« Back to blog

Two Ways Local Students are Innovating This Year’s Presidential Election & Making Us More Informed

With just over two months until this year’s presidential election, the advertisements will start revving up, taking over your television. How easy is it to separate what’s fact from what’s fiction, though? Actually, a whole lot easier thanks to students from Harvard and MIT.

First, we have the Super PAC App created by recent Harvard Kennedy School graduate Jennifer Hollett and MIT Sloan School of Management graduate Dan Siegel. The app operates in the same way Shazam does with music: Users can simply hold up their phone while watching a political TV ad to identify the commercial and receive objective, third-party information. The app also reveals how much money was spent on the ad, as well as the organization who funded it and whether the claims made are based on fact.

This year’s presidential race is the first since the creation of Super PACs — political action committees that can raise and spend an unlimited amount of money to campaign for or against candidates — making this app incredibly important in the now.

“The hope is that the average voter feels more engaged and informed,” said Hollett in an interview with Forbes. The Super PAC App will also be able to help individuals sift through the overwhelming pool of information that’s out there.

And one piece of that is money, which is why there’s also Politify. Founded by Nikita Bier and Jeremy Blalock of UC Berkeley, the team has also received the help of student Jacob Cole from MIT. Through Politify, voters can discover the financial impacts of the 2012 presidential candidates’ plans.

Politify’s forecasts are based entirely on the official policy platforms listed on Barack Obama and Mitt Romney’s websites. Using family structure records, financial data and reports from non-partisan think tanks, Politify models the U.S. economy to replicate the impact the duo’s political policies would have on American households.

As the team writes: “Politify is setting out to solve one of the oldest problems in democracy: Which candidate best serves our individual interests?”

And as the election heats up, that’s the question we’re going to need to answer before stepping into the ballot booth. Are you sure you’re making an informed decision?

from BostInno http://bostinno.com/2012/08/26/two-ways-local-students-are-innovating-this-ye...