Bill voting record, personal and campaign finances, donor sources, and focus org approval ratings. Users can search on a politician’s name or even use our built-in facial recognition software to identify a candidate. All the information is available at your fingertips -- all you need to do is snap a picture and let Politeia do the rest!

Technologies used