Madrid: Collective Intelligence for Democracy

How can we activate collective intelligence processes? How can these processes improve the way that democracy functions? Can public policy be constructed using democratic participation tools, platforms and methodologies created by citizens on a collaborative basis?

The Collective Intelligence for Democracy international workshop, which will be held from 18 November to 2 December in Medialab-Prado in Madrid, aims to answer these questions collectively. Collective intelligence and its relationship to democracy will be the common thread underpinning the eight projects selected via an open call. The projects will consider subjects as diverse as collaborative legislation, digital tools, gamification, democratic deliberation, bottom-up processes and distributed democracy. 

The winning entries selected in the open call for projects are Turnómetro (Guadalajara, Mexico), Empujando juntos (São Paulo, Brazil), Digidem Guide (Gothenburg, Sweden), Democracy Earth (Paris, France), Mapping Democratic Innovations (Vancouver, Canada), Redacción colaborativa para participación ciudadana (Madrid, Spain), Herramienta de participación ciudadana para el consenso de normas  (Barcelona, Spain) and Integración de la localización geográfica en la participación ciudadana (A Coruña, Spain). Further details on the projects are provided in this article. 

The open call was organised by Participa LAB, a new initiative by MediaLab-Prado, which will present its activities to the public during the workshop. Four mentors will act as facilitators, providing support for the development of the projects: Vicente J. Ruíz (Madrid), Audrey Tang (Taipé), Pablo Aragón (Barcelona) and Jaya Klara Brekke (London).

The main workshop will consist of various cross-disciplinary lectures and smaller workshops, designed to enrich the collective co-creation process for the eight projects. Pierre Levy, one of the most prominent names in the field of collective intelligence, will start off the lecture component of the workshop on Friday the 18th (4pm). His lecture will have a very special format: a collective interview held in the form of a video conference. The remaining lectures will be given by Amalio Rey, Colin Megill, Paolo Spadal, Heather Mars, Ricardo Poppi, Antonio Lafuente and Julián Pérez.

The schedule for the events open to the public is given below:

  p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: 120%; }p.western { font-family: "Liberation Serif","Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.cjk { font-family: "Noto Sans CJK SC Regular","Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans","Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; }

riday 18

9:30am - 10:30am    Auditorium / Welcome Breakfast and Coffee

11:00am - 11:30am    Auditorium / Lecture: Prototyping Everything from Micro to Macro (in Spanish) - Marcos García [Director of Medialab-Prado]

11:40am - 12:15pm     Auditorium / Lecture: Presentation of the Collective Intelligence Lab for Democratic Participation (in Spanish) - Yago Bermejo [Project Coordinator]

12:30pm - 2:00pm    Auditorium / Lecture: Working in Collective Intelligence for Democracy Workshops (in Spanish) - Alejandra de Diego Baceiro, Pedro Álvarez and Bernardo Gutiérrez

4:00pm - 5:00pm     Auditorium / Collective Interview: Toward Reflexive Collective Intelligence - Pierre Levy

 
5:20pm - 6:20pm     Auditorium / Lecture: Collective Intelligence as a Design Challenge: Principles of Participatory Architecture Design (in Spanish) - Amalio Rey
6:20pm - 7:30pm     Auditorium / Lecture: The Evolution of Democracy: Explaining Trump, Brexit and the Colombian Peace Deal - Heather Marsh


8:00pm - 9:00pm     Canteen / Light Dinner + Networking


Saturday 19


4:00pm - 6:00pm     Auditorium / Workshop: Beyond Voting and Consensus: A Hands-On Look at Stigmergy and Concentric Circles - Heather Marsh


6:15pm - 6:50pm    Auditorium / Introduction to the Telepresence Robot (in Spanish) - Julián Pérez

6:50pm - 7:00pm   Auditorium / Introduction to the Telepresence and Participation Workshop (in Spanish) - Audrey Tang and Pablo Soto [councillor responsible for the City of Madrid’s Area for Citizen Participation, Transparency and Open Government]

7:00pm - 8:00pm     Auditorium / Workshop: Telepresence and Participation (in Spanish) - Audrey Tang


Monday 21

4:00pm – 6:00pm Auditorium / Workshop: Replication as Communication (in Spanish) - Antonio Lafuente

Tuesday 22

4:00pm - 6:00pm Auditorium / Workshop: Understanding Pol.is - Colin Megill

Wednesday 23

4:00pm - 6:00pm  Auditorium / Workshop: Experiences with Digital Participation and PPPs in Brazil (in Spanish) - Ricardo Poppi

Thursday 24

4:00pm - 6:00pm    Auditorium / Workshop: Agile Development (in Spanish) - Amalio Rey

Friday 25

4:00pm - 6:00pm  Auditorium / Workshop: Challenges and Opportunities of Participatory Monitoring and Mapping - Pablo Spada

Monday 28

4:00pm - 6:00pm  Auditorium / Workshop: Data Analysis and Citizen Participation (in Spanish) - Pablo Aragón

Tuesday 29

4:00pm - 6:00pm   Auditorium / Digital Innovation in Public Service Transformation - Audrey Tang

Friday 2

4:00pm - 6:00pm     Auditorium / Presentation of Projects