As the presidential election approaches, two students have created “Who thinks what”, an application, available on the App store and Android, which aims to encourage young people to form a political opinion for themselves.
The project was born from an idea of Maxime Dupuy and Matthieu Riff, Master 2 students from Skema Business School, in Lille, both “very attached to peaceful debate”, as Matthieu Riff explains to CNEWS.
Initially intended to encourage young people to express their opinion in general, the application currently focuses exclusively on the upcoming presidential election.
A major subject for the two political enthusiasts, who consider that the new generations “have less and less interest in politics”. “Young people no longer find each other, politics may be disconnected from their daily life,” says Matthieu Riff.
As a result, the application shares new press articles related to the political event every day in order to help young people to be informed.
The latter are also invited to share their point of view on a topical subject, updated every day.
A host of features
Beyond articles and polls, the application also presents a comparator of electoral programs. This functionality makes it possible to compare the candidates’ proposals on different themes (ecology, economy, or even France in the world).
The same number of proposals is then presented to the users in order to ensure total fairness.
“It’s important for us that people can compare the different measures on different topics in order to form a real opinion,” says Matthieu Riff.
As a bonus, the application organizes “the experts’ debate”, in partnership with Le Drenche, a free newspaper of debates issued in colleges and high schools, in which two specialists answer a question related to the presidential campaign.
After setting the context in writing, the experts, one in agreement with the subject, and one against, present their arguments, in order to inform and always allow users to form their opinion. “It’s important for young people to form an opinion, no matter what, as long as it is based on valid facts and arguments.”
Since its launch, “Who Thinks What?” already totals nearly 4,000 downloads.