After stints at the White House, Air Force Academy and Amazon, Nick Mastronardi set out to help the public sector make data-driven decisions and improve performance.

Nick Mastronardi had the realization while writing his dissertation about applying game theory to public finance. In game theory, each person’s outcome depends upon all the participants’ strategies and decisions. It was the fact that everyone wasn’t participating, Nick reasoned the outsized influence of the vocal few that made the public sector underperform. If someone could help officials harness the collective intelligence, it could improve local governments’ performance. Six years after finishing his Ph.D., in 2015, Nick co-founded Madison-based Polco to act on that realization. Its platform helps local governments engage residents, analyze data and measure and track their performance.

Midwest Moxie's executive producer is Audrey Nowakowski. She produced this episode. Subscribe to Midwest Moxie wherever you get your podcasts. And if you love Midwest Moxie as much as we do, help us out by posting a review.