SportTechie’s new series features the views and opinions of the athletes who use and are powered by technology. As part of this series, SportTechie talked to Walter Powell Jr. about his transition from life as an NFL wideout to being a tech founder, and the new app, Politiscope, that he has been developing.
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Walter Powell Jr. played four years in the NFL as a wide receiver for the New York Jets, Oakland Raiders, and Buffalo Bills. Last season, Powell and one of his friends, Jackson White, began developing the idea for a new mobile app that the two hope will improve knowledge and engagement with the U.S. political process.
Politiscope will officially launch on Nov. 12. While the main focus is the 2020 U.S. election, rather than 2018, the app is already available on the App Store for iOS devices. As well as aggregating information on political topics and including a system that allows voters to compare the records and policies of different politicians, citizens can register to vote directly from the app (provided the state they live in allows online voter registration).
The Politiscope App
“What we created was a non-partisan player profile app for politicians. It breaks down and explains every bill a politician votes for or against into layman’s terms so that the average person can be more informed and more engaged in the political process, as well as register to vote. They can call their politicians from off their politicians’ page. Call, email, they can follow them on all their social media. They have access to all media as well, any videos or articles pertaining to that politician, and of course all legislation. It’s just trying to make this a one stop shop for politics and being able to get it, digest, and keep going. In this day and age people don’t have time to just sit down and do research for an hour.”
“It’s non-partisan. Not left, not right. Straight down the middle. You can’t be mad at the information that we’re providing because it’s facts, it’s factual.”
“We’ve got this section called Hot Topics where you can choose certain topics, whether it’s education, drug policy, immigration, environment. You can choose the bills you want to look at. You can choose the media you want to look at, that best interests you. We’re really just trying to make it easy for everybody and even if you know a lot about politics or you know a little about politics, this is something that everybody can use.”
“There hasn’t been anything out there like this so I feel like we’re definitely addressing something that’s needed. This will be just as needed as a calculator. It’s an everyday tool. As long as democracy is around, Politiscope will be relevant.”
Concept Behind the App
“I came up with the idea back in December. My best friend, Jackson White, he loves politics. He always used to explain bills and everything that’s going on in politics to me. In layman’s terms so that I could understand it. One day he came to me explaining a bill that just got passed … I was just like ‘Wow, people are so naïve to what’s going on, voting for anybody.’ And it clicked just right then and there. What if we created an app that just basically broke things down to the T for the average American so that we can be more informed?”
“I didn’t feel too engaged. When I thought about politics at the time it was just a turn off. You don’t know what’s real news, what’s fake news. It was just a turn off with the climate we’re in. I just really wasn’t engaged at all. As we started to dig deeper and deeper into developing the app and really starting to see the type of bills that are getting proposed and introduced and seeing the titles really don’t mean exactly what’s in the bills, it was like ‘Wow. We’ve got to bring some transparency to what’s on the table.”
The Controversy Over Athletes’ Political Voices
“I feel like it’s stupid. For instance, the person who’s President right now. They didn’t tell him to shut up and stick to being a TV host. They didn’t tell Arnold Schwarzenegger to shut up and stick to being an actor or body builder, so why does it have to be for an athlete to shut up and play? In history a lot of people did stuff before they were involved in politics, or they voiced their political views, and didn’t get slammed for [that].”
“Just cause a person took a knee, that’s like saying they don’t have the freedom of speech. It’s just a real touchy subject. Ever since they took a knee, [other people] just really blew it out of proportion. A lot of those veterans who served in the military, in the army, in the service just period, respect [the athletes] for that. They fought so that we can take a knee, so that people can take a knee and have freedom of speech and be able to just express themselves however they deem is appropriate. The fact people are really down on somebody for taking a knee, it’s not about the flag, it’s deeper than that.”
“In our daily scope we will have articles really breaking down the reason behind a whole bunch of situations that have occurred over the past few years. People can really understand the true essence of people’s actions, instead of just judging them off what they see, and not really knowing the full story behind it.”
The Transition From Football to Tech
“I’m just mentally in a totally different space, a totally different realm, from where my head was. My head was 100 percent focused on football. Just the fact that I’m in this political tech space, I really have to unlearn and learn some new things.”
“[Football taught me] just being able to respond to all adversity, no matter how it comes to me and being able to build a team and have that leadership. Those leadership traits to make a complete team of people who can all work together and create a culture where we can all be the best that we can be.”
“With my connections and just with all the networking I’ve done over the past four years, it’s definitely helped me to bring in the right people and just have the right mentors in my circle and advisors to show me what to do.”
Registering New Voters
“You can register [to vote through the app]. Unfortunately, not every state lets you register online. As far as New Jersey you’ve got to actually go into a building to register to vote. But a lot of places you can register to vote [online]. If you have it right there on your phone I’m pretty sure how fast people type these days, it’ll take about two or three minutes to register to vote.”
“I was definitely hoping that I’d be able to record myself registering to vote off the app that I created, but it’s all good. That definitely would have been pretty cool, but just the fact that I got registered to vote is good.”
“But it’s not even about just registering to vote because there’s a lot of people who can just register to vote and still not know who they’re voting for. And that’s why with Politiscope, we’re going to be able to get you informed to vote for the right person. We’ll be rolling out a feature probably sometime next year where you can compare politicians on the ballot so you can see. Like a box score card. You can see all the categories, you can see on both sides if they voted yes or no for certain categories.”
“Instead of voting for somebody because they’ve got a nice smile or good-looking hair, have a more informed vote.”
Politiscope reviewed this content before publication.