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Programming Our Way to a Better World: My Summer at FastDemocracy [SkIP 2020]

Diva Harsoor (AB '22)
August 7, 2020
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English, Math, Environmental Policy, Electrical Engineering, Anthropology, Computer Science…that’s not even the full list of the majors I have attempted to pursue in my first two years as an undergrad at Washington University in St. Louis. Some people wonder how a student who enjoys writing essays could also like writing code. But I have a different question. Can that student become great at both? 

My name is Diva Harsoor, and I am a rising junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. This summer, I worked as a mobile development intern at FastDemocracy, a legislative tech start-up based in St. Louis. From the website fastdemocracy.com, users can track bills and collaborate on advocacy in both their home state and the US federal legislature. FastDemocracy offers users a slew of features free of cost, such as the ability to add hearings to their preferred web calendars, look through relevant tweets and news articles, and contact their legislators, all without leaving the app. By upgrading to FastDemocracy Professional, users can track legislation in states other than their own, access tools for analytics and collaboration, and receive instant alerts for hearings, actions, and any changes on tracked legislation. 

In the weeks leading up to my first day, I was terrified. I had never done web or mobile development before, nor had I had a real job in tech, with a real boss and real work. There was more riding on my programming abilities than just my grade. Was I up to the task? 

FastDemocracy CTO Anatolij Gelimson seemed to think so. Even when students were sent home and FastDemocracy’s T-Rex office space shut down due to the pandemic, he seemed confident that my internship would go well for all involved. 

My first major assignment, I thought I had just about proved him wrong. The feature, which allowed users to filter legislation based on various criteria, worked…technically. I had somehow chosen the toughest path there, and the result was complicated code with slow performance. Anatolij explained some design principles to me and gave me a few pointers on writing better mobile code in general. Over the next few months, despair over my inexperience turned into excitement and confidence as my code improved, and the app came into clearer focus every day.

One day, while implementing the feature that brings up relevant tweets, I noticed that one of the bills I was testing it on had inspired some particular fiery commentary. Reading tweets inside the iOS app simulator on my computer screen, I learned that Clean Missouri, a redistricting system that aims to draw Missouri’s gerrymandered districts more fairly, would be back on the ballot in November. Even though more than 60% of Missourians had already voted in support of it in 2018, threatened legislators hoped that this time it would somehow fail.

My boss had told me that FastDemocracy’s cross-platform app would be the first to allow users to track and engage with legislation in both their home state and the US federal legislature free of cost. Still, until that moment, I hadn’t fully appreciated what that meant. Although I would have considered myself well-informed about politics, I really didn’t know much about specific bills in Congress, and certainly not about the bills in my state’s legislature. This product democratizes legislative information, promoting local advocacy to a new generation.

On whether it’s possible to be both a Pulitzer-winning journalist and a programmer who can hack the mainframe (whatever that means), the jury is still out. But to the question of whether it is possible to engage deeply and meaningfully with both the social sciences and STEM, FastDemocracy has helped me find an answer: most certainly.

Note: A previous version of this post had incorrect information about Missouri Amendment 2, Medicaid Expansion Initiative. It has since been removed.