Event: Online tools for local democracy in Scotland

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Join Nesta for their event: “Online tools for local democracy in Scotland: Opportunities and challenges in citizen engagement for local authorities”.

  • Date: Thursday 9th February 2017, 3.30-5.30pm (registration and refreshments from 3.15pm)
  • Venue: Stirling Room, Sheraton Grand Hotel, 1 Festival Square, Edinburgh, EH3 9SR

Nesta is currently working on a programme of research exploring how local authorities, national parliaments and political parties can use digital tools to improve the quality and legitimacy of decision-making. This work, in collaboration with the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Opening Governance has studied pioneering examples from across the globe and builds on previous European work which developed a set of open source tools for direct democracy and economic empowerment that are now being used in many cities.

This event provides an opportunity to discuss some of the opportunities and challenges of ‘digital democracy’ for Scottish local authorities, and to hear from some leading pioneers in our research from across Europe. Speakers include:

  • Robert Bjarnason, co-founder of the Citizens Foundation in Iceland. He is playing a central role implementing software and broader methods for digital crowd-sourcing and participatory budgeting across the country.
  • Ari Brodach, Head of Participatory Budgeting, Paris Council. Ari is leading one of the world's largest and most ambitious participatory budgeting projects, with 500 million Euros committed until 2020 to implement ideas gathered online and in offline workshops across the city.
  • Teele Pehk, CEO of the Estonian Cooperation Assembly. Teele is a central advocate of e-democracy in Estonia and is leading online and offline advocacy efforts to involve country in a new national e-petitions platform known as Rahvaalgatus.
  • Nicolas Patte, the Head of Communications for Cap Collectif, a civic tech organisation based in France. Cap Collectif are working with local organisations and national representatives run large-scale online debates involving the wider public.

For local government delegates travelling from significantly outside the Edinburgh region, we have a limited number of travel bursaries available. For any enquiries, please contact me at theo.bass@nesta.org.uk.

Please click here to register your interest by Friday 27th January.