Audit the stimulus package
Just finished chatting with Cambridge-based entrepreneur and fellow classically liberal Academite Aaron Day, Founder and CEO of “We help companies lower the cost of their healthcare by incentivizing their employees to get healthy” Tangerine Wellness, Chairman of “We parse text and spit it back out in a way that helps people read faster on any digital device” Reading Stream’s Advisory Board, and now this — founder of Daylight Networks.
Daylight’s reason for being is to peek at the wizard behind the curtain and open the government’s kimono. Project #1: auditing the stimulus package. It exposes it and allows its users to vote on whether it will actually achieve the stated objectives.
I can’t do it justice here and admit the user interface is as-yet clunky (which Day acknowledges), but love the idea of the wisdom of clowns poking around government documentation and letting their will be quantified in the forms of charts and graphs.
From their press materials (bolding mine):
Free, Independent Social-Networking Site Allows Everyone to Audit the Federal Government and Propose Non-Government Alternatives
- Follow the money through interactive graphs of the entire federal budget.
- Predict what government will do through the Daylight $5000 Obama Prediction Market, where members can apply their knowledge to predict key developments during President Obama’s first 100 days in office. (The top 50 traders will split a $5000 cash reward pool funded by the Daylight Network.)
- Share, rate, and discuss information about government performance by submitting content (news, online videos, etc.) about federal departments, then discuss and debate through Daylight’s discussion board.
- Promote and create alternatives to government-run programs by sharing ideas for private or non-profit solutions, and connecting with like-minded Daylight members for collaborating on turning these ideas into reality.
- Reflect on the structure and relevance of government through the Daylight Blog, by debating political and economic theory, and re-examining the role of central government in an age where information, money, and people can flow freely on a global basis.
More in this Mass High Tech article.
A ton of potential and my firm can’t wait to help them figure out their business model. Right, Aaron? ;)
