Young Innovator Nominee: Ben Krakow, Horizon Media

Why he is nominated: What if there was a match-making app that matched you with a political candidate that aligned with your values? Now there is! The current election is one of the most contentious in history, and the front runners are making more waves in the media than ever before. As a result, Americans are paying more attention to the election – and the candidates – than in any previous race. While many Americans may have chosen their preferred presidential candidate, millions of Americans are still undecided and need education and guidance.

One of our employees, Ben Krakow, had spent a tremendous amount of time researching candidates and wanted to help educate and inform the new generation of voters about politics, and help them to access candidate information in a quick, fun, and user-friendly way. Through our agency’s award-winning Dunes of Dreams competition, employees are invited to invoke the agency's entrepreneurial fiber by submitting their business plans and ideas for the chance to receive start-up funding and development resources – those selected by the agency leadership are then invited to participate in a five month start-up Incubator. Krakow and his friend Ben Atkins, a software engineer, submitted their idea to the Dunes of Dreams program and participated in the incubator to launch Voter.Guru.

Here’s how it works: VoterGuru tracks voting records and public statements of political candidates, and compares user inputs with politician records to find the closest ideological match. In addition to matching users with candidates, VoterGuru educates users on political topics by explaining the ideological spectrum, from "very liberal" to "very conservative," on specific issues, ranging from abortion laws, to education policy, to privacy and more.

With thousands of visits daily, the program has been a huge success and resulted in throngs of media coverage, including a segment on a local news program. "Ben's team is the triple threat: they've identified white space and the ability to solve for a real problem with a captive audience, they're incredibly bright and motivated, and they have created a scalable platform with many exciting opportunities," said Jeremy Shure, architect of and Director of the agency’s startup Incubator. "We are incredibly proud of the platform that Ben has created and excited for Ben and his team to bring VoterGuru to market," continued Shure. Visit www.voter.guru today to find your political match. See video here: http://www.weheartawards.com/horizon/voter-guru (Password: winning)

The Young Innovator Award celebrates excellence and innovation by young professionals. See the other nominees and their backgrounds and check back to learn who has won this prestigious honor from The Advertising Club of New York and Google, with support from The Drum.