If you clicked the title of this article, you’re probably looking for a way to leave a mark on your local community. But it’s easy to get sucked into the grind of everyday life. When we’re juggling work, school, hobbies, chores and family time, participating in your local government seems...
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Citizen initiatives are gaining popularity, citizen assemblies are proposed as a solution to defrost polarised debate, and overall, there are more participation methods to choose from than ever before. We see that citizens are becoming increasingly more vocal about their concerns and opinions, even outside of election times. The two-yearly...
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At CitizenLab, we want to shape digital citizen participation. As cities are increasingly becoming more important than nations, it’s time to unlock that powerhouse of collective intelligence. CitizenLab’s mission is to make tomorrow’s governments more citizen-centric. So, who better than citizens to tell us how they would like to see this...
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This weekend marks the 7th annual National Day of Civic Hacking in the United States. To celebrate, we thought we would share our own experience with civic hacking along with some lessons we have learned along the way. Civic hacking is the act of quickly improving the processes and systems...
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Artificial Intelligence, Collective Intelligence… these notions might sound like they come from coming from a distant future, but they are actually becoming reality. Both hold great promises, and both have the power to improve efficiency and decision-making processes within local governments. So what exactly are they, and how to they...
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The time of top-down governance is coming to an end. As demands for more transparency and citizen involvement are growing, citizen-led change is happening everywhere across the world. Whether it’s on social media or through official channels, petitions and public initiatives can now quickly gather support and force governments to...
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Civic tech is now everywhere. Technological innovations have invaded the democratic field, and these tools are in the process of reinventing the way local governments interact with their citizens. From participatory budgeting platforms to idea collection, civic tech is now part of the daily life of many cities across the...
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