PROFESSION: Bartender in Detroit, Michigan developing civic technology as a side project.

PROJECT GOAL: Built CIV.IQ to organize publicly available civic information and present it in an easy-to-understand way. Think of it like a phone book for democracy-your address is the key that unlocks information about who represents you at every level of government.

DEVELOPMENT APPROACH: Using modern development tools including AI assistance to build solutions that integrate government data sources into unified, accessible interfaces.

CIV.IQ - CIVIC INFORMATION UTILITY

A Progressive Web Application that helps people find their representatives and understand government data. Enter your address, get your representatives-federal and state-along with their voting records, campaign donors, and recent news. All the information is already public; CIV.IQ just organizes it in one place.

AUTHENTIC DATA ONLY: Everything comes from real government APIs. No made-up data, no estimates. Coverage includes all 39,495 ZIP codes mapped to congressional districts using Census boundaries, plus state legislature data for all 50 states and DC.

Data sources: Congress.gov API, Senate.gov XML, FEC.gov API, Census.gov API, Congress-Legislators YAML, OpenStates v3 API, NewsAPI + Google News RSS.

TECHNOLOGY STACK:

• Next.js 16.0.10 (App Router + Server Components)
• TypeScript 5.8.3 with Strict Mode
• Progressive Web App with Offline Functionality
• Redis Caching + SWR Background Revalidation
• Geometric Design System (8px grid, no shadows)
• Interactive District Maps (PMTiles Optimization)
• Campaign Finance Data with Industry Categorization
• State Legislature Coverage (OpenStates v3)
• 7,383 State Legislative District Maps
• News Integration with AI Deduplication
• 93 API Endpoints

Built CIV.IQ using Next.js 16.0.10 and TypeScript 5.8.3. The goal was to make government data accessible without sacrificing accuracy or performance.

DESIGN APPROACH: Geometric precision with an 8px grid system, 2px black borders replacing shadows, and a systematic color palette. The design stays out of the way and lets the information speak.

DATA ARCHITECTURE: All 39,495 ZIP codes are mapped to congressional districts using official Census TIGER/Line shapefiles. PMTiles optimization delivers 64MB vector tiles for efficient map rendering. State legislative districts (7,383 total) use the same approach via OpenStates.

WHAT YOU CAN LOOK UP: Federal representatives (House and Senate), state legislators, district boundaries, campaign finance records with donor industry breakdowns, voting records, committee assignments, recent news, and floor schedules.

FUTURE WORK: Interested in building similar tools that make public information more accessible-anything where the data exists but is hard for regular people to find and understand.