Pablo Aragón

This week we held the Jornades Anuals #Metadecidim 2017. After the success of the first edition, activities in 2017 were devised to act in an open, transparent and collaborative way in reconsidering and redesigning Decidim, ​​the digital participatory platform for cities and organisations. On Thursday, a series of talks were given to provide the political framework of this project, to share experiences accross the instances of Decidim in different cities (even Helsinki!), and to explain the many facets of this project.

The activities on Friday took a more productive and collaborative approach and the Metadecidim community was split into six spaces according to the different axis of work: Research #LAB, Governance #GOV, Narrative #COM, Technology #TECH, Participant Experience #PX, and the novel Processes #PR space. In my case, I co-organised the Research #LAB space which held the following activities:

• Introduction, mini-taks and round table with:
  • David A. Lareo (Co-Lab)
  • Raúl Oliván (Zaragoza Activa)
  • Alejandra Baciero (Participa LAB)
  • Laia Sánchez (Citilab)
  • Victor Jímenez (BCNLab)
  • Olivier Schulbaum (Platoniq LAB)

• Workshop I: What democratic innovation laboratory do we want in Barcelona?
  • Background check and laboratory typologies
  • How to set up a laboratory within public and private entities
  • Strategies for revitalization of a laboratory

• Workshop II: Definition of a joint research project
  • Needs in existing networks.
  • Research plans within laboratories.
  • How to create networks and synergies with other laboratories by planning common objectives

In addition, I participated in the Narrative #COM space to give a mini talk about how the communication of Decidim on Twitter was effective in engaging communities. Finally, the results of each space were presented on Saturday morning and the event was concluded with two inspiring talks given by Virgile Deville (Open Source Politics) and Audrey Tang (Taiwan’s Digital Minister).