Digital Democracy is a unique research project at the intersection of computing, politics and journalism. Based on computing and NLP research, Digital Democracy is an “unprecedented, custom-built AI tool that tracks every word spoken in public hearings, every dollar donated to politicians, every bill introduced, every vote cast and more.”
The philanthropically funded project aims to improve government transparency and quality of journalism. A supplementary tool assists journalists in covering the legislature. It uses AI to automatically create “tip sheets” from legislative events complete with quotable utterances, videos, background data and a newsworthiness score.
Digital Democracy has resulted in several computing research publications and has received much recognition: most recently a main stage panel presentation at Innovation Zero summit in London (April 2025), winning the Poynter Institute’s Punch Sulzberger Award for Innovation in Journalism (May 2025) and two Emmy nominations in California (May 2025).
Visiting scholar Foaad Khosmood is Forbes Professor of Computer Engineering at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and research director for the Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy (IATPP), where he is the primary investigator on CalMatters Digital Democracy project. He’s a member of Imperial’s Algorithmic Human Development Group (AHD). He is open to research collaboration on Digital Democracy.
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