Ben Simon, MyMaryland.net founder and president.
Only 10 weeks after its launch, America’s first around-the-clock online town hall, aimed at sparking civic engagement, encouraging transparent government and connecting voters with politicians, has 600 registered users — more than 300 of whom are students at the university.
MyMaryland.net, which senior Ben Simon launched in January, is a nonprofit website offering a platform for open discussions between students, registered voters and elected officials. MyMaryland also has a town hall specifically for the university, giving students the opportunity to exchange ideas with campus officials and follow conversations on state issues.
“The idea sprang out of the question [of] what democracy would look like if it really worked well,” said Simon, a government and politics major. “We knew that there is a substantial amount of anger with the current political system, and at the heart of it was a tremendous amount of distance between regular people and government.”
Simon and his team, composed of three full-time staff members, created an account on MyMaryland for every elected official from Maryland, at both the state and national levels. Citizens who want to participate in the conversation can register with their voter information to get verified and directly linked to their representative’s account.
While anyone can view the conversations on the site, only registered users can post comments, links or videos in their representatives’ virtual town halls.
So far, Simon’s team has reached out to more than 50 officials, including Gov. Martin O’Malley, and while 10 have activated their town hall pages, Simon said the commitments other officials have made are promising.
“Our goal is getting 50 state officials by the end of 2013,” he said. “But I think even getting 10 is a real accomplishment, because this is the first time in representative democracy that this has happened.”
Delegates Sheila Hixson, (D-Montgomery), Jon Cardin (D-Baltimore County) and Dana Stein (D-Baltimore County) were some of the first politicians to sign up for MyMaryland, Simon said.
“I am always looking for new ways to reach out to my constituents,” Hixson said. “And I think that MyMaryland is one of them.”
“It’s one website that focuses solely on politics in the state of Maryland but works like Facebook by having a social media aspect,” she added. “So it’s the best of both worlds.”
The Student Government Association has been active on the website as well.
“MyMaryland is unique in that you can see how your fellow students are connected and involved in conversations,” said James Jalandoni, SGA governmental affairs director.
He added the platform will help educate students who wouldn’t normally follow state legislation closely, and at the same time, it will give legislators a better glimpse of what issues are important to their constituencies.
“It is a great idea that no one exploited before,” said Alejandro Morales, a sophomore bioengineering major who has been using MyMaryland since February. “The best thing about it is that more people can get involved, and it is an easy way for representatives to hear the people’s voices.”
Simon — a part-time student who last year was named a Top-10 social entrepreneur by ABC News and Univision — started working on MyMaryland during the summer of 2009. And although he was the only one involved with it from the first day, Simon said his co-founders and sponsors helped make the project a reality.
“We won a few pitch competitions and found enough seed funding to pay for the development of the site,” he said.
MyMaryland has raised about $75,000 so far, $55,000 of which went into development, salaries and advertising, Simon said.
To continue the service, though, Simon’s startup company, MyAmerica Inc., has to find new ways of funding.
“We want to be financially self-sustaining as soon as possible,” Simon said.
While the service is designed to be free for voters and elected state and federal officials, Simon plans to charge counties and colleges in the state for their use of the platform.
“We are currently in talks with Howard County, Montgomery County and Charles County,” he said. “If they want the same access to the site for local engagement, they can hire MyMaryland to host a 24/7 town hall for them, and we will charge a subscription fee for that.”
Although Simon initially planned to launch his project in all 50 states, he said perfecting it in Maryland is his top priority.
“Before you go big, you have to go small,” he said. “We need to make it work right here in Maryland.”
His next step is to bring the project to Washington and Virginia.
“A lot of it depends on seeing continuing growth in the amount of voters and officials using the platform,” he said. “But if we continue on that projection, it is likely we will soon expand past Maryland.”
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