DDecentralised Citizen Engagement Technologies

Francesca Bria @francesca_bria

TTechnology for 21st century democracy

WWhat is Democracy in the XXI century?

•  How can we design together the new democratic institutions best suited to next generation democracy - open, experimental, and able to tap into collective intelligence of citizens?

•  What is the 21st century politics can help to engage millions of people currently disenfranchised, and to provide them with ways to directly influence ideas and decisions?

•  The new generation of digital natives has lost hope in the political system that seem no longer able to provide visions for the future. Big movements towards transparency and against corruption

PPodemos- The rise of Network Parties

Spanish socio-political context

2011 15M mobilization of empowered citizens (15M)

2012 New social ecosystem (Mareas)

2014 Institutional mobilization (EU elections)

2015 Institutional consolidation (Local elections)

55SM- online direct democracy

CCitizens Initiatives

CConstitutional Referendums

EEconomic Justice- participatory budgeting

60 ML Euros partecipatory budgeting Madrid

D-CENT…

•  …D-CENT builds on Europe’s largest experiments in direct democracy – the Open Ministry crowdsourcing site linked into parliament in Finland; the e-democracy website Better Reykjavik in Iceland; Podemos, the new bottom-up spanish political movement and the municipal citizen coalitions Barcelona en Comù and Ahora Madrid.

•  help social movements developing next generation of of public,

federated, privacy-aware architectures and tools for direct democracy and economic empowerment

•  …grows long-term alternatives to today’s highly centralised

platforms and power structures and promote …provide a positive vision of collective intelligence in democracy in the XXI century

What does D-CENT do?

The D-CENT tools enable citizens to be informed and get real-time notifications about issues that matter to them; propose and draft solutions and policy colla-boratively; decide and vote on solutions and collective municipal budgeting; and finally implement and reward people with blockchain reward schemes.

An Ecosystem of open source democracy tools: for movements, Cities, political parties, Parliaments

D-CENT tools in action

•  Barcelona: Participation platform https://barcelonaencomu.cat/ca

•  Reykjavik: Participatory budgeting platform http://reykjavik.is/betrihverfi

•  Helsinki: Tracking municipal policy decisions, taking action https://decisions.dcentproject.eu

•  Madrid: Open consultation and direct democracy platform https://decide.madrid.es

Why use D-CENT?

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 610349.