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 - [email protected] Grímsson - [email protected]