Digital Institutions and the City

Talks

Speaker:

Ezio Manzini (Professor, DESIS Network, University of the Arts, London, Politecnico di Milano)

Key insights / quotes:

“If we are no promoting relational goods, we are not in the right rack.” Ezio “Our society is de-skilling us in collaboration” - Ezio The “recipe” to reach a goal via collaboration is: Trust Share the same views Share the vision Speak the same language -> this is how you can evaluate innovations

We need to renew the traditional neoliberal model Bottom-up, top-down -> necessary dialogue

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Speaker:

Mara Balestrini (Partner and Director of Research, Ideas for Change)

Key insights / quotes:

The smart city 1.0 Falls to deliver value (true value) to society Is not inclusive Relies heavily on proprietary assets (not open source) Does not represent citizens

Citizens driven initiatives have one thing in common: they recognize the citizen’s right to contribute to their cities while in the traditional smart city, in the citizens is just a user.

While smart cities 1.0 are about managing scarcity of resources, 2.0 smart cities are about understanding how to create abundance, and creating commons. -> good examples: Co-City Bologna, Fab City Amsterdam, Bristol

[Watch the video]((https://youtu.be/VuEimTuNh5c?list=PL8Bt3EbdmpKNyYmGOZXS2qmc2_D4sGL63)

Speaker:

Lee Bryant (Director, Post*Shift)

Key insights / quotes:

Very old companies tended to nurture their ecosystem We built castles, barriers to entry, hierarchy If bureaucracy was the platform, what is the platform for the future?

There is a material shift to do from the virtual world to the impact real world What might be the keys of the 21th organizations ? :

  • Network

  • Service oriented (P2P services oriented relationships)

  • Platform based (cf. article), linked system play

  • Self managed (big threat : mid management), real time data

  • Cyber-organisation (happy relationship between humans and machine, creating environment with human instinct)

  • Sentient (because we are connected through social media, we are sentient but not using that today)

  • Self awareness (what make healthier organization )

  • Agile & responsive (predict the future and manage), sent and respond, flex & adapt

  • Geolocalized (based in a community or place but with global scale)

If we can explore these models, we need to be conscious but we need to start thinking in term of an operating system

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Speaker:

Xavier Damman (Contributor, Open Collective)

Key insights / quotes:

We need to experiment with ourselves

No feedback loop : no reality check 91% french don’t trust institutional system > demonstration for decades > doesn’t work > we need to learn to accept reality and to change now ! : “Accept reality as it is, not as you’d like it to be”

A community want to collect money for a common project > need a bank account > need a legal structure (welcome in 21th century) People get together > can’t finance those movements (PODEMOS was able to do that > that changed the game: in 2 years they went from nothing to the 2nd biggest political party)

Create a collective and fund it > don’t ask permission to start creating a structure, using existing organization as an umbrella and virtual organization (like webserver)

“Wherever you are, whatever you do : unite” Give you community the means to be successful

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Speaker:

Flore Berlingen (Connector @OuiShare, Directrice @ZeroWasteFrance)

Key insights / quotes:

PHASES:

  1. Throws -> 2. truck-> 3. what happens afterwards

The big problem: what happens truck->what happens afterwards

a/ Landfills, environmental problems. 
b/If not, it goes to incinerators, toxic residuo &clinker

“what is waste if not resources wasted”

Resource-Energy-Resources-Energy -> loop.

Zero Waste, is about…

Redesign Reduce Reuse Recycle Composting

If we cannot reduce, reuse or recycle a product, we should not be making it

Examples:

Rethink: Fairphone Reduce: 0 packaging shops Reuse: deposit systems (pfund) Before its recycled it can be reused Recycle: sorting & separating Composting; also in urban areas

Examples: Treviso , italy Hernani: Pais Vasco. Before 70% of their waste to landfills, now 70% composting

In these examples: cooperating & collaborating dynamics are being used.

Recology: monopoly controlled by citizens

Transition towns VS Zero Waste Cities

both of them..

Inclusion: we need everyone on board Positive appeal: make it desirable for people to join You need an action plan to get people be involved on the long term.

Zero Waste Festival. 30jun,1,2,july.

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Speaker:

Duncan McLaren (Director, mclaren environmental)

Key insights / quotes:

The way change happens: subversive

If sharing is promoted as a guiding purpose by cities it can be a powerful tool for change

With uber, all of these-> economic drivers. Intermediaries in sharing need not only to be corporations or online.

Sharing paradigm: we recognize the twin pressures towards commercialization and intermediation and we engage with the risks that they engender.

Comparing: Smart sharing cities // Social cities: Smart Cities treating citizens as consumers, social cities: sharing

2 Competing Discurses

Smart City: economy comes first. society & environment later Social City: healthy economy depends on having a healthy society. healthy society depends on the environment.

The ideal city model: where society, environment matters are at least as important as economic matters

“We treat sharing as relational, not as transactional”

Sharing challenges consumerism by changing norms, shifting identities and normalizing counter cultures

Sharing technologies & funding techniques also fuel political disruption: Syriza, we are the 99%

the genuine city should be….

Proactive Designed for justice and inclusion Provide access to all as a sharing hub Should experiment with regulation and incentives Need to engage with infrastructures Need to share the power their have themselves with democratic models

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Speaker:

Kaspar Korjus (e-Residency Programme Director, Government of Estonia)

Key insights / quotes:

Why become people e-residents?

  • give access to financial tools (for example crowdfunding sites, credit cards etc.) and services that are not available in ones country.

After e-residency they can digitally be part of a country’s economy and work where they want.

Launched 1 year ago (after 17 years of development) - 10’000 estonian e-residents from 127 countries and 1000 companies. By July, e-residents will be able to open a bank account online -> this will drastically change things.

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Speaker:

Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof (Founder, BITNATION)

Key insights / quotes:

The Nation State, as we know it, is going away. It’s an outdated construct that does more harm than good, because of its ‘one-size-fits-all’ modality. How do we ensure that the post-nation state reality doesn’t turn into an even more dystopian society, a la 1984? By creating open source protocols for city states and virtual nations, we will build a free and competitive market for governance. Indeed, two already existing models will be discussed, Liberland and Bitnation.

What does a governement do? / What do we want from the government? Government is a matrix, illusion, no need to have one. BUT: what we need is governmental services. -> create own “nation” (physical or virtual)

“What is democracy? I think democracy is the biggest scam in modern history.”

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Speaker:

Herve Falciani (GRC Advisor, FALCIANI)

Key insights / quotes:

Each time we pay with a credit card we are charged 3-5 percent. Billions of euros reach hands that shouldn't have this money, governments can't do anything to stop it because of European law, so it is up to us.

This is our chance. If we don't take it over on a community level, it will all stay in the hands of the multinationals.

3 key insights / quotes: Fair payment system -> avoid monopoly -> will rely on peer-to-peer-technology, on blockchain.

Fairpay: bottom-up, local payment system, autonomous, offering the ability to interconnect between the community.

Idea: divide existing systems and set up new local systems.

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Conversations

Speaker:

Guillaume Lavoie (City Councillor, City of Montreal - Canada), Patrick Ropert (CEO, SNCF Gares & Connexion)

Moderator: Mara Balestrini (Partner and Director of Research, Ideas for Change)

Key insights / quotes:

-Guillaume Lavoie : Our cities should be concerned with mobility as an objective. How do i move people around with lower carbon footprint plus in a way that is faster, cheaper, easier, independently if it is with bike share, car, bus or metro.

-Patrick Ropert : one important issue regarding big cities : mobility and space in the city. invent new ways of big system for large flows of people.

-Guillaume Lavoie : importance of Pricing for better behavior. Data as a significant and valuable asset. Data to help informed decisions on mobility. Policy not field by data is done in a blind.

-Patrick Ropert : Data belongs to the city we work with, our job is to help them use it in the best way.

-GL : 2 Examples of cities : San Francisco did not have transit available, so Google provided for their complex. After that the city regulated the use of public space by those transits. And Seoul for car sharing services - there were 5 companies, government defined that the keys should be the same to use all of the, so they would be user friendly. People would take the one that is closest. Plus they stated that an additional number should be electric every year.

-PR : we invested in start-ups as a good way to bring innovation to the company. We believe on the importance of open innovation.

-GL : Innovation needs to be disruptive.

-PR : We need urbanists.

-GL : the city I envision is based on sharing practice and principles. It is more productive, sustainable and entrepreneurial. And that goes from by-laws to actually building the city, to policy, mobility and usages.

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Panels

Speakers:

Fabrice Epelboin (Co-founder Yogosha, Teacher, Sciences Po. Paris), Saru Jayaraman (Co-Founder and Co-Director, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, professeur), Matthieu Leventis (Cofounder, Mangrove), Laetitia Vitaud (Speaker / Writer, Switch Collective)

Name of Moderator: Arthur de Grave (Core connector, magazine editor at OuiShare)

Key insights / quotes:

2-3 key questions:

The reasons why we lose solidarities and how can we build it?

Why do we wonder about this question? What has happened?

Public : We need to have an inclusive social system, not only focused on employed. ..there are so much money today than before, if we have a printing system for money, how much this (money system) is worth?

Public : The poor lost the war, but the problem is not to fight again the system but the problem is building a new paradigm? .. yes there is no point to fight the system. If you want to do something you have to do something else.

SJ : We are winning definitely. 9.6$/h for some workers, better than the minimum wage in France.

3-5 key insights (specify which speaker said it):

LV : The paradigm of 20th century of mass production does not fit with solidarity All these european countries with powerful institutions have protected people (assurance, unemployment, retirement). And these institutions have not evolved with our society. This paradigm is not anymore our. The old institutions are disintegrating slowly.

ML : Another kind of solution we have lost, it is the solidarity between colleagues, workers. More and more people are not happy at work because they have no meaning in what they are doing. We feel there is a true solidarity. There exist a new way of working !

SJ : At least in US they have long way issues with solidarity, there have always been issues with solidarity. This is going back to a historical issue. The idea that workers could be paid nothing. What happening with SE exists in other areas, it reflects existing problems in the world.

FE : Basically the income is related to solve the puzzle in a way and it creates huge inequalities. Income inequality is not an issue. There are some really strong values within the community of hackers. Most of the hacker community fight for something. There are some extreme solidarity and extreme competition, open source. It creates communities hard to understand. Mixture of solidarity and individualism. The access to knowledge is enabled by anyone. Your chances at succeeding do not belong to where you come from, your education etc.

SJ : In poor environnement, solidarity does not work. All these new companies are leaving the old model, multiple corporations are walking away. Looking at Uber, maybe you think it is a successful model at the moment but we don’t see those who do not succeed in this model. We don’t need a successful but a sustainable model !

LV : Is the lack of solidarity is the reason why people come to you?

A lot of unconventional worker come to us. It is not only a question of revenue, but worker are facing risk that are not covered for them. Risk include health, housing. A lot of freelancers today (no salary workers), do not accede to an accommodation we need new form of solidarity.

ML: what can you address with Mangrove? I Mangrove, we provide well being for workers. In mangrove we have a framework of trust. Each week, everyday worker talk with “his buddy”.

FE: There is nothing you can do to preserve French democracy is well twisted

SJ : We can’t ignore that US work We need the state to be involved, we need policy.

LV : one thing our community can do is to raise the awareness.

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Speakers:

Ahmad Sufian Bayram (Founder & CEO, Arabshare), Stéphane de Freitas (CEO, Indigo), Anne Riechert (Founder and managing director, ReDI School of Digital Integration), Ben Webster (Founder, Jamiya)

Moderator: Ezio Manzini (Professor, DESIS Network, University of the Arts, London, Politecnico di Milano)

Key insights / quotes:

2-3 key questions:

There is the issue to connect people really diverse and this apply to migrants, collaborative activities could be a good way to apply this practice.

Even how what we are doing is building up this situation?

Public question :

When you talk about, migrants are twice likely to start a business, what is it? ASB : There is no question about background asked on these people but the age..this is one of the problem we are facing. They are really isolated on the camp. We need to bring these people together. AR: It is really hard to concentrate if you live with 600 people so they need space to work, to think.

What about the segregation issues? More inclusion narrative? SDF : An example : we went to greece and they find alternatives. People have the will to share with their skills.

Is there a role for microfinance? BW : in this context, I don’t know. AR: the problem is to have a visa and a job, an identity. In Germany, it is really hard for instance.

Do you work that the mass media change? Because when we look at the media, migration has a quite negative impact. SDF : there is new project, we don’t have to wait from the state we also have the power to change the vision and the media will follow. AR: the thing is media are politicized, either for or against. ASB: from a syrian perspective, the majorities

How are you working with the media to keep those goods stories? AR : the best media are the local ones. The ones I respected before did change the story and narrative I said to them. SDF : of course it is good to have foundings, good image but we have to be careful with them.

3-5 key insights (specify which speaker said it):

AR : what I have experienced is the amount of talents, resilience in the new comers. We need to have more conversations with refugees.

SDF: Few month ago we had first contact, it is really interesting to build a point a view. 82% of people arriving on borders are really aware of technology. We tried to include them into a project. There is a difference between what you imagine and the reality and how diverse it can be.

ASB: those people coming are professors, ingeniors. Why do we not collaborate with them? They have no choice but to succeed they take their chance. They are seeking for winning. There is a real potential.

BW : We need to change the narrative. If we invest on migrants we have a return twice more. There is social values as well to bring refugees to community.

EM : there is a common point of view, we should not imagine something special for the migrants but to open collaborativeness to reframe the issue about migrants. We could do something together. We have enough space for discussion, comments…

EM: endings words Migrants are composing the society in which we live. For some reasons the idea about sharing has been widely communicated. The ouishare fest is to connect diversity.

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Speaker:

Imandeep Kaur (Co - Founder / Director, Impact Hub Birmingham), Andreas Krueger, (Director content & urban development, Belius company & foundation), Lutz Leichsenring (Chief Visionary, young targets GmbH), Domenico Di Siena (co-founder, CivicWIse)

Moderator: Pedro Jardim (CEO, Coliga)

Key insights / quotes:

2-3 key questions:

What is the fine line between regeneration and gentrification? (Imandeep) How do you organize yourself as a viable structure to go talk with the government? (Pedro) Is it possible to instrumentalize all those positive initiatives into a usable guide for regeneration? (Pedro)

3-5 key insights (specify which speaker said it):

The people of Berlin empowered themselves to become a voice against the parliament to give them a place in the city space. (Andreas)

With gentrification and regeneration we always talk about public and private, but we forgot a new way to think about space: commons. How can we organize a better dialogue between public, private and common spaces to work on gentrifications (Domenico)

CIties often have empty spaces that could be used by positive initiatives, in Berlin it’s used well, but in Birmingham the space is often offered first to real estate agents that want to monetize it. No sustainable development there for the moment (Imandeep and Andreas)

Speaker:

Benedetta Brighenti (EU Committee of the Regions) Renato Galliano (City of Milan) Mayo Fuster Morell (BarCola/Dimmons.net) Patrick Robinson (Airbnb)

Albert Canigueral (OuiShare)

Key insights / quotes:

-QUESTION - when development become gentrification ?

Patrick Robinson : the answer is that we should promote more debate. Data is the new battleground for companies like ours and cities. Become more transparent and find more ways to provide more data publicly and privately to inform the debate. Governments can take decisions based on evidence and not emotions. House affordability, gentrification. Research helps decisions informed by facts rather than emotions. Migration, age, etc. we try not to have a confrontation attitude with governments.

Mayo Morell : in 2014, the European Commission recognized the ten more promosing experiences in collaborative economy, and 3 of them were based in en Barcelona. Decisions in collaborative economy should be taken collaborative and we are doing so throught the Group Barcola (Barcelona Colabora), to define the public policies for the next 4 years. Those policies are published online to be further discussed in a participatory way. We are also promoting public-commons partnerships (as opposed to public-private), in order to avoid prioritazing private interests.

Benedetta Brighenti : Important for politiciens to consider the historical dimensions of the city. To adapt to the changes brought by innovations of sharing economy is not always easy. The European Union is also going further on the discussions of Sharing Economy and we will held a meeting in Brussels with representatives from cities to discuss this topics.

Renato Galliano : City of Milan has a public register of the major players of sharing economy which is divided in two sections : 1) operators/players (big companies, SMEs, start-ups) and 2) experts (academia, consultancy). Inside the first group, there are very different actors and their targets are not the same. For big groups, the city needs to create rules and negotiate. For start-ups, the role of the city is to provide facilities to help them growing.

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Workshops

Facilitator:

Brhmie Balaram (Senior Researcher, The RSA)

Key insights / quotes:

Description of workshop format:

Papers are handed out with photos/labels, i.e. with Airbnb, Walmart, Uber, Ronald Reagan, Founders of FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Couchsurfing, etc. People are asked to discuss them together Everybody explains what he/she knows, then Brhmie gives details & background info

3-5 key learnings:

Many different short inputs in different topics, patterns trends and history in sharing economy.

Current state-based & self-regulatory approaches to governing the sharing economy are inadequate for ensuring that networked monopolies operate in he best interest of society.

We need a totally different approach -> less look at regulations as an inhibitor. We can see regulation as an enabler.

Greater support that governments are using towards alternative finance models -> steps towards sharing economy.

Interesting contributions?:

Depending on what vision of antitrust one has it can enable or hinder platforms.

We need to decide what regulations we want to facilitate

Any take-aways / next steps?:

Anti-trust legislation on it’s own isn’t a solution - we need to connection with wider base of campaigner & activists (i.e. in Occupy) to push for regulation of the finance and investment ecosystem. We need a different approach to regulation altogether, -> more enabler( i.e. incentivising the sort of businesses and initiatives we want to see thrive in the sharing economy), less inhibitor (i.e. red tape) Re-think regulatory solutions in sharing economy

Speakers:

Julien Bayou (Porte-parole, EELV) David Guez (Co-founder, LaPrimaire.org) Julie de Pimodan (Fondatrice et Fluicity, Fluicity) Léonore de Roquefeuil (CEO & co-founder, voxe.org)

Janique Laudouar (Web editor, Le Blog de la Ménagère)

Key insights / quotes:

Description of workshop format (how is it being run?):

  • all facilitators present themselves and their projects / platforms they work on

  • they go on discussing their projects and different aspects of civic tech in general

  • hand out sheets, participants are asked to each choose (in teams) 5 values out of a list of 100 to 1) Governments should be based on and 2) Citizens should have

  • one person of one team presents their chosen values and the speaker-team presents their chosen values.

3-5 key learnings:

Technology allows to transfer information -> action within two minutes

Best practices from cities/platforms/people should be interacting with other best practices from other cities etc.

Technology has a huge power to take elections to a more democratic level.

Civic tech crucial for some parties (great possibility if little budget)

Uberization -> power of the masses & understanding what the needs are (because uber is addressing a need) -> civic tech is trying to think about the need and give people the tools

Interesting contributions? (describe any particular contributions made by attendees):

Title of workshop -> uber -relies on digital platform -> digital platforms are the way to make things easier for citizens for all platforms of the facilitators participating (and of course in general).

Uber- forced taxis to upgrade - > civic tech does the same with politics, need new structures, ways, etc.

Facilitators:

Harmen van Sprang (co-founder, shareNL) Tom Llewellyn (Organizing Director, Shareable)

Key insights / quotes:

What is a Sharing City? Why should your city become one? And perhaps even more important: how?

Both Shareable and shareNL have been very active in the Sharing City field for years, and have decided to host this workshop together. Based on their experience on both the 'grassroots' and 'grasstops' levels, they invite you to come to this workshop to co-create a common vision and design for the 'Sharing City'.

Participants will learn from the humble experience of the presenters and from each other as we lay the groundwork together necessary to push the conversation forward both at OuiShare Fest and in our own communities and cities back home.

Facilitators:

Declan Kennedy (Vision Initator, Planungsbüro Kennedy) Gregoire Durrens (Builder, Earthship Biotecture) Yann Le Beguec (Member of Oasis Project Steering Comitee, Colibris Movement)

Key insights / quotes:

After the Gold rush and the consumerist appropriation of citizen’s collaborative mindset, how can we settle the sharing spirit and unleash its true power. Ecovillages shine as a systemic solution to transcend collaborative economy into a truly sustainable, sharing society.

We'll be playing (and co-creating !) a large scale board game to simulate this transition and demonstrate that local but interconnected sustainable self-sufficiency allows a global sharing economy we might all want to be part of.

Description of workshop format:

Intitial presentation of the facilitators 21 people are invited to play a game, “gen erator” They sing & and dance a hopi dance “unite my people” Everybody gets a little card disributed, i.e. with “food”, “energy”, “clean water”, (basic needs on them) People are asked to write on card i.e. something that provides/makes “food”, “energy” (need on card) People get a board/pallet and asked to distribute little tokens that they have been given in fields that stand for time/money/food/health or decide if they want to save them and put them in a “cart” Illustrates basic needs and choices we make & complex system of needs, too long to explain.

3-5 key learnings:

Only together we can fulfill all our needs -> song “unite my people”

Facilitator:

Anne Snick (Board member, Club of Rome - EU chapter)

Key insights / quotes:

MISC (Mapping Innovations on the Sustainability Curve) is a methodological framework for unravelling lock-ins and facilitating transition. The framework basically consists in a systems maps reflecting the structure and parameters of the ‘curve of sustainability’ (with 'resilience' on one side and 'ascendency' on the other, and 'governance' at the apex). It allows to explore missing links and leverage points in a transdisciplinary and participatory context, and results in a systems map revealing an ecosystem of needed and/or possible transition initiatives at different levels (from grassroots to EU).

This methodology has been developed and tested in different settings and with different topics (ranging from 'Sustainable research and innovation politics' to 'Policies for strengthening co-creation with single parent families in Brussels'). Since it uses a systems approach, it is not looking for 'linear' explanations of current problems (accusing companies, or banks, or consumers, or politicians...) but brings all these actors around the table to first draw the map of what keeps them locked in and then explore what leverages are missing for them to change course. It sometimes took time (up to several months), but finally participants felt this method helped them to drop their defensive position and look for the alternatives they all (deep down) know are needed. So I'm really excited about sharing this methodological framework with you. Note that it is not a 'tool' like a cookbook recipe, but rather a framework that you will be able to adjust to your context creatively once you've understood it's basic principles correctly. Well, I guess that's what cooking really is about, read the recipe and then change it according to your taste and creativity.

Facilitator:

Javier Creus (Founder, Ideas for Change)

Key insights / quotes:

We are living in times of big changes. On the one hand our actual systems show their inability to deal with most basic human needs, on the other citizens powered by technology are opening new ways to create and distribute value in a more democratic and efficient way.

The goal of this workshop is to explore the emergence of a new "Social Operating System" and share information about existing initiatives and tools, discuss metrics and create some kind of working group on the subject.

Facilitator:

Corina Angheloiu (Designer & Project Manager, Forum for the Future) Gemma Adams (Head of Innovation, Forum for the Future) Louise Armstrong (System Innovation Lab, Forum for the Future)

Key insights / quotes:

A hands on, interactive session sharing stories of how systems change and the types of roles required to make it real. You'll have a chance to explore what role citizen-innovators can play in catalysing change in the future and think about where you fit into this picture.

Fishbowls

Speakers:

Featured Attendees: Anja Adler (Open State Berlin) David Guez (LaPrimaire.org) Heloise Le Masne (Civocracy) Léonore de Roquefeuil (Voxe.org) Loic Dachary (MaVoix) Matisse Bonzon (Our Cities Network) Rouven Brues (Liquid Democracy)

Moderator: Eddy Adams (SIX)

Key insights / quotes:

3 key questions:

How to move from politics to direct financial democracy?

How do you address local issues like in Latin America, corruption and disappointed citizens? -> Citizens say: Corruption will continue and continue, I won’t engage politically at all. -> voxe are in Latin America. They work with the local people, get to the candidates, work with media to get more power, build up platforms, questionnaires, -> leads to transparency in policies.

How can vote for others work (without getting shut down because i’s illegal) ?

3-5 key highlights:

All of them keep on talking about tools. To work, they must be backed up, fostered with a culture of democracy. (not only tools). Tools make faster, if you go faster in society, that can go in different directions.

There’s a huge disconnect between people and tools.

Democracy is not the vote. Is a democratic capital, agency, organization. If we wanna reboot democracy, not the vote, but from the bottom up.

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