i3 - September/October 2016 - 37

By Bronwyn Flores

Policy

FAC E S O F I N N OVAT I O N

Alex Wirth, Co-founder, Quorum Analytics
the process of doing it. We're thrilled to
engage with that in Washington, D.C.
and also at CES. The number of policymakers who come to CES is amazing.
The conversations happening on the
sidelines are honestly some of the most
substantive policy conversations about
how the industry is inching towards the
Internet of Things and automated intelligence (AI), and how the government
actually responds.

Where do you see the future of
data analytics software going?

T

wo years ago, CTA introduced a startup category for
membership. Not long after, the association opened its
Innovation House on Capitol Hill to expand its reach
on congressional issues impacting the tech industry.
The result? A slew of D.C.-area startups are turning to CTA for its
industry resources ranging from mentorship to lobby days

We're interested in reducing barriers
to engagement and making it easier to
access information. In maybe five or 10
years, I see a push towards AI. Instead
of going to a platform to search for an
answer, an answer is pushed to you. We
recently launched Slack integration and
that was aimed at pushing information
out to individuals. Over time, we'll start
to see more people ask bots questions.

What's next for Quorum?
Alex Wirth, co-founder of legislative data analytics software company
Quorum Analytics, talks about his D.C.based startup and why it's important for
his team to have a voice on Capitol Hill.

How did Quorum get started?
When I was an undergraduate at
Harvard, I worked as chair of the campaign for a Presidential Youth Council.
In that role, I was on Capitol Hill trying
to find co-sponsors for a resolution
and ran firsthand into the challenge of
scattered congressional information.
There are 535 members of Congress,
in total, with a wide variety of interests.
Navigating what is happening on the Hill,
their statements and documents that they
are putting out is exceptionally difficult.
My college roommate at the time
was studying computational biochemistry and we found that we could take
the same code used to analyze protein
networks and apply that to congressional
C TA . t e c h / i 3

networks, primarily identifying whom
every member of Congress worked with
most frequently. That was the spark that
started Quorum. From an analytical
perspective using computer science and
modern technology, we created new
insights about the legislative process.

Why did you join CTA?
The core of our company is technology
so we face many of the same challenges
that other tech companies face including
finding and attracting talent. Right now,
a member of our development team is on
a foreign visa and applying for an H1-B
visa, but the U.S. immigration process is
frustratingly difficult. The ability to speak
with a larger collective voice that shares
these types of policy challenges is a key
component of why we joined CTA.
The other component is being a part of
the community of entrepreneurs because
the best advice comes from people who
have already done it or who are also in

We're interested in using our incredible
database of legislative information to
produce more insights. We built a series
of new tools using word clouds and trend
graphs to pull insights and analytics
from any piece of information or conversation which members of Congress
are talking about on a particular issue.
Rather than simply returning a text
search, we want to return information
overall. On the advocacy side, helping
companies build consumer-facing
and employee-facing applications that
encourage outreach and grassroots
activity is another goal. It has pushed
us to double-down on the user interface
and make the process as easy as possible
and actions as wide-ranging as possible. It's incredibly exciting because the
number of platforms we're using have
the potential to impact thousands of
people.
To learn more about Quorum, visit
quorum.us.
n
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https://www.quorum.us/ http://www.quorum.us http://cta.tech/i3
i3 - September/October 2016

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