On March 8th, we are organizing an evening about Decentralizing Democracy at the Theatrum Anatomicum of the Waag, with as special guest: writer and researcher Evgeny Morozov.
"How can we think of ways in which we can use digital technologies to promote values like solidarity and collaboration, but do it on terms that are not preset by Silicon Valley? How can we develop a way of collaborating and using technologies to promote public good, and unlock the potential that many local communities have?" — Evgeny Morozov, writer & D-Cent
Representative democracy has been around for ages, and its basic practices have not changed much. But with the advancement of the Internet, new ways of public participation in government and decision-making have become possible. New practices need new tools and clear thinking. This is what we will explore in this event by highlighting the philosophy, goals and outcomes of a very interesting European project: D-CENT.
D-CENT (Decentralised Citizens ENgagement Technologies) brings together citizen-led organizations that have transformed democracy in the past years, and helps them to develop the next generation of open source, distributed, and privacy-aware tools for direct democracy and economic empowerment.
D-CENT tools allow people to discuss and share content, engage in mass scale deliberation and collaborative policymaking, and voting. So far, it has developed tools for collaborative policy making, setting citizen priorities and assisting in participatory budgeting; open authentication and identity management, and open Blockchain reward schemes. D-CENT runs large-scale pilots in Spain, Finland and Iceland to develop and test the tools in practice. Some of them will be discussed tonight.
Video registration of this event
Programme
19:45 Doors open
20:00 Start & welcome by Frank Kresin
20:05 D-CENT introduction by Francesca Bria
20:25 Q&A
20:30 D-CENT Tools: Jaromil (Dyne.org) and Natalie Eskinazi (ThoughtWorks).
21:00 Dutch context panel, including Ahmed Aarad, Marleen Stikker (Waag), Mieke van Heeswijk (SIDn fonds, Netwerk Democratie, ISOC.nl), Paul Suijkerbuijk (BZK, The Green Land), and ReindeR Rustema (Petities.nl).
21:30 Future Perspectives by Evgeny Morozov
21:50 Concluding remarks
22:00 Drinks
This evening is a collaboration between Waag, D-CENT and ISOC Netherlands.
