Some guys have all the luck. That familiar refrain really does seem to apply to the McCarty brothers. The Elm Grove products, Liam and Aidan, are good-looking, eloquent and impossibly bright.
Already rocking perfect grade point averages at Stanford, the two have come up with an online platform to connect you with your elected representatives in a reliable way.
“So what we’re trying to do is cut through the noise,” Liam said confidently during an afternoon visit to the TODAY'S TMJ4 studios. “It’s easy to make noise but it’s hard to be heard.”
Their new platform is called ePluribus. Simply put, ePluribus creates a direct line from your social media rants to your elected representatives. You are in complete control of the communiqué. You are able to share your thoughts directly with those who can do something about it.
The unique thing about ePluribus, though, is that the platform verifies who you are, so those receiving your message know you are legit. As it stands now, elected officials are often overrun with indecipherable missives.
“They get all these messages from online petition forms and advocacy groups and lobbyists and that drowns out messages from real people with real concerns, so they can’t tell is this person a constituent,” said Liam emphatically.
“Our main mission is to help people to be heard,” said Aidan. “The way that we’re doing that is we’re having a system where they can use Facebook and Twitter like they usually do, talk about politics online and without changing that work flow, choose from a drop down menu, reach the representatives they want to contact and we’ll send a text of their message as an official message to their representative.”
Though both Aidan and Liam are science-oriented students, they are given to long, passionate discussions about politics. During last year’s political campaign, they both lamented the polarization and anger in our nation’s political dialogue. That led to a brainstorming session when they were stuck in a hotel room together.
“Aidan had this interesting idea of editing legislation in a Wiki format, so that you’d collaboratively edit things and then propose it to congress,” Liam recalled. “So we riffed on ideas like that and we were really excited about all these different things. Eventually we got to this idea and the reason we went with it is because we see the potential to impact everyone positively.”
When the McCartys went to Washington and pitched their fledgling idea to elected officials, they got positive feedback on nearly all fronts.
“What we heard from elected officials is that they just get inundated with messages,” Liam said. “They have so many messages that it’s very difficult to process them and understand what people are saying.”
The McCarty’s kicked off a crowd funding campaign today. You can access it through this link.
