Matt Pietryszyn: Asking Better Questions of Our Cities

When Matt Pietryszyn pitched a bold new idea to his municipal innovation team, he thought he had something that could change how people interact with their cities. Voice technology, he argued, could turn smart speakers like Alexa into a bridge between citizens and their local governments. The response?

They passed.

“I didn’t get that immediate validation I was hoping for,” Matt says. “It set me back a little.”

Most of us would stop there. But Matt didn’t. Instead of shelving the idea, he went quiet—intentionally. He kept building, prototyping, learning. Eventually, he launched Query (styled Qwhery), a startup that allows anyone to ask their smart speaker things like “When is garbage day?” or “What’s the zoning on my property?” and get real answers—straight from their city’s open data.

“If you’re a taxpayer, then open data is your data,” Matt explains. “Governments are releasing it so you can use it… and if they’re not, you should be asking your community why not.”

Matt’s work sits at the intersection of GIS (Geographic Information Systems), smart home technology, and user-centered design. His goal is simple: eliminate the friction between the data cities already publish and the people who need it.

“You don’t need to know anything about GIS or mapping,” he says. “We’re just putting authoritative city data in front of people, in the apps and devices they already use every day.”

But it wasn’t always clear this path would work.

Originally trained in TV and media production, Matt stumbled into the geospatial world through an interest in maps and web design. He noticed early on how clunky and inaccessible government data could be—and he wanted to fix that.

“I saw a gap between the graphic design elements of cartography and the analytics of GIS,”

That gap became his mission.

Still, starting a business from scratch is lonely work. “You don’t always have cheerleaders keeping you motivated,” Matt says. He sought out a mentor—someone who had successfully launched a geospatial startup. That support helped him build what’s now known as the Query Cloud: a platform that connects city data to Google Assistant and Alexa.

The journey took time, doubt, and a lot of hard lessons. “Eventually I realized I needed a partner,” Matt says. “Someone to confide in, bounce ideas off, and share the duties of running a business. I had to acknowledge my weaknesses.” Today, that humility has helped him build not just a product, but a company built on trust, purpose, and collaboration.

For cities overwhelmed by call volumes and residents frustrated by hard-to-navigate websites, Query is offering something new: a conversation.

“There’s a saying in the open data world,” Matt reflects. “Put the data where people’s eyes are. We’re going one step further—we’re putting the data where their questions are.”