Game Changers

Ian Manheimer

27, New York 
Glassbooth
I started Glassbooth because I am concerned for democracy. The foundation of any thriving democratic nation is an informed citizenry. Today, we are surrounding by incredibly powerful tools for spreading information, yet our foundation is cracked. Studies find that “on average, today’s citizens are about as able to name their leaders, and are about as aware of major news events, as was the public nearly 20 years ago.” In an age when information is at our fingertips, how can this be?
Glassbooth is leveraging technology in new ways to foster civic education. Our first release – www.glassbooth.org – is a model for learning about where candidates stand on the issues in elections. A National Annenberg Election Survey found that barely half of Americans could properly identify which presidential candidate stood for which major policy position – mind you, it’s a 50-50 chance! Glassbooth.org is delivering accessible, accurate, nonpartisan information to support good decisions at the polls. In our first year 3 million people used Glassbooth to get informed for the 2008 presidential election.
What we quickly realized is that there is no reason this model can’t be successful for every election in every country. We have released new projects all over the country and more recently in the UK in partnership with Yahoo! Our plans are to make a big splash in the 2012 elections and continue to develop democracy innovations.