News / Bristol
Students launch app to inform young voters in Bristol
A trio of talented Bristol University students have gone to new lengths to encourage young people to vote with the launch of an app that delivers party manifestos in digestible chunks.
Brendon Warwick, Jay Lees and Lewis Bell, who are all 19, acted out of a growing realisation that the sheer amount of political propaganda and information in the run up to Thursday’s General Election was alienating much of this key demographic.
The three computer science students got together and have launched a brand new, free app, Informed, that aims to ‘cut through the noise’ and compresses each party’s manifesto down into bitesize chunks, enabling people to make a decision before they head to the polling stations.
“The main goal is to get people to vote,” said Warwick.
“I heard a lot of people saying they weren’t going to vote and a lot said it was because they felt they didn’t know enough about politics. Manifestos, with their sheer quantity of information, can be intimidating for young voters and can result in the loss of a key demographic. Me and Jay discussed it and thought if there was an app it would help.
“Informed is designed to encourage young people to engage politically and we hope it results in making sure many more young people’s voices are heard.”
The app, that took no more than a week to bring to fruition, has already been well received by students and the trio hope it will be put to use in future elections as well. They have plans to add additional features in future.
Their bid follows a concerted effort by landlords, festival organisers and artists across Bristol to encourage young people to register to vote and make their voices heard on Thursday.
Mystery projections urging people to vote have been spotted around the city.
A series of mystery projections have also cropped up around the city have joined the many messages across the city urging people to vote.
Read more: Free beer for student voters in Bristol
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
