Civic infrastructure for participation that already exists.
Between elections, citizens hold opinions but have no structured way to reach the people who represent them — and officials hold power but have no reliable signal from the people they serve. Agora is built for that gap: a structured channel where citizens participate in governance between elections, not just observe it. The full argument lives in our manifesto.
How we're building it.
A few principles shape every decision we make.
Non-partisan by design.
Agora never takes sides on the issues themselves. It's structurally neutral — the platform is the point, not any position within it.
Audience before app.
Most civic tools failed by building a product before building the people who'd use it. We're deliberately doing it the other way around.
Honest about the work.
Civic technology has a long history of good intentions that didn't survive contact with reality. We study that history, we're generous toward the people who tried, and we'd rather learn its lessons than repeat them.
Where we are.
Agora is early, and we're honest about that. Today it's a side project, built in the hours around other lives — and we'd rather move deliberately and get the foundations right than push a civic tool into the world half-formed. We're starting in New York City: dense, multi-tiered, and rich in open data, it's the right place to prove the idea before taking it further. If that pace reads as a weakness, we'd gently disagree. Infrastructure worth trusting is worth building carefully.
The founders.
Agora is built by two founders who believe the space between citizens and their government has been underserved — not for any lack of will, but for a lack of infrastructure. We come to it from different places, and we'll introduce ourselves more fully here as the project matures. For now, the work matters more than our names.
Founder
Co-founder
Founder
Co-founder
Get involved.
Agora is being built in the open, and deliberately. If you'd like to follow along — or help shape what it becomes — join the waitlist.
Or just leave your email, and we'll reach out when there's something to see.