The people behind Asq.us don't believe we have to wait for election results to find out what the people really want. The downtown Ann Arbor-based start-up thinks it can enable local politicos to find that out through software and polling, helping save local officials time in moving communities forward.
Brad Chick was inspired to start the company because he had become frustrated with the political system and the impact money has on politics. So last May he started
Asq.us, a free polling platform for politicians to reach out and ask the public about issues. He thinks had this technology been available in recent years, local leaders might have made different decisions about installing artwork by an out-of-town artist in front of the new city hall.
"There were town hall meetings but those are largely a relic of the past," Chick says. He adds that "traditional polling companies are missing a lot of people who aren't on the grid" because things like cell phone usage compared to landline usage. Many polling companies depend on interviews with people on landlines to conduct their surveys.
Asq.us's software will allow people to voluntarily sign up to be polled and utilize other methods to get a better picture of what the public thinks. He and his team of six employees and three interns plan to launch the technology early next year.
Source: Brad Chick, founder of Asq.us
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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