A new European-wide project launches which will build decentralized and privacy-aware tools for democratic participation to empower European citizens.
The initiative, D-CENT (Decentralised Citizens ENgagement Technologies), backed by the European Commission, will see the development of new open source, decentralized and privacy-aware digital tools and applications for direct democratic and economic empowerment.
D-CENT is talking to Fabrizio Sestini, scientific officer working with the European Commission since 1997. Currently Sestini works with the unit “Net Innovation” of DG CONNECT. What he thinks about D-CENT?
Sestini was one of the keynote speakers in our launch event Democracy reboot: Re-imagining democracy and currency in Europe.
D-CENT is talking to Stacy Herbert, the co-host of Keiser Report, a financial program broadcast on Russian state media channel RT. What she has to say about digital currencies and D-CENT?
Herbert was one of the panelists at our launch event Democracy reboot: Re-imagining democracy and currency in Europe.
The D-CENT team was on location in Helsinki in the first week of March. The objective was to understand the Finnish context i.e. what kind of issues are active citizens facing when trying to self-organize and coordinate actions. The days were packed with user interviews with people behind citizens initiatives, citizen activists, municipal politicians, members of parliament and civil servants from different ministries and the city of Helsinki.
“The big lesson we’re reflecting here is how to move away from democracy of permanent referendums, binary choices and mere petitions towards the question how do you build in deliberation, conversation and reflection to every step of the democratic process.” – Geoff Mulgan, Nesta CEO
Around a hundred high-level policy makers, academics, activists, communities and hackers attended the D-CENT launch event “Democracy reboot: Re-imagining democracy and currency in Europe” to discuss direct democracy and digital currencies. The event, organized at the 14th of March 2014 in London, launched the project to a wider audience. Read more +
D-CENT website will publish in the public domain all relevant project results, code, and updates as we go along and progress with our project. Follow us via Twitter, Vimeo and Slideshare.
D-CENT builds on Europe’s largest experiments in direct democracy in Finland, Iceland and Spain. Since October 2013, we have organized pilot workshops in these three countries, talking to people and finding out their needs and requirements for future tools for digital democracy.
On the 8th – 14th of February D-CENT partners travelled to Barcelona, Spain, for a workshop organized by the partner University of Catalunya (UOC). The six-day session involved intensive meetings with local communities, drawing tech visions and sharing experiences.
On the 7th of January D-CENT partners from NESTA, W3C, ERCIM, Forum Virium Helsinki, Neo arrive to Iceland where IMMI and Citizen Foundation welcome them. Over the next 2-3 days the team held vision meetings, deliberated, coded and conducted user interviews.
