Hi, I’m Tomer. Glad you found your way here.
I’m building a way for people to be heard between elections.
I co-founded Agora, a non-partisan platform where officials and the people they represent can hear each other. I’m also writing The Civic Gap, a book about what democracy asks of the people who have it.
The tour shows Agora from both sides: the office’s and the resident’s.
Why I do this
The decisions that shape your street, the school down the road and your rent are made every week, mostly out of view.
I believe people should have a real voice in the decisions made in their name, not only on election day.
One side of the table
People who want a say.
A budget passes. A bus route changes. A school board votes on a closure. It happens in meetings few people can attend, and by the time you hear about it, it’s done.
The other side
Officials who want to listen.
Many do want to know what the people they represent think. But calls, emails and petitions arrive from everywhere, and it’s hard to tell who actually lives in the district.
So there are people who want a say, officials who want to listen, and few reliable ways for them to meet in the middle. That’s the gap I work on.
What I’m building
Agora, in three steps.
1
Officials share what’s on the table.
Bills, questions and town halls, from the offices that represent you.
2
You weigh in.
Vote along on a bill, answer a question, join a town hall. It’s structured, not a comment section.
3
They hear their own constituents.
Offices see what the people they represent think, apart from outside noise, and can answer in public, so your input doesn’t just disappear.
Every official, of every party, gets the same tools. We’re in alpha, open to early testers, with guided app tours.
Start here
Where would you like to start?
Offices and staff
I work in or with a government office.
See how Agora works from your side in a short tour.
Civic tech
I build, study or fund civic tech.
Start with what we learned from the platforms that came before us, and what we’re doing differently.
Press and events
I’m a journalist, or I book speakers.
Bios, photos and the topics I like to talk about, in one place.
The
Civic
Gap
Tomer Rozenberg · in progress
The book I’m writing
We mistake the label for the thing.
The Civic Gap is a book about democracy for people who think they already know what it is. It looks at the gap between the ideal and the machinery we built to reach for it, and at what keeping it running actually costs. It’s my own work, separate from Agora.
Before this, I wrote three books on philosophy and everyday life.
Tomer Rozenberg
Co-founder of Agora · writing The Civic Gap
Let’s talk.
If you’ve read this far, we probably care about the same thing. I’d love to hear what you’re working on, and where you’ve seen people and their representatives actually listen to each other. Outside the US? Agora isn’t there yet, but the problem is everywhere, and I’m happy to compare notes.
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