MAPLE Continues Growth, Adds First Executive Director

Boston – Three years after launching MAPLE, the Massachusetts Platform for Legislative Engagement, as a volunteer-driven endeavor, co-founder Matthew Victor is taking the helm full-time and stepping into a broader role. Victor has been named the first Executive Director of Digital Civic Infrastructure at Partners In Democracy, the division under which MAPLE now operates as the flagship project. 

MAPLE is a free public platform that helps users track legislation, submit and read testimony, access transcripts of legislative hearings, and learn about and comment on statewide ballot measures. Built as a digital public square for state policymaking, MAPLE uses AI to translate complex bills into plain language, generate summaries and transcripts, and surface relevant testimony — making the legislative process more accessible to grassroots organizers, local leaders, journalists, and everyday residents.

Victor co-founded MAPLE along with data scientist Nathan Sanders while working as a technology and corporate lawyer. It was originally launched in 2023 with support from Northeastern University School of Law’s NuLawLab, Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, Boston University’s SPARK program, and volunteer developers from Code for Boston. Until now, the project has relied almost exclusively on volunteers, from leadership to coding. Over one hundred software developers have contributed to MAPLE’s open source code repository. 

MAPLE’s tools, all freely available to the public, allow users to:

• Access the full text and AI-generated summaries for every bill introduced in the past five years; filter and sort the thousands of introduced bills using AI-generated keywords and advanced sorting criteria.
• Add testimony to MAPLE’s bill pages, either as an individual or an organization, with an option to email testimony to committee chairs and your own legislators.
• Track bills and other users, and receive updates as a bill moves through the legislature or when a user adds new testimony.
• Read and search AI-generated transcripts of legislative hearings. 
• Research and comment on the statewide referenda heading for November’s ballot. 

Victor’s role as the Executive Director of Digital Civic Infrastructure will center on its flagship project MAPLE, while expanding into the maturing ecosystem of deliberative and pro-social technologies.

 “I’m proud to devote myself full-time to this work that we started three years ago and has grown by leaps and bounds since. At a time of deep civic disconnection and growing policy complexity, we’re seeing more and more interest from people, nonprofits, and foundations in using innovative technology to expand public access, information, and engagement,” said Matthew Victor, Co-Founder of MAPLE. “Instead of one-way shouting into social media, residents deserve to engage productively in the civic decisions that most impact them — and public institutions need better tools to discern and respond to constituent voices.” 

In addition to his role with MAPLE, Victor holds a joint fellowship at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School.

Access to timely, comprehensive, and actionable legislative information is essential for a healthy democracy, yet this information is often siloed, inaccessible, or overwhelming for the public. In Massachusetts, grassroots organizations, unions, neighborhood groups, youth organizers, and advocacy coalitions struggle to track bills, coordinate testimony, and respond quickly to policy developments. On the other side, legislators themselves lack modern tools to understand the will and knowledge of their constituents, with input fragmented across emails, hearings, lobbyists, and social media.

MAPLE addresses both sides of this breakdown. The platform aims to increase access to legislative information and opportunities to contribute to the legislative process, engage a wider set of stakeholders and perspectives in policy-making, strengthen the relationships between constituents and legislators, and encourage common understanding and illuminate consensus. What sets MAPLE apart is its deep integration with how legislation actually moves — and how power is actually built. The platform is designed in close collaboration with real advocates and stakeholders, and intentionally supports the revitalization of fraying civic institutions like neighborhood associations, unions, and faith groups by giving them modern, purpose-built tools to organize, coordinate testimony, and track bills collectively.

“At a time when the internet is increasingly paywalled and siloed, this is a throwback – an organization made up of volunteer coders creating a new public good that’s incredibly valuable and available to everyone for free,” said Jerren Chang, President and CEO of Partners In Democracy. “This is only one step into a much wider world of how technology can upgrade the responsiveness and effectiveness of our democracy.”

Media Contact: press@partnersindemocracy.us

Back to Newsroom