Engage Before the Outrage: A Live Experiment Building Civic Pride in a Divided Midwest

Town halls, radio call-ins, letters to the editor — civic participation of the last century now reaches a shrinking, unrepresentative slice of our communities. Two Midwestern innovators will showcase live how modern tools are inviting more of us to the public square. Participate in a real time A/B test: a traditional town hall style group discussion alongside an AI curated conversation via mobile. We’ll measure content richness, diversity of input, and participant satisfaction on the spot. Our discussion topic will be which groups your communities struggle to engage and what you’re doing about it. We’ll surface new tools and tactics others are using to include immigrants, low-mobility residents, and disengaged working adults in civic life.