This week I went to Germany to attend the Dagstuhl Seminar on Challenges and Opportunities of Democracy in the Digital Society. Dagstuhl Seminars are invite only events organized by Schloss Dagstuhl (Leibniz Center for Informatics) that bring together leading researchers and practicioners in specific fields of computer science. I was invited by the organizers:
- Abraham Bernstein (Universität Zürich)
- Anita Gohdes (Hertie School of Governance – Berlin, DE)
- Beth Simone Noveck (New York University, US)
- Steffen Staab (Universität Stuttgart, DE)
to give a keynote on Decidim: Technopolitical Networks for Participatory Democracy and join the working groups with other participants. The visit reminded me of when professor Javier Campos in Computer Engineering at the University of Zaragoza encouraged us to work hard to be invited someday to this European cathedral of computer science. He was right, this was an extraordinary experience that also allowed me to devirtualize colleagues like Anna De Liddo (The Open University), Cristina Sarasua (Universität Zürich) and Gefion Thuermer (King’s College London). We even had time to socialize while walking in the woods and visiting the impressive city of Tier.
Stay tuned for the outcome(s) of this seminar!
Pablo Aragón 