During the past two years, D-CENT (Decentralised Citizens ENgagement Technologies) has been helping movements, cities, and political parties to build technologies, methods and tools that can make the democratic system more in-sync with collective aspirations of the 21st century.

To showcase and celebrate the results of the D-CENT project a week-long programme of activity is taking place from the 23-28 May in Madrid, Spain.

The Democratic Cities – Commons technology and the right to a democratic city is divided into Democracy Lab (Media-Lab Prado, 23-27 May) and International Conference (Museo Reina Sofia 27-28 May).

Full details at democratic-cities.cc

#DCENTMadrid #DemocraticCities

Net futures 2016 aims to maximize competitiveness of the European technology industry. On the 20-21 April, it gathers over 1.000 attendees in Brussels. On the first day of the conference, at 14:30-16:00, D-CENT coordinator Francesca Bria presents at workshop titled “Sharing economy”.

Net futures drives growth in the digital single market. The conference forms an interconnected community involving companies, organizations and people in Research & Innovation, Market Validation & Living Lab Research, Business Development, Entrepreneurship & Enterprise Strategy and Policy Making.

Programme: http://netfutures2016.eu/programme

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/net-futures-2016-tickets-21405618782

Plenary speakers

• Commissioner Andrus Ansip
  Vice-President for the Digital Single Market
• Commissioner Günther Oettinger
  Commissioner for Digital Economy & Society
• Roberto Viola
  Director General DG CONNECT, European Commission
• Mário Campolargo
  Director “Net Futures” – DG CONNECT at European Commission
• Karen Boers
  Co-founder & managing director of Startups.be

Sharing economy 20 April

On the 20th of April at 14:30-16:00, D-CENT coordinator Francesca Bria presents at workshop titled “Sharing economy”.

Our current era of ‘prosumerism’ is characterized by two visible trends. On the one hand, corporations such as Google, Uber or Facebook are capturing the value created by the actors contributing to the collaborative economy, in a way that has been described by its critics as an exploitation of free labour.
On the other hand, decentralized projects such as Wikipedia or GNU/Linux are based on contributions from individuals collaborating to a collective project that is not owned by any given entity but rather communitarian.

Workshop Speakers

Prof. Francesca Bria Imperial College London and Nesta
Dr Francesco Saverio Nucci, Engineering
Dr Mayo Fuster Morell, Universidad Autonoma Barcelona
Dr Primavera de Filippi, Berkeley Centre for Internet & Society Harvard University
Dr Harry Halpin W3C & George Danezis UCL

View all speakers of Net futures 2016: http://netfutures2016.eu/speakers

Price 150€
Registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/net-futures-2016-tickets-21405618782

The Net futures 2016 conference is organised by the European Commission, DG Connect. http://netfutures2016.eu

Conference at 9.00–13.30
Workshops (by invitation only) at 15.00–17.00

Organised on the 18th of April 2016, in Rome, Italy, the Network democracy and new forms of citizen participation event will gather politicians, activists, researchers and academics, civil society organizations, developers and hackers to discuss the future of direct democracy and citizen participation.

It will explore innovative methods and digital tools to strengthen large scale citizen participation in the political process at European level. We will also debate public policies at the municipal, national and European level to transform democratic participation and promote transparency to fight corruption and concentration of power within public institutions.

The debate starts from the assumption that our political institutions are in dire need of being updated as they are out of sync with 21st century technologies, standards and collective aspirations of citizenship. Democratic institutions have not been able to respond and adapt to new instances of participation, transparency and proximity brought by big grassroots democratic movements. This is well represented by the emergence of new citizen-led political movements that are challenging the institutional landscape as Podemos and M5S and that are bringing the quetion of radical democracy and transparency at the core of the political debate.

The crisis of political representation and legitimacy of existing institutions, the ongoing corruption scandals that reveal the complicity of the major political parties with the private interest of banks and multinationals, and the disaffection of the public with respect to politics can be transformed by formulating new democratic practices that transfer power to the people and use new technology to revolutionize democracy.

The programme includes three panels:

• Network democracy and new citizen movements
• New forms of direct democracy and citizen participation in the Digital Age
• Opening the political institutions against corruption

In the afternoon, we run workshops that dive into digital platforms and tools for direct democracy;
and public policy, transparency and international networks for direct democracy.

The speakers include, among others, Luigi Di Maio (M5S, Vice President Chambers of Deputies Italy), Virginia Raggi (Candidata Sindaco M5S Roma), Alessandro Di Battista (Member of Italian chambers of deputies M5S), Bruno Kaufmann (Democracy International), Isabella Adinolfi (Member of European Parliament, M5S Europe), Yago Bermejo Abati (Labodemo Madrid and Decide Madrid, City of Madrid), Renata Avila (World Wide Web Foundation), and Miguel Ongil (Podemos).

From the D-CENT team, we have several people participating as well: Francesca Bria (Nesta), Arnau Monterde (Decidim Barcelona, City of Barcelona), Joonas Pekkanen (City of Helsinki, Forum Virium Helsinki), Birgitta Jónsdóttir (chairman of parliamentary party group Iceland, chairman of the board for IMMI), Denis “Jaromil” Roio (Dyne.org), and Guðjón Idir (IMMI, Your Priorities).

Detailed programme and registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/network-democracy-and-new-forms-of-citizen-participation-tickets-22887538243

The event is bi-lingual with simultaneus translation from English to Italian. It is organised by D-CENT in co-operation with the Five Star Movement in Italy.

Follow us: #democraziainrete

3 Dec 2015 — 20 Mar 2016

D-CENT is showcased at the Big Bang Data exhibition, Somerset House, London. The exhibition explores datafication through the work of artists, designers, journalists and visionaries. Through a data visualization by D-CENT partner Eurecat (Barcelona Media), we try to better understand how discussion build Collective Intelligence.

As the data explosion accelerates, Big Bang Data asks if we really understand our relationship with data, and explores the meaning and implications of data for our future. Read more about the artists.

At the D-CENT stand, visitors can find basic information about our principles and our tools. We also explore big data’s impact on politics. We offer an interactive and explorative web visualization of a proposal from Decide Madrid, an open consultation and direct democracy platform launched by the City Council of Madrid.

Screenshot of the Decide Madrid visualization

Decide Madrid is a platform that enables citizens to propose, debate, prioritize and implement policies for the city. The visualization is a way to better understand  how discussion build Collective Intelligence. The network shows the discussion thread of a popular proposal in Decide Madrid to forbid bullfighting. Nodes are comments who are linked according to the structure of the thread. The size of each node indicates the number of votes of that comment and the color is based on the ratio positive/negative votes.

Big Bang Data runs from 3 Dec 2015 — 20 Mar 2016

Open daily 10.00 – 18.00
£12.50/ £9.50 concessions

Read article from Creative Review:
Selfies, surveillance and infographics: Big Bang Data at Somerset House

In March 8th, an evening about Decentralizing Democracy is organised 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.

>> Registrate and buy ticket

Tickets € 7,50
Tickets at the door are € 10, there is a limited number of seats available at the door.
PIN payments only please.

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 Case Studies, including Jaromil (Freecoin), Marco Sachy (Currency designer), Pablo Aragon (collective deliberation), and Róbert Bjarnason (Your Priorities).
21:00 Dutch context panel, including Ahmed Aarad, Marleen Stikker (Waag Society), Mieke van Heeswijk (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 Society, D-CENT and ISOC Netherlands.

Wanneer:
dinsdag 08 maart 2016, 20.00 u. tot 22.00 u.

Waar:
Waag Society, Nieuwmarkt 4, 1012 CR Amsterdam

4 – 7 Mar 2016

As part of the International Open Data Day, a large Democracy Hackathon will be organised in Helsinki between 4-7 March 2016. The event joins together developers of new democracy enhancing tools and technologies. The weekend will start with a kick-off event on Friday 4th of March, following with hacking on Saturday and Sunday, and a wrap-up meeting on Monday 7th of March. 

Democracy Hackathon Helsinki explores opportunities to utilize open data to develop new, democracy enhancing tools. Helsinki Metropolitan area is one of the global pioneers in opening up public sector data and making municipal decision-making more transparent. This is due to initiatives like Hri.fi and award-winning open interface Open Ahjo, giving access to all municipal decisions made by the Helsinki city council.  Currently,  open data movement is growing stronger in the whole country.

On Friday 4th of March we will kick-off of the Democracy Hackathon Helsinki at the premises of the Finnish Parliament. The event will dive into open data and open democracy, with presentation from MP’s Sinuhe Wallinheimo and Jyrki Kasvi, journalist Esa Mäkinen, and D-CENT partner Joonas Pekkanen, among others.

During the weekend, we will work together to advance projects around open data and open democracy. The Friday’s kick-off is a chance for participants to present their projects to others, and get people to help develop their ideas further. By the end of the Hackathon, on Monday, we hope to see functional demos or applications that utilize open data, open standards and open interfaces to enhance democracy.

All Democracy Hackathon projects will be submitted here: https://hackdash.org/dashboards/demcrcyhck.

The Democracy Hackathon Helsinki is organised by the D-CENT project (Open Ministry and Forum Virium Helsinki), Finnish Parliament/Library of Parliament, Open Knowledge Finland, city of Helsinki/Executive office, Helsinki city library and Kirjastot.fi.

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/548681085292868

The EU-funded D-CENT project develops next generation tools for online democracy and participation. The service piloted in Finland enables participating citizens to follow the decision making process of the City of Helsinki. It gives a heads up when the city council or committee handles issues that they are interested in, for example; planned changes in their neighbourhood street or favourite dog park.

On the 2-3 March 2016, D-CENT  is organising a two-day workshop discussing a complementary distributed currency for Catalonia. The programme will consist of a conceptual workshop on the 2nd of March (16:00-19:00) and technical workshop on the 3rd of March (10:00-18:00). Welcome to our event in Barcelona!

D-CENT (Decentralised Citizens ENgagement Technologies) is a European project which brings together pioneering and transformative initiatives for democracy, and helps them to develop the next generation of open, decentralized, and privacy-aware tools, in order to develop network democracy and economic empowerment of citizens.

Under the project, the Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne, Nesta and Dyne have investigated the most significant experiences of alternative currencies and digital social currencies in Europe, in the light of the Bitcoin revolution. The result of the last two years working with the UOC and has been Freecoin Eurocat, a software to create complementary currencies chain technology blocks (blockchain). The pilot with social currency digital experiences will start in spring 2016, and blockchain technology to manage trust, reputation and community exchanges will be integrated as a service on the platform D-CENT.

The D-CENT Eurocat Freecoin Workshop begins on March 2nd with an informative session on the introduction to D-CENT and initial complementary currency Eurocat pilot, in order to inform interested parties on this initiative being developed in Catalonia: a mutual credit system backed by micro-P2P guarantees for social control of credit and for the SME sector, as well as municipalities and individuals.

The second day is an invitation to meet with other developers and designers involved in past, present and future complementary currencies in the context of Catalunya. In this meeting we want to define points of viable action the interoperability and synergy among active projects in the region, changing as little as possible what already exists, while imagining approaches to the integration of new tools and technologies blockchain Freecoin software, as actual needs arise.

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/una-moneda-complementaria-distribuida-per-a-catalunya-tickets-21304475259

(scroll the event down to read English version of the programme)

Programme:

Conceptual workshop 2nd March, 16.00-19.00
The objective of this session is to work with potential stakeholders the key aspects of the implementation of the project: sharing objectives, model, work done, and plans for the pilot project.

Introduction (David Laniado, D-CENT & Marti Olivella, Eurocat)
Benefits of a citizen means of payment (Hervé Falciani, Technical adviser, Eurocat)
Benefits of a complementary currency. The WIR. (Narcisse Niclass, WIR)
How it works? (Susana Martín Belmonte, Eurocat)
For companies (Jordi Griera, Eurocat)
For consumers and workers (Roger Brumwell, Eurocat)
For city councils (Felix Simón, Eurocat)
Call to participate in the pilot

Limited places: it is essential to have registered to attend.

Technical workshop 3rd March, 10.00-18.00
Blockchain Technology for complementary currencies and alternative payment systems

The objective of the workshop is to meet together with fellow developers and designers busy with past, present and future complementary currencies. Starting from a fact-based definition of user journeys we want to define feasible action points for interoperability and synergy between projects, changing as less as possible what is there, while envisioning approaches for the integration of new tools and blockchain technologies as actual needs arise.

The goal is to give developers and system managers a space for knowledge exchange and strategic planning. The plan of the current D-CENT development phase will be adjusted from the findings.

Facilitators: Denis “Jaromil” Rojo, Dyne.org/D-CENT project; Marco Sachy, Dyne.org/D-CENT project.

Morning program (10:00-12:50)
1h: Round of introduction of participants and organizations
10m: pause
1h: Overview of tools and functionalities in use for complementary currencies
10m: pause
30m: Challenges, wishes and problems to leave behind
12:50 to 14:30: lunch break

Afternoon program (14:30-18:00)
30m: Presentation of the EUROCAT concept
15m: Q&A
30m: Presentation of Freecoin toolkit
15m: Q&A
10m: Pause
1h: Round of future plans, commitments and participants statements
10m: Pause
1h: D-CENT development plan update
10m: Conclusion

Proyecto Eurocat: http://euro-cat.cat
D-CENT project: http://185.26.51.181/
FreeCoin: http://freecoin.ch

Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/una-moneda-complementaria-distribuida-per-a-catalunya-tickets-21304475259

(scroll down to read English version of the programme)