Kyopol System ("Symbiotic City"): the Internet as a catalyst for civic engagement and citizen's activation - ckyosei.org
Finally, the Internet is promoting, from below, new forms of democracy in which the citizen is the protagonist
About You
About You
First Name
Pedro
Last Name
Prieto-Martin
Twitter URL
Facebook URL
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Asociación Ciudades Kyosei (Symbiotic Cities Association)
Organization Website
Organization Country
Spain, MD
Country where this project is creating social impact
Spain, XX
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
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Innovation
Entry Form title
Kyopol System ("Symbiotic City"): the Internet as a catalyst for civic engagement and citizen's activation - ckyosei.org
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Start-Up (a pilot that has just begun operating)
How long have you been in operation?
THE NEED: Describe the need for your solution and the size/dynamic of the community (ies) you will engage
The "political class" of most democratic countries is losing the public support, and with it the democratic legitimacy of their mandates. But our democratic systems were not designed to operate in such an interconnected and immediate world, and thus the requests from citizens -which want to play a more prominent democratic role- are not being satisfactorily coped with.
Kyopol attempts to solve this problem by providing citizens and politicians tools that promote a stronger citizen incidence at the municipal level, which is where the interaction representative-represented is easier and closer. There is a need for new tools and methods which enhance the ability of both citizens and politicians to work together in solving their daily problems, and thus promote a renewal of politics. A true democracy needs to be guided by an intense and constant dialogue between politicians and the citizens.
This is the challenge that Kyopol System aims to face: promoting, from below, from neighborhoods and cities, the kind of democratic learning processes that will allow us to interact with each other in a symbiotic way, and thus improve the political and civic functioning of our societies.
THE SOLUTION: Please explain what your solution offers and how it is innovative. How will you put your solution into the hands of users or beneficiaries? Be specific!
The challenges that our cities face need to be solved through intensive cooperation between the government, civic society and the economic actors that live and work in them.
Kyopol System aims to make "citizen engagement" much easier, attractive and powerful, and thus help each of these actors to attain their needs through symbiotic collaboration. Through dialogue and cooperation, civic links are established and reinforced, and a feeling of "belonging to a common environment" is generated.
To realize this vision, Kyopol is being built "bottom-up", based on the visions of its future users, which participate in its design and creation. Users are the ones who know better their environment and their capabilities and needs. By means of a collaborative design process, users are determining which functionalities generate more benefit for them and thus make the system more sustainable and replicable. The interaction with Kyopol is going to be simple and intuitive. The features will be aligned with the users' interests: they will not feel like they are doing a "civic effort", but getting informed and taking care of things that are "worth" it and, at the same time, having fun.
The system exploits the knowledge that the Association has accumulated since 2005 by performing interdisciplinary research in Brazil, Spain and Guatemala. Web 2.0 collaborative tools and concepts are going to be integrated in Kyopol, to create synergic effects that promote enough usefulness as to attain the critical mass of users that is required for such a system to work satisfactorily.
THE MODEL: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference through use of information technology and media
• Kyopol supports and facilitates public engagement in populations of any size, increasing the effect and incidence of civic collaboration. It supports both online and offline initiatives, and is available both for "citizens driven initiatives" (bottom-up) as for initiatives promoted by government and public agencies (top-down).
• Kyopol makes easy for people and groups that are willing to promote a civic initiative, to inform about it to all potentially interested fellow citizens and organizations. Conversely, through a system of "alerts", Kyopol allows citizens and organizations to stay informed about the initiatives that deal with themes and places of their interest.
• Kyopol promotes the development of "high quality" civic initiatives, by providing tools, methodologies and teaching resources that promote a participation which is transparent, informed, balanced, profound and documented.
• Kyopol works, in short, as a decentralized and transparent "Facebook of civic engagement", which would be regularly used by citizens and institutions of all kinds, to inform (/inform themselves) about civic initiatives taking place in the places they care for, and deal with subjects that matter to them. Kyopol acts thus as a "civic neural system" for the city, which guides collective reflection and civic action, and keeps a transparent record of all civic processes conducted in the city over the time.
• Using a fractal model of administration, Kyopol obtains a sustainable critical mass of users, and thus favours an exponential growth of the usefulness generated and its viral spread.
THE MARKETPLACE: Who are your peers and competitors? What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
Experts have long indicated that e-Participation systems promoted "top-down", from governments, are inefficient, technologically backward and unable to fulfill the real needs of its users. This is why the EU has not obtained much results, despite having invested more than 100 million euros in the last 10 years.
However, the systems developed from CSOs have also not had a real success: they have not been able to expand its use virally, in a sustainable way. Financial constraints and a poor understanding of the environment where they operate prevented them from generating a irresistible "usefulness" that would have lead to an exponential growth.
During the last 6 years our association has been researching this area, as a way to get vision, technical capacity and the commitment required to design really transformative tools. As a result, we have also established links with institutions and professionals who are now helping us to design and test a system "that actually works". In Kyopol's DNA includes openness and public service vocation: we will try to convince any 'competitor' we meet that we all -and the goals we serve- win more by partnering and cooperating than by competing.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
FOUNDING STORY: We want to hear about your “Aha!” moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution’s potential to change the world.
It was during 2005. This year I researched in Brazil -with a grant from the Ministry of Int. Cooperation- Internet's potential to strengthen local participation in Latin American countries. I studied various participatory avenues by participating in them and interacting with the participants: Participatory Budgeting, People's Assemblies, MST, CSOs, NGOs, political parties, unions, neighborhood associations...
I soon realized that this puzzle was very difficult to solve, because each of the actors involved in "Civic Engagement" were missing some pieces needed to complete it: politicians lack confidence and will; activist lack awareness of ICT's potentials; scholars do not feel the "taste" of civic engagement, programmers have not experienced the face-to-face processes of social struggle...
We wrote some articles explaining the "Main foundations to design municipal e-Participation systems"... But that was clearly not enough. If we wanted "empowering" tools to be created, we had to involve ourselves directly to play a "connecting" role between IT and meatworld. So we founded the association. We have been reflecting and networking since then. Now, finally, we started to build KYOPOL.
Specify both the depth and scale of your solution’s social impact to date
The projects of our Association are currently at a crucial point. After finishing the research and pre-design phases (below we show their most important achievements), we are now starting the construction and testing of Kyopol, with the help of our "Pioneers' Group".
MILESTONES:
AXIS I - RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATION (2004-11)
- Research on e-participation and civic engagement in Catalonia (2004), Brazil (05-06) and Guatemala (07-10).
- Experiences: ICT and municipal transparency (09), ICT and plans. participatory development (10). Indigenous region in Guatemala.
AXIS II - DISSEMINATION AND ADVOCACY (06-11)
- Preparation of articles, book chapters, monographs, audiovisual materials and teaching aids.
- Conferences: Project perspectives presented in Spain, Germany, Italy, Poland, Guatemala, Venezuela and Brazil.
- Teaching courses and seminars on e-Participation.
- Price awarded at CLAD Congress to our coneptual foundations.
AXIS III - NETWORKING (08-11)
- Partnerships with institutions and individuals interested in contributing to the associaion's projects (see below).
- Recognized in the field of European e-participation as an innovative and relevant actor.
What is your projected impact within the next 1-5 years? Is your idea replicable? If so, how?
The creation of Kyopol is underway. 57 "pioneers" (from 7 countries) representing the various groups of system's users, are now helping us to create and improve Kyopol prototypes. Pilot testing is planed to start in H1 2012 at the Corredor del Henares region. The system is created with the explicit aim of extending its use "virally". In June 2013 we aim to activate it throughout Spain (see picture), and to start pilots in several countries in Latinamerica and Europe.
If the extension of Kyopol's use in spanish municipalities goes as planned, by the time of the next municipal elections (due in 2015) Kyopol might have contributed much to strengthen the participatory and civic landscape of many spanish cities and regions, and could thus affect significantly several election results.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and mark growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Prototypes have been validated and improved by Pioneers, and an Alpha system is available to conduct pilot projects.
Six-Month Tasks
Task 1
Consolidation of the Core Group and the "Pioneers Group". Maturing of our collaboration processes and tools [by 2011.09]
Task 2
Develop the first working prototype of the Kyopol [by 2011.11]. Testing and improvement. Start pilot projects [by 2012.03]
Task 3
Extend and strengthen partnerships with stakeholders for the pilot projects, in the municipalities and Villalbilla-Alcalá.
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Pilot projects were developed successfully and we are ready to extend use of Kyopol to several Spanish Autonomous Regions.
12-Month Tasks
Task 1
Create a functional alpha version of Kyopol, based on the learnings from the pilot projects [till 2012.10]
Task 2
Partnerships with relevant actors for expansion process (Fed. of Townhalls &Neighb Asoc., 15M, DRY, Regional Govt., ...)
Task 3
Establish and validate business models, financ. and sustainability models. Alliances with institutional partners.
How many people have been impacted by your project?
101 - 1,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
Sustainability
Explain how your company, program, service or product is structured
Non-profit
What barriers have hindered the success of your project to date? How do you plan to overcome these and other challenges as you grow your solution?
The obstacles were much related to a lack of institutional and financial support from existing institutions. We have invested a lot of energy trying to get support from government agencies, supra-state institutions (EU & OAS) and regional governments... without success. Unfortunately, traditional innovation support programs do not work well to back “social entrepreneurism”. This has forced our project lead to combine his dedication to the project with some other activities that allowed him to earn his livelihoods. All in all, this has slowed much our progress. The lack of full-time developers dedicated to building the system has also been an obstacle.
But… to overcome these obstacles, as Peter Pan once said… “all we need is faith and trust… and a little bit of pixie dust!” :-)
How do you see the information-technology and media sectors shifting over the next decade? How will your solution adapt to and/or drive that changing environment?
As Tim Berners-Lee wrote in a recent article, "the ability to engineer successful [web] applications requires [an interdisciplinary approach and] a better understanding of the features and functions of the social aspects of the systems." This is precisely the approach that our association has been working with.
"The Web is changing at a rate that may be greater than even the most knowledgeable researcher's ability to observe it." Internet is about to impact on our political systems… and Kyopol would like to be at the forefront of that change.
Failure is not always an option. If your solution fails to gain traction in the next two years, what other applications of the idea could you explore?
Our project is configured as a multidisciplinary learning process, which aims to understand how to put the Internet on the service of our societies’ political development. It is clear that, in order to achieve it, well-designed platforms are required, which are able integrate offline participation processes with online functionalities. They must provide features that meet the needs and abilities of the citizens, and succeed in generating a pleasant experience of "civic engagement": it must be fun!!-.
That is why, if -for example- in two years we have been unable to extend the use of the system to the levels have set as objective, or we have failed to achieve the "small critical masses" that are needed to create an empowering participation... we will not consider it as much as a failure, but as a "still unfinished learning process". Everything we have achieved to that moment will be the basis for further learning and improving. Considering that, in the meantime, we will have been strengthening ties with other institutions and individuals who share our goals, we will surely be in a much better position to address the challenges we encounter.
That said, we should note that our plans include various alternative scenarios. These scenarios consider different ideas, features and possible uses of the system; and depending on how everything unfolds, we will give prioritize some of them over the others.
For example, one of the features the system should provide, is to be integrated with the formal and informal education systems. This way, it will promote a "hands on" learning of “participation” from the school. But this is not one of the functionalities that we have prioritized to be in the first alpha.
Many of these features are meant to support "business models" that generate revenue streams that will ensure the sustainability of the system. For example, we aim to provide specific functionalities for municipalities, which will facilitate their polls, surveys, deliberative and participatory processes, in a very cost-efficient way. A town hall would be willing to pay a subscription to have access to this functionality, and thus the operating cost of the system could be covered. Crowdsourcing, advertising, partnerships with regional institutions, micro-contributions... are some of the many possible mechanisms for self-financing that we are considering.
As shown in the "Spyglass Model" for the creation of Civic Software (search for it in the picture section), we consider “Sustainability” as a cross-cutting element that must be taken into account for all the dimensions of the project: from infrastructure for development and the base collaborative processes, to the institutional governance arrangements for the system. We consider that if the whole project is going to succeed... each of these dimensions must be sustainable on its own.
In the case that, after two years, not all dimensions are sustainable... this will mean that we have to continue learning and collaborating with others to achieve it.
Expand on your selections, explaining how you will sustain funding
As noted before, the system includes several features that provide channels of funding: partnerships, micro-payments, crowdsourcing, selling services, business platform, and so on.
However, what is really essential to promote the scalability and sustainability of the system is to minimize its operating costs. Kyopol administration is based on a model of "fractal" and multilevel governance, which allows the users to administer the system at the closest possible level to issues (each neighborhood, city or region). Users are also creating the content that keep the system alive. Thus, a small central team (in the style of the Wikimedia Foundation) would have the responsibility for channeling and enhancing collaboration, as well as to direct the improvement of Kyopol’s features and procedures.
Tell us about your partnerships
We have established partnerships with institutions and individuals interested in contributing to our projects, including: University of Alcalá (ES), Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey (MX), Federal University of Ceará (BR), Inter-American Network on Electronic Government (INT), Escola de Formação de Governantes de Ceará (BR), Pan-European eParticipation Network (EU), Inter-American Organization for Higher Education (INT), 15M (ES), Independent Municipal Party (ES), MuNET e-Government (OAS), Catep - Social Intervention Cooperative (ES) + many individuals.
What type of team (staff, volunteers, etc.) will ensure that you achieve the growth milestones identified in the Social Impact section?
The project aims to operate with a minimal cost. Therefore, our process of collaborative design and construction has been structured to allow individual contributors to participate with just a small effort and without being remunerated. Currently just one person dedicated full time to the project. He is coordinating a "Core team" of 19 volunteers, and a "Pioneers Group” (alpha testers) with 57 members.
In two years we will probably need to have a "full time" team formed by 3 people, who will take charge of the development and support system.
Changemakers is a collaborative and supportive space. Please specify any community resources you would need to grow and sustain your initiative. Select all that apply
Investment, Collaboration or networking, Pro-bono help (legal, financial, etc.), Mentorship.
Specify any resources you might offer to support other initiatives. Select all that apply
Research or information, Collaboration or networking, Innovation or ideas, Mentorship.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren’t specified within the list
Our fundamental profile is "multi-disciplinary activists and researchers", and thus we could provide to the Ashoka network the items that have been listed.
With regard to our demands... they indicate what we now mainly need: some minimum investment levels and the tremendous visibility and "networking" possibilities that being a member of the Ashoka network provides. We are open to collaborations of all kinds (we have already identified several projects in this call that would be similar or complementary to ours, where synergies could be exploited (Bottup, FixMyCity, Eudemocracia...)).
We could also benefit from the advice and strategic guidance that other network’s members could give us, as well as specific support in areas where we do not have much expertise (legal...).
Summary
Define your company, program, service or product in 1-2 short sentences
KYOPOL: The vision, the commitment and the technical competence to design Civic Software with a real transformative potential
Identify what is innovative about your solution in 1-2 short sentences
Finally, the Internet is promoting, from below, new forms of democracy in which the citizen is the protagonist
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Comments
Dear Friends,
Some days ago we published a first version of our application for this competition (in Spanish and English), and we are excited that now, with the help of all of you, we will be able to refine and improve it. The project is in a critical period in its process of maturing... and the support of Ashoka, in the case we would be selected, could be very important to make it blossom.
Therefore, we are fully at your disposal. You can make us any question or give us any suggestion. We will be grateful for them.
At the association's website (http://www.ckyosei.org) you can find lots of news and additional resources on our project, as well as teaching and research resources about electronic participation.
Receive the kindest of greetings, on behalf of the association,
Pedro
As part of our proposal we have included a series of videos (in Spanish). Here you have a brief explanation of what they consist of explanation:
Videos 1: Presentation of the project:
This video shows the Workshop where we launched the "Kyopol System's collaborative construction project". This event took place on June 21th at the University of Alcalá. The videos provide a lot of information on our project (http://www.ckyosei.org/hasta-nunca-jamas).
Videos 2-7: Electronic materials on Participation
This series of videos were produced as part of the didactic and divulgative efforts of the association. They explain in a dynamic way how civic participation is being affected by new technologies. The videos included are:
- Introduction: (e) Participation as Neverland.
- What is (e)Participation?
- What changes (e)Participation?
- The advent of "Civic Involvement"
- Activating the power of local (e)Participation
- Kyosei-Polis Project
Video 8: Introduction to the course on "Citizen Participation and Digital Media"
We tutored this course in collaboration with the COLAM. This video illustrates the attitude that our association uses to approach the phenomenon of electronic participation (http://www.ckyosei.org/?p=980)
We hope you enjoy. If you have any comments or questions about any of the videos... We are at your disposal. Greetings!
Hi all,
to make the content of our videos more accessible, we have started to include "subtitles" for them. By now, they are just Spanish subtitles that transcribe what is being said. We will need more time to translate them to other languages.
But thanks to Google translate functionality, that is integrated into YouTube, you can get an automated translation... that in most cases is good enough as to understand what is being talked about.
All the videos are now available in the Association's channel in YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/ckyosei).
In particular, we have included subtitles for the chapters:
- Introduction. (e)Participation as Neverland (see HERE)
- 10. The advent of "Civic Implication" (two videos) (see HERE)
- Soon: 09. What changes (e)Participation? (two videos) (see HERE)
We hope this will help you to get a better understanding of Civic Engagement in the XXI Century.
Kind regards!
Linda Jakobsone, a citizen engagement project manager at PROVIDUS, the Latvian Centre for Public Policy (http://www.providus.lv/public/index_en.html) had a look at our project and asked us, in a personal communication:
"It seems very interesting though a bit unclear what would be the final result. I understand that one cannot know it now, but what gives the idea that this project will be the one to really make the change."
We will try to answer her here in the forum, to make it possible that everybody benefits from her question: What makes our project special, different from other that failed before?
We would like to mention three aspects that make our system special:
1. COMMITED VISION Since 2005 we have been reflecting on the fundamental characteristics of eParticipation systems adapted to the municipal government thanks to its focus on sustainability and on providing real usefulness to all actors involved in Public Participation. We have tried to transmit our ideas to public bodies. But the "usual suspects" involved in this projects (Government, Academics and Business) have proved to be too trapped in conflicting interests (cashing grants, publishing, PR focus) as to really create systems with real effect. So... we have the vision, which can be summarized as putting innovation at the service of Civil Society.
2. TEAM: Collaborative and Multi-disciplinary Bottom-up Construction To achieve this, Kyopol is being built "bottom-up", based on the visions of its future users, which are actively participating in its design and creation. This is our "Pioneers Group", currently integrated by more than 60 people from different countries and with different backgrounds, from 15M activists to politicians. They are contributing a creative multidisciplinarity. Our understanding of Public Participation is thus incorporating ideas from Abraham Maslow and T.E. Lawrence to create a new form of liquid public participation that scales exponentially.
3. ENVIRONMENT: We will run our pilots in Spain, where the 15M movement (the "indignados" of the #spanishrevolution) could be specially interested in using it. They could constitute the "critical mass" which then attract more people to use it, and so make the system draw the attention of the media and of politicians.
It is not clear this three factors will suffice to create the change we want to see. Actually, we are going to start very basic functionalities and simple use processes, and then keep improving the system.
But if our first beta release is not good enough... we hope at least to be more successful than other initiatives have done so far. And in the next iteration... achieve it! :-)
PS: Linda Jakobsone, by the way, has agreed to also join our "Pioneers Group". ;-) She will now contribute, with her expertise, to make Kyopol a success.
Hola Pedro,
First of all I would like to congratulate you a very interesting entry.
You are writing that Kyopol system is going to be “…simple and intuitive. The feature will be aligned With The users' interests: They Will not Feel Like They Are Doing a "civic effort," But getting Informed and Taking Care of Things That are "worth" it and, at the Same time, having fun… “
My question is – how are you planning to achive this? How are you going to design the system to make people simply enjoy instead of having the feeling of making an effort?
Greetings,
Piotr
Hola Piotr, ;-)
Thanks for your message. Let me extend a little the three parts of the sentence that you included, to ilustrate "HOW" these aims would be achieved.
1. Simple and Intuitive.
The whole system will be constructed with a focus on UX: we will provide a seamless user experience, that pays special attention to the "learning curve" of the different users. This is one of the areas where the help of our "Pioneers Collective", acting as our Alpha Testesr, will be fundamental: they will verify if the system's interface and procedures are easy to use for the kind of people they represent.
2. The feature will be aligned with the users' interests: they will not feel like they are doing a "civic effort", but getting informed and taking care of things that are worth it
Please have a look at our "Spyglass model" for Collaborative design and development of Civic Software. As ilustrated there, another fundamental axis of the system is its orientation to the different Actors using it and, specially, their specific NEEDS. System's functionalities and procedures are designed to support "business models", "enjoyment models" and "didactic resources" which are aligned with the necesities, with the needs, of the users.
Thus, the user is not really expected to do any things "for the system"; it is the system which does useful things for the user, facilitating the achievement of his/her valuable aims and tasks.
Kyopol is constructed around the concept of "Positive deviance": We do not expect to make an activist of each citizen, or an advocate of transparence of every politician. What we aim is to empower those that are already motivated and willing. By making them more effective, pursuing their specific aims... they will be able to "infect" other with their passion.
3. having fun
We have already mentioned our "Enjoyment models". Gamification, providing to system users "experiencies" that are not just useful, but also challenging, rewarding and enjoyable is a success factor for all "social networks" software system. For example, the project "Edgeryders", from the Council of Europe, will use an extensive use of "badges" and "simbolic prices" to motivate young people to perform "social missions". Systems of rewards, reputation and peer-recognition have proved to be very powerful in stimulating "online communities".
Kyopol will embrace this kind of mechanisms. With one additional plus: in Kyopol is all about caring for your city and neighbourhood. It's not about doing things online, but creating change in the "meat-world". Thus, the reputation and recognition that the system attributes to you... will probably mean you are getting more and more involved with real-world civic action.
There are few things more rewarding than meeting people that care about the same issues you care, and act collectively to improve the situation. The aim of Kyopol, with its "Enjoyment models" is to make easier that more and more normal people get to discover this.
I hope my answers have clarified your questions, somehow. :-) You can ask me further, if anything is still not clear.
Kind regards,
Pedro
привет Piotr, :-) (or "Cześć, Piotr")
Did my previous answer clarify a little bit your question? I have some additional information for you.
We just finished adding the spanish transcription to our didactic video:
09. What changes (e)Participation? (two videos: 9a and 9b)
And this means you can get the "automatic translation" to English that Youtube provides. It is not perfect... but I guess it will be possible to understand the most.
This two videos explain, with a lot of Paella and the help of some Magic Cauldrons and Tinker Bell, the kind of things that will become possible, once we get (e)Participation right.
By watching this video, I'm sure you'll understand much better why the users of such a system will feel it as useful and enjoyable.
Kind regards,
Pedro
Cześć Pedro :-)
Thank you for your response and detailed explanation.
I will have a look at the videos.
Good luck for implementing your ideas into practice!!
Best regards,
Piotr
Last week the Kyopol System was presented in the Open Government Data Camp Camp in Warsaw, the World's biggest and most important Open Data event to date.
In this conference, and thanks to the intervention of Tom Steinberg, we were able to discuss with a member of Neelie Kroes' cabinet. Ms. Kroes is Vice-President of the European Commission, and is responsible for the whole "Digital Agenda for Europe" program. We were able to talk about our association's research about EU Strategies for the Advancement of (e) Participation in the last decade, and the problems they have caused for innovation in this field.
We gave him a copy of our article "The e-(R)evolution will not be funded. An interdisciplinary and critical analysis of the developments and troubles of EU-funded eParticipation", where suggestions are provided on how the EU could proceed in the future.
One of these suggestions is precisely that the EU should work with more flexibility, learning from organizations as "Ashoka", or even establishing alliances with them to develop their actions:
"To establish this incentivizing ‘innovation environment’, the EU should remain open-minded, act agilely and be willing to partner with any institution that can provide relevant expertise and capacities. For example, the kind of innovative mechanisms mentioned above, like fellowships for social innovators, competition-based funding, code-camps or conditional support for projects, could possibly be more efficiently developed by institutions like the Ashoka foundation, which already possess the infrastructure, processes and experience required to carry them out."
In a couple of days we will participate in the Workshop "Collaborative production of eGovernment services" organized by the European Commission in Brussels, where we will try again to share the results of our research.
PS: On our website you can read more about the "funny" circumstances that led us to meet the representative ot the European Commission:
http://www.ckyosei.org/en-varsovia-nuestro-mensaje-llega-a-bruselas/
Our previous message was sent several days ago, but it was "intercepted" by the "moderation filter" of ChangeMakers (which seems not to work as it should: guys, have a look at it). Today, after returning from Brussels, I was able to submit it again, and get it published.
The presentation we did in Brussels, which motivated a very productive discussion in the context of the workshop on "Collaborative production of eGovernment services".
You can have a look at our presentation here:
"CREATING THE SYMBIOTIC CITY: Bottom-up collaboration for the co-design of Civic Software"
In it, a community of Dinosaurs, Neanderthals and Insects... present our project and try to propose the EU to evolve their Innovation Funding Mechanisms, learning from initiatives like Challenge.gov, Ashoka or Code for America.
The presentation was recorded on video but... it will take time to publish it.
For any question you have... we are at your disposal. Just ask! Kind regards,
Pedro
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