(I’m listening to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones)

Innovator Steven Clift is hoping to win millions of dollars to fund a project that would use Internet technology to spur greater democratic participation.

His entry for the 2010 Knight News Challenge is an online database that would automatically send you information on the issues you care about, and public meetings and other grassroots opportunities where you can make your voice heard.

For the user, Clift’s proposal is quite simple. You type in your address and some key words (human rights, education, taxes, health care, etc.) and his system will automatically generate an alert whenever public meetings in your area are going to take place and one of your interests is on the agenda.

“The most democratizing aspect opportunity of the internet, when it comes to democratic information, is to provide timely access to that information when people can still act on it,” he says in his video presentation. Often people find out about public meetings after the fact so they aren’t able to participate. Elected officials, in turn, are very interested in the input of their constituents before they make their decisions.
If he wins the Knight News Challenge, Clift’s Web site, e-democracy.org would have the funding needed to compile information from the approximately 30,000 state, local and federal governments from across the United States, and would use it to create an interactive public meeting events calendar. Even if you couldn’t come to the meeting, you could still leave a comment, text or video expressing your views to your elected officials, he says.

It is easy to see how you can have more of an impact on the issues you care deeply about while the decisions are still being made. So good luck to Mr. Clift. If he wins, we’ll soon get to see his plan in action.