We have previously covered the efforts of what could be JBI.

The Digital Town Hall collected ideas and spurred conversations to help Bowling Green prepare for growth over the next 25 years.

That dialog has inspired a new, nation wide survey.

Laura Rogers was there as organizers gathered in Bowling Green to explain the process.

There's a tremendous degree of commitment.

This is an opportunity to use technology to say, let's get opinions from everybody across the country.

That's reflective of the national mood, not just individual moods.

That opportunity is called We the People, a focus group of around 2500 Americans representing every congressional district in the United States.

We have, you know, a really great national conversation.

It's never happened before.

Five people from every congressional district.

Public opinion pollster Scott Rasmussen says the participants were chosen at random.

But we made sure that the overall national sample was representative in terms of gender, age, race, political party, education, all of the things that you would normally consider.

He was inspired by the work of Google's Jigsaw division on what could be GB wanting to use the same platform for a national conversation.

We're going to ask about America's future.

Just like Bowling Green's forward looking approach.

Launched in September.

Among the discussions first broad and open ended questions.

What does freedom mean to you?

We collected over a million words from people in terms of their views on freedom and equality.

Jigsaw takes those words and uses artificial intelligence to prompt more input.

And what in your own life experiences helped you get to that point?

Participants then get to see and react to what others had to say, with the goal of finding common ground.

When you begin to realize that, well, you know, you and I may start in different places, but we at least have some common ideals.

Then you can have a conversation, say we need more civil discourse.

As political divisions grow deeper, running a country and an open democracy is a difficult thing to do.

But it's things we have to do.

We have to get it right.

Congressman Brett Guthrie, pointing out the regional differences in America's 435 congressional districts.

Lawmakers elected to represent their constituents back at home.

So you get people in Queens, New York, people in Los Angeles, California, people.

And in the south central Kentucky people, Wyoming, that that everybody has different perspective.

You know, some places have wide open land, big spaces, and some people are in, you know, represent neighborhoods.

He's hopeful this initiative can get a better look at the consensus of the country as a whole.

The conversation will continue into 2026.

We're going to be talking about what is the American dream today.

It will lead to a final report for America's 250th birthday on July 4th of next year.

We're hopeful that when the tricentennial comes, even though I won't be around for it.

Historians then will reach back and be able to capture this snapshot of America at this point in time.

And that snapshot may show we have much more in common than we realize.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

Thank you Laura.

Insights from the first conversation will be released soon at We the People hyphen to five 0.org.

You can also learn more and sign up for updates on the website.