Increased youth participation through technology

Gunnar Grímsson - Robert Bjarnason - citizens.is

Istanbul May 2014

Citizens Foundation Vision

We believe that citizens need a strong voice

in policymaking, formal participation

in the political process with a persistent and

binding influence on the big issues.

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Our work, 2008 - 2014

Your Priorities

● Give people real influence● Find the best ideas to better your community and

the best arguments for and against those ideas

● Allow large groups to speak with one voice and organise with ideas

● Open source eDemocracy softwarecitizens.is

Your Priorities highlights

● 500.000 unique visitors since 2008, over 250.000 in 2013

● Used in Estonia, UK, Iceland and elsewhere● Your Priorities scales well, is easy to translate

and adapts easily to different scenarios

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Users can

● Submit their ideas

● Support or oppose ideas and points

● Debate ideas with points for and against

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Prioritization and debate

● The best ideas are chosen by the participants● Help others with your debate points and become better

informed yourself in the process

● All ideas and best points for and against them are visible at a glance

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Don’t argue, debate!

● Points for and against are in different columns

○ It’s hard to argue across columns

○ This encourages rational debate

○ And helps facilitate consensus

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Better Alamance

Better Reykjavík

● Born out of the 2008 economic crisis

● Non-partisan citizens initiative● Opened a week before the local elections in Reykjavik

● Over 40% of voters participated

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Better Reykjavík

● Formal collaboration with the city of Reykjavík started in October 2011

● 15 top ideas are processed by the city every month, some are accepted, some denied

● Connects citizens and their representatives and gives them influence on decision-making

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Statistics

● Over 70.000 people have participated out of a population of 120.000

● 12.000 registered users have submitted over 3,300 ideas and over 5,500 points for and against

● 476 ideas have been approved by the city of Reykjavík

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Interview with Kolla - 9 years old

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Better Neighborhoods budgeting

● Participatory budgeting to improve Reykjavik city● Each voter has the same budget amount as the total

and has to choose which projects matter most to him

● Our voting interface helps citizens understand the realities of budgeting

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Screenshot from authentication

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Screenshot from authentication

● A screenshot with a few projects chosen and some grayed out

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● Needs photos from executed projects, collage

in one slide

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NHS - United Kingdom

● National Health Service is using Your Priorities to connect with its customers

● Ideas which generate the most online discussion or have the biggest national significance will be further processed by the NHS board

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Rahvakogu - Estonian reforms

● After political scandals in Estonia in 2012, grassroots organisations with official ties lead a law reform project

● Ideas were gathered through Your Priorities that was installed and modified by Estonians

● Over 50.000 people took part and submitted over 2000 proposals

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From Your Priorities to new laws

● The president of Estonia presented the top 18 ideas to the parliament

● As of March 2014, two of the ideas have been adopted as Estonian law○ Better support for small political parties

○ 1000 citizens can now send issues to the parliament which must process them

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You can make a difference

● We are looking for local partners everywhere○ Activists, researchers, volunteers, you?

● If you want to improve democracy then we want to work with you

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Democracy challenges

Participation and influence

● Less voting, especially young people● Media and big money can have a big influence on outcome

of elections and referendums

● Over emphasis on voting, the yes/no process● Globalisation has removed much power

from politicians and the peoplecitizens.is

Different types of participation

● Many don’t believe that traditional voting has much effect on society

● Participation outside of traditional democratic channels○ Protesting, working with NGOs,

on-line activism, volunteeringcitizens.is

Without participation there is no democracy

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What is electronic democracy?

● Traditional democracy taken online○ Same basics mostly apply but a lot of the specifics

are very different with new possibilities

● A new way to connect people together to participate in democracy, politics and civic life

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Why electronic democracy?

● Our best hope for increasing general democratic participation

● It’s easy to take part

● Young people are more likely to participate

● Our life has moved online in many ways, so democracy will follow

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Citizens need empowerment

● We must provide tools that will help people to override their apathy and start making real and lasting changes

● Citizens must be able to meet up, prioritize, plan and carry through their most important issues

● The process must be easy and intuitive for everyone

● This is Active Citizen

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Active Citizen is three things

● Personal Artificial Intelligence for citizens that helps you participate well with little time spent

● Powerful democracy software that can be accessed on all devices, from voice control to 3D

● Events and protests that merge offline with online and combine the best features from each

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We are being monitored

● Everything we do online is collected as data● This data is used by big corporations and governments

to predict our behaviour and control what we see online

● We can not stop them but we can use similar methods to regain our control

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Active Citizen, your AI friend

● Gives citizens access to powerful artificial intelligence which looks after their democratic interests online

● Your AI democracy friend learns about your interests, needs and opinions○ Shows you what you want and need to see

● Increases participation by making it really easy and also reduces time spent

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The protests problem

● Real life protests do not leave much behind after the event

● There is little evolution of ideas and vision after the protests

● Unfocused protests about many issues are not effective

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Online actions have problems

● Actions have little impact on offline world● You don’t meet the other people and there is

little solidarity amongst participants● People participate momentarily and then forget

● Participation numbers are valued much less than real life meetings

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Active Citizen 3D

● Brings people together in real time virtual environments

● 3D universes of ideas that cluster together in content and context sensitive patterns

● Groups share environments to create multimedia presentations for ideas

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● Backup screenshot of 3D

● 3 people protesting

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● Backup screenshot of 3D

● 3 people protesting

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Active Citizen Real Events

● One click presence○ 1.000 real life people and 100.000

online in a protest are hard to ignore

● Live data feeds between online and offline worlds

● Collect opinions, ideas and solutions○ AI data retrieval, processing and presentation○ Input, feedback and rating from participants

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Active Citizen - Why?

● Increase youth participation by merging e-democracy with gaming elements and artificial intelligence

● Scalable UI from voice control to mobile to accessiblewith HTML5 and 3D virtual reality at the top end

● For us, the people, to have the data and tools we need to control our own lives

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Thank you

Róbert Bjarnason - robert@citizens.isGunnar Grímsson - gunnar@citizens.is