Cast your votes – Tech experts receive award nomination for youth voting app…
Digital design expert bITjAM has been shortlisted for a NextGen Digital Challenge Award in the Digital Inclusion and Skills category. The company was nominated by the YMCA for its work on a political engagement app created for the National Youth Debate in March.
The nomination is bITjAM’s first, with the app being shortlisted against a range of other digital platforms, including Northumberland County Council’s iNorthumberland. The NextGen awards ceremony takes place at the House of Lords on November 5, 2015.
“The project wasn’t just about finding out what young people think of politics,” explained Carl Plant, CEO of bITjAM. “It was also about encouraging them to register to vote. We also wanted users to share it with their friends and also encourage them to vote.
“With this app we tried to show that this technology can be used in other environments, such as conferences and public engagement projects. It isn’t just a one-off, it can be effectively applied to a range of events.”
The app, commissioned by UpRising, was a survey app that offered real-time visualisation of results from across the eleven cities involved in the youth debates. These cities included London, Manchester, Liverpool and Stoke-on-Trent.
Participants were asked ten questions, which they were able to answer through their smartphones and other mobile devices. The answers were then collected into a bespoke database and visualized using a number of dashboards, all available to view in each city simultaneously. The dashboard also contained information such as scores for each city and Twitter feeds. The results offered a representation of the political viewpoints of young people across the country.
bITjAM developed the app in a web-based format, allowing all participants to access the it regardless of mobile device model. The app involved a number of smart technologies, which the team used together to maximize engagement.
bITjAM is a team of digital design experts, based in Stoke-on-Trent, that deliver digital services to clients. They specialise in designing data dashboards, eLearning tools and general digital engagement tools that focus on the interaction between people and technology.
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