About us

Our company was founded on a simple premise: that we can create a better future and more peaceful world through Dialogue.

Banjo’s mission is:

To enhance consciousness, knowledge, and understanding in a moral, safe, and ethical way that benefits humanity.

To optimize learning for students and educators.

This mission fuels our passion to create world-class technology that facilitates respectful, active engagement, in the classroom and in communities.

Our Mission

G.R.E.A.T.

Our Values

The Banjo Pledge

The Banjo Pledge is an honor code, which all members are required to sign, that details the expectations of behavior for every member of the Banjo community.

The Banjo Principles

The Banjo Principles are a set of guidelines that outline what we believe as a company and a community.

Frequently Asked Questions

We at Banjo our optimistic about our future and believe that, working together, we can achieve a more harmonious future. Please take a look at our FAQ for more information on our company and reach out any time here. We’d love to hear from you!

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We believe that, due to a broken communication model, we are experiencing a world filled with fear, hate, and violence. Further, we believe that freedom of expression and viewpoint diversity are in danger, leading to sub-optimal learning environments. Lastly, we believe that a toxic online landscape has resulted in a severe mental health crisis, particularly among young people. We created Banjo to address these problems, through Dialogue.
The seeds of Banjo were planted in 2011, when our Founder Ken Allen sketched out the concept in response to a lack of Dialogue online. Ken has refined the idea for the past 15 years, and launched Banjo formally in 2024.
Over the past two years we have built a world-class team and world-class product. We are currently piloting our product with leading academic institutions and will make our product generally available this fall.
Banjo is a culture and mindset, represented by community, trust, respect, empathy, kindness, progress, and harmony.
Dialogue, like music, is all about bringing diverse voices together to sing in harmony. It also happens to be the favorite instrument of Ken Allen, Banjo’s Founder and CEO!
Banjo has a proprietary process and technology for conducting conversations online, which serves to maximize viewpoint diversity, respect, and civility.
Banjo is organized as a Public Benefit Corporation (“PBC”). A PBC is a for-profit legal entity that is required to balance shareholder profits with a defined public benefit, such as social, environmental, or educational goals. As such, we balance the objectives of all our stakeholders, including the Banjo community of users, employees, clients, partners, and investors.
We believe in the power of the human spirit to come together to do good in the world. We believe in freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, evidence and facts, critical thinking, learning, education, empathy, understanding, and the dignity and fundamental rights of all human beings. We believe in peace, and love, and that Dialogue can enhance both.

Meet our Founder

Ken Allen

Founder and CEO

Ken’s background spans nearly three decades in the technology industry, across entrepreneurship, consulting, and investment banking.

Ken became interested in technology at an early age, majoring in Electrical Engineering at Dartmouth College, during the early days of the Internet. Since then, Ken has seen several technology innovations, ranging from cloud, mobile, and social, to SaaS and now AR/VR, robotics, and AI. This broad perspective enables Ken to anticipate technological trends and capitalize on new opportunities.

Ken’s travels have led him to leadership roles at several world-class companies, including Blackstone, Bain & Company, The Parthenon Group (now EY-Parthenon), KPMG, PJT Partners, and Deutsche Bank. Over the course of his career, Ken has created or advised companies having over $40 billion in value.

Ken has always believed in the power of ideas and the good of people to create a better future. He has also always had a passion for Dialogue.Throughout his career, Ken has gravitated toward organizations where Dialogue was the part of the fabric of the institution.

Frustrated by what he saw as a lack of Dialogue online, Ken conceived of Banjo in 2011, and has been fine-tuning the idea for 15 years. The current depth and urgency of the problems Ken identified a decade and a half ago caused him to leave the corporate world in 2024 and focus on transforming Banjo from an idea to reality.

In addition to Dartmouth College, where he graduated with Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude honors, Ken attended the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where he received his MBA and graduated as a Tuck Scholar.

Ken lives outside of Boston with his two dogs, Castor and Bootes, and in his personal time enjoys listening to music and attending live music events, playing the Banjo, painting, exercising, and reading.

Dan Hirsch

Chief Technology Officer

Dan Hirsch is a seasoned technology executive and entrepreneur with more than 35 years of experience. Holding a Ph.D. in Computer Science, he has a proven track record in building software products and leading high-performance teams. He has been the CTO and founder of five startups, and has served as Fractional CTO, advisor, and mentor to several others.

Prior to his current roles, Dan held various leadership positions at Intel and McAfee, and was one of the founders of Intel’s Software Development Center in Argentina. Earlier in his career, he worked as a researcher, professor, and consultant, with roles at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), the University of Pisa, and Imperial College London.