Open Collective
Open Collective
Loading
End-of-Year 2023 Update
Published on December 26, 2023 by Matthew Victor

2023 was an exciting year for the MAPLE Collective! 

We launched our website - www.mapletestiomy.org - in April. Already, our platform has been used to submit over 400 pieces of public testimony to our archive and to state legislators. We have added new pages to our website, such as "Browse Testimony", and responded to feedback to tweak and improve functionality around "search" and "filter/sort".

Collaborations have been key to MAPLE, as we continue to strengthen our relationship with Code for Boston, which connects us with volunteers (we remain entirely volunteer-driven). We have also collaborated with Boston University's SPARK computer engineering program to do an exploratory project on how LLM/GPT technology can be used to summarize, contextualize and categorize pending legislation. We hope to finalize and implement our models in 2024. 

We have recently established our Advisory Board and Steering Committee, to guide the future operations and strategic direction of our Collective. 
 
To date, software licensing and server space are our key expenses, although we plan to increase our fundraising efforts in 2024 to support marketing and other efforts. 

We are excited to expand the functionality and impact of MAPLE next year.  We will focus on implementing our social layer, deploying LLM-driven features, and onboarding organizations and thought-leaders in Massachusetts. 

Cheers! 
Matt V