March 9, 2011, Washington, DC ― POPVOX, Inc., a Silicon Valley and DC startup designed by Washington insiders, was selected as one of eight finalists in the Social Media category for Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW, where early stage technology companies demo innovative new technology in front of influential industry judges and a live audience.
The three-day event will be held Monday, March 14th – Wednesday, March 16th. Judges will select a winner in each category to be revealed on March 15th at 6pm. POPVOX will present alongside seven other companies in the Social Media category at 12:30 on March 14th.
“We are living in an era of unprecedented civic engagement empowered and amplified by technology,” said POPVOX CEO and former Congressional staffer, Marci Harris. “Existing platforms like Facebook and Twitter have proven great for political organizing but lacking when it comes to affecting policy.”
Rachna Choudhry, POPVOX co-founder and a former nonprofit lobbyist explained, “The POPVOX team understands Congress. We know what works and we designed a system to produce effective advocacy for any size organization — and for individual citizens who are moved to contact Congress on issues that matter to them.”
Built by GovTrack.us creator and POPVOX co-founder and CTO, Josh Tauberer, POPVOX provides citizens with a free platform for communication with Congress, channeling input to actual pending bills. Users take action to support or oppose, leave a personal message to Congress, and share their comment via social networks or email. Messages are delivered electronically to Capitol Hill and remain public on POPVOX in Bill Reports, with charts and maps of support, organization statements of support or opposition, sortable by state or Congressional district.
Founding Advisor and financial backer Tim O’Reilly says, “POPVOX brings a unique blend of Capitol Hill savvy and Silicon Valley technology to the problem of measuring and managing advocacy. You can think of it as a kind of Google Analytics service for politics, bringing visibility and actionable insight to both Congressional staffers and advocacy organizations.”
About POPVOX
POPVOX is a disruptive advocacy platform that meshes legislative data with individuals personal stories and sentiment. POPVOX delivers public input to Congress in a format tailored to actionable policy decisions and empowers users to leverage their expertise and numbers. POPVOX provides a legislative dashboard for Congress and government affairs professionals with bill status information, customized tracking, bill-specific advocacy information, and real-time constituent sentiment and comments. For more information, visit: popvox.com
About the SXSW Interactive Festival
The 18th annual SXSW Interactive festival will take place March 11-15, 2011 in Austin, Texas. An incubator of cutting-edge technologies, the event features five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. From hands-on training to big-picture analysis of the future, SXSW Interactive has become the place to experience a preview of what is unfolding in the world of technology. Join us March 2011 for the panels, the parties, the 14th Annual Interactive Awards, ScreenBurn at SXSW, the SXSW Expo, Accelerator at SXSW and, of course, the inspirational experience that only SXSW can deliver. SXSW Interactive 2011 is sponsored by Miller Lite, Chevrolet, AOL, IFC, Pepsi, PepsiMax, Freecreditscore.com, Monster Energy, Microsoft, Samsung, AT&T and The Austin Chronicle. For more information, visit http://www.sxsw.com.
