Visions for the Future of Participation in City Planning
Participation in city planning can help to generate acceptance, especially if it builds on the collaboration of all relevant players. We talked to Sven Lohmeyer, a specialist in co-creative city planning at Urbanista, and Pascal Fuhr, Co-founder of the map-based participation tool Senf app about their experiences and visions for participatory city planning.
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Part of a Larger Transformation: The Consul Democracy Foundation
Founded in 2019, the Consul Democracy Foundation promotes the improvement of participative democracy worldwide using the open source digital platform Consul Democracy.
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Intelligence: Artificial, Collective, or Otherwise. Decidim Fest 2023
This year’s Decidim Fest took place as part of Barcelona’s European Capital of Democracy programme year. Members of the Meta Decidim community converged on the Canódrom to talk about the topic “Democracy, Technology and Artificial Collective Intelligence.” Read some of the highlights here.
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Learn To Lead Citizen Participation With New “Participate Practically” Course
Democracy Technologies is delighted to announce the launch of Participate Practically, an online course designed to help you plan, launch, administer and evaluate participation projects. The course is a collaboration between Democracy Technologies and our longstanding partners at Participation Factory. To mark the occasion, we sat down for a chat with their CEO Tomáš Rákos.
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Learning By Doing: A School of Participation is Being Launched in Germany
Interview | The School of Participation will teach theory and practice of participation using a hands-on approach. Its first academic year is due to commence in October 2024. We spoke to two of the school’s founders.
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“We Want More and Better Participation”
Interview | In Germany, a new professional association for citizen participation is being founded. Starting with a membership of around 400 people working in the field, they want to set quality standards for participation and influence government to change its mindset on participation.
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Building Consensus on Complex Issues
John Richardson is an Ashoka fellow, a lawyer, a mathematician and the founder of Ethelo, an online platform designed to help groups reach consensus. We spoke about the nature of consensus building, the value of often unexplored options and the possibility of a shared protocol, bringing together different democratic tools.
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Online and Electronic Voting Updates Across the Globe
Electronic and internet voting are making slow progress around the world, but there are no shortage of challenges. Even in established democracies, trust is hard won, and implementation is often attempted before the foundations have been fully secured. Here are a few of the ups and downs.
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Deep Fakes, Disinformation and Democratic Elections
Artificial Intelligence's ever-increasing sophistication (generative AI in particular) and the ability to create fake yet authentic-looking media is taking its toll on already strained electoral processes. Here’s a look at the role of disinformation and ‘deep fake’ content in a couple of elections. One recent. And one on the horizon.
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FIDE Event: The Deliberative Wave is Here to Stay
Head of Cabinet of the Vice President for Democracy & Demography at the European Commission, Colin Scicluna, put it simply, “We have adopted the deliberative approach”. He acknowledges that their experience with the Conference on the Future of Europe convinced the Commission to “trust in these types of processes” and has helped them realise the […]
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Leading the World in AI Regulation – Is the EU’s AI Act Up to the Challenge?
As the EU’s ambitious Artificial Intelligence Act gets the green light from the European Parliament, we take a closer look at what exactly it involves and reflect on some of the challenges it faces.
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What Can We Learn From The Civic Tech Field Guide?
The Civic Tech Field Guide is a catalogue of tools and resources covering the full breadth of 'tech for the common good'. For curator and co-founder Matt Stempeck, the journey behind it has fuelled a passion for all the projects out there getting good things done under difficult circumstances, and a deep appreciation for the positive role tech can play in democracy - if we're 'curious' enough.
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Winning Hearts, Minds, and Votes – A panel review
On May 11th, we hosted a panel that discussed how we can convince more people of participatory democracy. The panellists discussed the topic with a focus on positivity and practicality.
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‘Saving Democracy for Real’ – Panel Discussion
A panel of experts sat down recently at the Democracy Technology Convention in Poland, to tackle just this question and offer some solutions. The discussion benefited from the insights and expertise of EU Special Representative for Human Rights, Eamon Gilmore, Director of Transparencia Brazil, Juliana Sakai and Courteney Mukoyi, Founder of the Justice Code Foundation Trust. The problem, […]
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AI in Politics Panel Review – ‘Buyer Beware’
On May 12 we brought together two experts in artificial intelligence for a discussion. 'Can an AI ever replace a politician?' we asked, half joking. The question was a segue into a deeper conversation about AI in politics. The good. The bad. And the complicated. This was the result.
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