Hello! I’m Elsa. I grew up in Hong Kong, where speaking up to influence your community is not a right, but a privilege.

You can imagine what has become my obsession since I arrived in the US: volunteering in election campaigns, serving on student government, organizing my co­workers to have our ideas heard.

When I was driving an elderly woman in Ohio to vote on an election day, her oxygen tank suddenly stopped working. But she insisted that I take her to vote before the hospital. Luckily, someone at the polling place knew how to fix it, so she was fine.

I know exactly why Rochelle risked her life that day. Because that’s the only day she has a voice. Sadly, that’s also the only day you, me, and most of us have a voice. The truth is, we all live in a democracy that’s not actually democratic. It’s a yuge pain point.

As a millennial, I turn to technology to see what solutions are out there. Social media as we know it has only given us the illusion of a voice, when in fact, it’s just noise. As anybody can broadcast to everybody, we end up trudging through a mosh pit of cat videos, 140­ character political manifestos, and what your middle school friend had for brunch. We have lots of great ideas that deserve to be considered, yet most of them never see the light of day.

That’s why I founded Agora, where we can have conversations that matter, with people who matter. Our mission is to flatten the way we, as voters, employees, or consumers, interact with stakeholders in our communities — one idea at a time.