Tomas Rakos about Participation Factory and why fetishising a single method or tool is a bad idea

Welcome on another episode of Democracy Innovator Podcast and our guest of today is Tomas Racus.

Welcome and thank you for your time.

Thank you, too, for having me.

And as a first question, um what is Participation Factory?

ah Participation Factory is uh formally a company, ah but it's a group of people that decided to be working on ah impact through mainstreaming good participatory practices and

work.

basically do four things uh in order to simplify that.

We do a lot of participation designs, implementation of the projects uh or evaluation of any type of participatory process, mostly working for public sector.

Second, we also focus on systematic participation, meaning it's kind of change management type of work.

We help local regional governments and others to create their own internal teams that focus on participation agenda.

We also teach, so we have

a very kind of stream of work, big stream of work where we just provide capacity building and trainings to mostly public officials, but also politicians, NGOs, anyone who is

interested, as well as we do a lot of civic tech engagement platforms, e-participation, uh advisory and consulting.

And about...

How do we evaluate a good...

Okay, ah I think it's first time that anyone ever asked me that as a first question.

ah We have come up with our own monitoring and evaluation framework for participatory processes.

It's actually not a rocket science.

It's about being able to

set up a good &E plan and good basically indicators of let's say quote unquote success of the project through which you can monitor if the project participatory project actually is

of the quality that you kind of decided it would have.

So the examples of the indicators you can obviously monitor

how many people are engaged, if the transparency is really met, if all the information and data is shared with everyone, if there is an access to the process itself as well as to

the outcomes, if the project management works very well, if the online layer of the whole process is working as you kind of planned it to be in the beginning and so on and so on.

I think that right now we have about 70, 80 indicators that we are able to apply to any type of process.

And it's a really detailed work.

As I said, it's not such a big deal.

It's not as complicated, but obviously it requires a certain skill.

And we believe that at the end of any participatory process or project, besides the report of the outcomes, uh

There should be also the &E report, meaning monitoring and evaluation report, measuring and showing if really the project went according to the plan.

Yeah, maybe that question should have been the last one and not the first one, but I was curious about the evaluation and uh

happy that you are asking because as you know, uh we are based in the heart of Central Europe.

Participation factor is uh Prague-based organization.

And to be honest, monitoring and evaluation is not really uh required uh in Central and Eastern Europe by public sector.

It's not really a habit uh unlike in, you can say, Western Europe or US and Canada.

uh So it's actually pretty important topic and issue, unfortunately uh not uh really being used in every participatory process there is, unfortunately, but the times are changing.

And I was curious, starting maybe from the beginning, um what would be good practices for uh design participatory uh processes.

Hmm.

Oh, again, very complex question.

uh We could be spending a little a week talking about it.

uh I would say, I like to say that when you are a participation practitioner and you are asked uh to design a process and it doesn't matter what topic, if it's a public space

renewal, if it's a strategy making, if it's

some type of, I don't know, repurposing of an empty building or simply, you know, even kind of common concepts or methods such as parse re-budgeting or citizen assembly or

whatever you name it.

Obviously, the design is crucial for success of the project because it kind of gives you a roadmap on what to do and what...

detailed scripts and methods and tools to use and I think the best way how to approach it is to be extremely practical because obviously you don't have all the time in the world

you don't have all the budgets in the world you don't have all the workforce uh in the world to be helping you so uh it's always pull and push type of process where you are

trying to fit in a very tight I would say window

and the window, the frame of the window is formed of how much money you have, how much time you have, ah what is your internal and external capacities ah and what are the

desired outcomes.

It means what the result should look like, what the value of the data and the format of the data should be, what the engagement should be about.

And when you put this all on paper, the window is never...

never looks like you imagined in the beginning.

You always had it of screwed and you need to really fit in.

it's about finding uh ways how you need to be creative, definitely.

But it's also about using vast institutional, personal institutional knowledge on...

what actually works best because not all the methods are great for all the scenarios obviously.

So for example, us in a factory, we have right now catalogs of I would say 80, maybe 100 plus methods and scripts that we either gathered from elsewhere or we even designed

ourselves.

Then you have the whole big world of civic tech and engagement platforms.

oh Again, not every tool is fit for

best fit for every single project and then you obviously need to really walk the tightrope between what the I would say client in our case either if it's a city or ministry or

regional government what they need what they want but also how much capacity they have you know what is the size of their team or what is their experience what is the know-how of

the participants and so on so it's it's a it's a

It's a mixture of uh a lot of extremely important details that you need to take into account.

And sometimes, like the design work, sometimes we spent literally dozens of hours, dozens and dozens and dozens of hours on drawing and redrawing uh how to approach big complex

projects.

Do you have any example about some participation processes that were particularly effective?

I would say 99 % of the work that we do, I hope at least, uh is effective.

we at Participation Factory, we do about 30 to 40 big robust projects a year ah annually.

uh So across all themes and topics.

So um there's a lot oh happening.

uh

And uh I would say that uh it has become, and I can talk especially what's happening in Central and Eastern Europe, it has become uh finally a standard, not everywhere obviously,

but the mainstreaming is taking place.

It has become a standard that for example, if you want to renew some public space such as a street or neighborhoods or square, ah luckily the...

cities, towns, districts, they understand finally after years of piloting and trying and kind of innovating that it's actually very effective to apply uh participatory layer to

the process because it mitigates conflict, it gets way better results, it also inevitably teaches the communities about those topics.

So I would say that public sector is something that is common, very much common.

if it's zoning plans or feasibility studies and so on and so on.

ah Also what we are seeing recently is an increase of projects that, participatory processes or projects that are connected to strategic infrastructure uh building such as

high-speed rails or highways or again you know you have a big strategic uh construction.

being planned that can uh be going through, I don't know, 30 different municipalities, uh two different regions.

And obviously all these people have their needs and they need to talk.

They need to talk with the planners because they have their own questions and needs and obviously you cannot just muscle through such a big...

project.

So that's where participation definitely has its big impact.

The last one that I would maybe last two examples that I would like to mention is projects where sustainable energy projects are uh being planned, either if it's wind turbines or

solar farms.

Again, it's a textbook participation.

You have an investor coming to a small municipality, maybe a small village.

They want to build a few wind turbines.

uh It's a pretty expensive thing, but they need to negotiate with the community and the leadership about benefits and about compensations and about the structure itself or even

maybe about citizens being part in kind of...

co-op format of the whole uh endeavor.

And you need independent facilitator that designs this process and kind of holds the hands of all of them and walk them through.

for example, that's something that we do as well.

And the last one where I would see the biggest impact is, I think it's genuinely uh easy to understand, is any type of participation that is happening in schools.

ah So basically giving a voice and giving the skillsets, teaching the skillsets of kids and young adults, not just high schoolers, but even younger.

That's where I would say the impact is actually the highest, because you implicitly don't just allow them to do and be part of some exercise, but you also allow them to...

enhance what we call participatory skill sets.

How to facilitate, how to talk, how to debate, how to campaign, how to vote and so on and so on.

So would say there the impact is definitely the highest.

I was curious about the participation processes that are done with institutions.

mean, institutions are also committing to follow the output of the participation process?

Or is it just a sort of advice, a sort of...

um It depends.

It depends on many factors, ah obviously.

And again, I can't talk mostly about Central and Eastern Europe, how it works here.

The participation is...

In most of the countries participation is not required by law.

So it's basically it's a habitual cultural thing.

um I would say that in...

uh

regions or countries and not every region in every country actually is matured when it comes to participation.

So I would say in the areas where ah this is happening and it's being considered as a best practice, it's usually in places where the public officials, not just politicians, but

also officials who work for local and regional governments and ministries uh already know that uh

if they do certain projects in a participatory fashion, ah their lives will be way more easy, way more easier because as I said in the beginning, it mitigates conflict, you get

better data, people are less angry, you get results and so on and so on.

So actually it has a practical effect.

ah But it's also about, uh we have many various types of participatory projects.

uh

those that you need to set it up and kind of announce it clearly set the rules uh in the very beginning, either those where really people decide that were really, you know, it

ends with, I don't know, one or two options that uh either some stakeholder groups or broad public decides on something, either if it's a budget or projects or whatever, or it

can have a consultative format as simple as that.

uh Again,

When you are um redoing for example public square, it doesn't make sense for people to decide what color of benches or paths, how paths are going to be planned through lawn.

That's the work of the architect.

But the consultation is extremely important so the architect who do it know what the needs of the locals are.

So it uh definitely has uh quite a large play of different formats of what you can run.

And it's up to uh those who design these processes or manage these projects to actually properly decide what form it's going to take and what methods uh are going to be used.

Sure.

And I was curious, which platforms have you tried?

um I mean, how the participation processes are?

Yeah, digital platforms or also other ways in which the...

um

Okay, so the digital platforms, m I would say that in the Czech Republic alone where we work predominantly, would say 70 % of our projects are here, um we have a pretty um

saturated market with quite a few, I would say about dozens, about dozen different products that can um

you know, take care of the most common digital jobs for participation, either if it's voting, surveying, polling, proposal making, some type of online deliberation or engaging

in the format of maps, uh even crowdfunding, even the local currencies, you know, and so on and so on.

uh We at Participation Factory, we take it a little bit different.

We don't have our own tool.

We basically monitor what's out there on the market across the whole EU and we always try to find the best fit tool for the very project that we are working on.

ah I would definitely like to highlight, we are also members of Association Civic Tech Europe, of uh ACTE, which is based in Brussels.

So would definitely highlight all the members of ACTE that truly are.

the industry standards for use of civic tech and engagement platforms in EU and beyond.

And then obviously every country has its own players, superstars, kind of commonly used, either if it's an open source or not, if it's a proprietary software.

So I wouldn't say that we have one favorite one and I don't want to mention, like,

specific ones because there is not really a reason to.

Definitely, ACTE members are kind of like on the top of the game.

But it's developing fast.

The market with the Civic Tech tool right now, we also published a market report last year mapping about 80 tools, mostly from EU but also elsewhere.

And in our internal database we have around 200 products that we are kind of following and assessing what features they have and pricing models and so on and so on.

it's just developing so fast.

Every quarter there is a new product.

Every quarter every company comes with new features.

Now obviously with AI it's changing a lot.

So back to your question.

I would just be listing names randomly.

I don't think it makes sense.

What I would say, anyone who is interested, go to ACTE, Association of Civic Tech Europe website, check the members.

There is about two dozen of them and take it from there.

And so a lot of you are using a lot of platforms and I was curious, are you using also multiple platforms for a single participation?

Okay, so maybe I don't know.

It could be that you do brainstorming on one platform and then you discuss on another one.

You decide on another one.

How does, and how does workflow

is happening like is everything automatic is there like human in the middle

ah I don't think that it's automatic.

I haven't come across the project where the data would be flowing seamlessly ah between different platforms.

ah I would say there's two approaches of the platforms right now on the Civic Tech engagement platform market.

One is kind of, yes, we do it all.

uh

can have a big Zensity, GoVocal, Bang the Table type of platforms that can take on any job, any basic job that you want and you can really run, I would say, 80 % of the projects

on them.

But then you have specialties or specific requirements such as, I don't know, advanced work with maps where you want community to really

work with map, you want them to add data to the map, you want to work with different polygons and so on.

Somewhere between I would say GIS and Google Maps, somewhere in between.

So you have a myriad of tools for that.

Or if you really want to focus on secured voting, ah that's also kind of common.

request uh on these kind of like specific usages where the standard A to Z platforms don't have to excel necessarily.

It's fine.

It's actually I think that's good for the customers.

So uh yes, we do use multiple platforms, um but I don't think that uh the kind

automation is a big issue or requirement because uh the projects are usually pretty straightforward.

We usually work on smaller things, meaning engaging up to a couple dozen thousand people, not that we would work with millions of people where you need to really, really um make

the data flow seamless.

uh

So ah yeah, but it's common.

It's very common to work with multiple tools.

em I had a question and I forgot about it.

That was in relation to Platform.

So um it will come back.

um But I had another question to ask you.

m What is the history behind the Participation Factory?

How did it happen?

ah We started factory seven years ago uh after me and my former colleague, current co-founder Katya Petrikević, after we quit our previous job, which was working for, I

would say, of the first, maybe the first uh Civic Tech uh product voting, actually voting solution that has

been coming from Central Eastern Europe, which was called D21, which I was co-founder and CEO of the first five years.

And back then, seven years ago, uh if I may call it ecosystem or markets with the participation and civic tech, obviously it was a completely different game than now.

Like to us, it was a prehistoric times.

um

And we decided after that experience of working at D21, which was quite a success, know, New York City Council used it for participatory budgeting voting, example, we've done

projects in multiple countries and kind of where I would say one of the players who were mainstreaming participation definitely here in Eastern Europe.

we thought it would be kind of pity to just like leave it all behind and not to continue.

decided to create Participation Factory, but basically changed the service offering and a business model and truly became an advisory uh consulting firm that doesn't just advise

but also goes into the field and actually does implement the things.

So ah we are not just sitting at our desks and writing reports or commenting on things or advising, but we really

do a lot of field work, a lot of field work.

That's the bread and butter of the factory.

yeah, seven years later, we are happy we did it.

It was hard because we started a company and a COVID hit, obviously.

ah But we are happy that we survived it.

And now seven years later, we have around 10 ah people that are working as a core team.

plus obviously others.

In those seven years we did, I would say, small and large, around 200 projects.

So pretty proud of what we were able to achieve.

Ok, thank you.

I also got my question back.

um Related to this field work, um were you able to provide significant feedback to the uh creators of the Civic Tech platforms?

I don't know, something that was very helpful for them.

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's common if things...

Sorry for the noise from the street.

It's common if there is something that doesn't work, we obviously communicate with them and I would say that with majority of them we have a very good relationship, trying to be

helpful, ah not functioning as resellers but as basically independent...

ah kind of offering public sector independent expertise.

ah So there is a good understanding that if we understand the platforms, we are really trying to bring new business to the companies as well as serving the public sector.

um yeah, giving you feedback is part of what we do, 100%.

And also, yeah, they're asking us quite a lot on kind of like...

how to shape the product and what agendas we should focus on and so on and so on.

So we are trying to help as much as we can, wherever we are, because I truly believe that the uh meaning of all of what we do and especially at this stage of the markets, more we

will all cooperate and more we will all help each other is just gonna have such a massive impact on

on communities to start with, but also basically the whole kind of democratic system ah as it is.

So yeah, we definitely do help.

Thank you.

And maybe in some ways related to the question about the good practices about participation processes.

But I was curious, like, someone wants to start a participatory process.

I mean, sometimes also I had a friend of mine that he once he used POLIS to organize a very small uh participation process.

So maybe not something very big but also something small that can be with colleagues So if you have any advice

I would say there is a certain skill set that you need to have.

I truly believe, I was questioning it in the beginning to be honest about those 7-10 years ago if it's really separate field of expertise or not but now I'm 1000 % convinced that it

is a very unique field of expertise.

that consists of multiple skill sets that you need to have in order to do the good job, you know, and to really do a good work.

Some of the examples are start with the basics and more better you get with boring stuff that you cannot even see but that are on the back end of things better you will get

because sometimes people

people uh mistake participation just for the pinnacles of or kind of like the pinnacle points of those projects, which is literally standing in front of people running in

workshop and so on.

That's tip of the iceberg.

know, the real work is actually before and after this happens.

And I would say that the basic thing is learn facilitation, learn the facilitation techniques, learn the basic methods, uh go uh

and be in front of people, either if it's a group of 3 or 5 or 30 or 100 or 150 and either if they are cooperative or on the opposite spectrum they are extremely angry and you need

to deal with conflict and nasty situations, it's part of the game.

So I would say start with that, because that's what will teach you the practicalities of participation and it's kinda...

ah It's not all, but it's the basics.

If you cannot do this, usually you will lose or you will not do the good job also in the grander, uh grand scheme of things.

ah Because it doesn't make sense to start learning participatory design until you really experience what it means to fail when you are standing in front of people.

Because participation is about

being face to face with people and interacting and trying to find a solution and consensus and drilling uh information from people and in exchange giving them information and so on

and so on.

So I would say start with the facilitation and then the boring stuff.

Project management.

So many processes fail or don't have a...

good quality just because the people who organize it don't understand project management.

Just basics like that.

ah The third thing would be, I would say, sure, use the tools, the digital stuff, sure, but probably more important is to learn how to actually create a compelling narrative that

convince the participants to take part, that they really trust.

that they see, they understand the quote unquote why.

Why should I go somewhere and spend three hours talking to strangers about something which is usually very abstract and don't feel either mismanaged or betrayed or just simply

People don't want to feel stupid or be part of stupid things.

So you, you want to organize it hypothetically, do the same thing.

Don't turn it into something embarrassing and dull and stupid and just focus on, I would really say the basics, know, facilitation, project management and setting up a good

narrative because you can have the best civic tech tool in the world.

But if you cannot and don't understand these three that I just mentioned,

It's not gonna be a success.

And related to why, I mean why a person is participating, I mean are they doing it for free, are they receiving like a compensation and also there is this question that is why

people do not participate

This is obviously the most common challenge.

um First of all, after doing this for 13 years, I genuinely believe that people do want to participate.

At least in Europe, even in Sub-Saharan Africa, know, Latin America.

ah Anywhere where we operated in the past, I truly believe people do want to participate.

If they don't, it means that the design of the process is bad.

It's not their fault that they didn't receive the information.

It's not their fault that the proposition or offering that you give them when you try to invite them to the project is not compelling.

Maybe it's not comprehensive.

Maybe they just don't understand.

what you're trying to say.

That's a very very common mistake that is happening very very often.

That we as someone who...

I mean I don't work uh in public sector but I see it over and over.

The biggest mistake is to kind of talk to the public and talk to the potential participants in technical phrases and very uh complicated things.

complicated language and so on, share it, then you discourage them, you know.

Then it also has to do with uh tiny little important practicalities.

ah People want to participate, but also they will participate if you provide them with proper opportunities to participate.

It's a very naive to think that, okay, organize, for example, one meeting

Tuesday at 4 p.m.

and then I'm surprised that nobody really came just two three I don't know citizen seniors.

Well, why because everyone is at work You know, you need to take into consideration What the citizens in those specific communities how how they live, you know, what is their

challenges?

ah If you if you create a space where people who

have little kids and don't have someone to look after, they will not participate.

So what is the solution?

Either offer them also online uh alternative where they can take part or bring someone who can look after the children uh when the workshop is happening.

So it actually gets...

it boils down to a lot of down-to-earth practicalities that are blocking the participation and I think that

uh That's something we found out very early on is the solution to these challenges.

The biggest mistake is to be looking for shortcuts or magic pills.

I'll create this amazing AI-driven digital tool and everything is going to be solved and everyone will enjoy it and will participate.

No!

after COVID, since COVID people are sick of working on screens.

They want to talk, they want to touch things.

Like I said, we are back to haptics, back to working with hands and actually working with materials and actually having a human face-to-face conversations.

So it's a mixture of uh issues, but as I said in the beginning,

If people don't want to participate, something is wrong with the design or maybe the trust in that very community or town or wherever has been breached for so long that they just

don't want to participate because they don't trust you as an organizer, as an institution.

So it will take time, it might take another year to gain the trust back and so on and so on.

are so many, so many...

potential issues that can block the participation, but I truly I don't believe that people don't want to participate.

They want to be serviced, they want to be heard, they want to take part, but we are just as a society still learning how to ah service them uh in a right way and it doesn't matter

if it's through tech tools or in-person activities.

Maybe the uh tech tools can facilitate in some way this participation.

em it was like how do you imagine society in the future like if these kind of practices are...

Yeah, if there are more participation processes all around the world.

Hmm.

Let me think.

I think there is few options.

Not all of them are positive.

ah I would say the realistic scenario is you'll be facing more and more and more participation washing and civic tech washing, you know.

kind of politicians or PR agencies or communication companies and others um kind of re re branding or basically taking campaigning and approach and outreach and kind of like sugar

coating it in participation.

that's that's that my I think that's a big risk.

Hand in hand with that is obviously disinformation and fake news ah and just being dumber and dumber and you know inhaling ah not healthy and poisonous information.

That's kind of negative part.

ah Definitely I would say as you can see all around the world the interest in the

traditional politics is decreasing.

Either if it's really boring or again from the process design point of view it's ineffective.

Once in two years perhaps you just give a blank check to either a party or a candidate and then just watch.

Watch what is happening in the next four years.

So the interest is decreasing on the other hand if we happen to

kind of mainstream and standardize what we are trying all of us to do and other guests on your podcast.

The things that are happening between the elections, which means literally the participation on all different types of agendas and projects and public policies and so on

so on.

That can trigger an interest and truly give people

chance to influence whatever they see from their window.

know, maybe, you know, if I need to change something, I know how to organize and so on and so on.

Either if it's a bottom up or top down participation.

That I see as a hopefully a positive outcome.

And obviously the tools can help that.

But to be honest, you don't really need as much of a digital tools to run a good participatory process.

You know, it's still

It's good, but it's 8-10 % of the success of the whole project.

cannot be tech-driven.

So I would say I really wish there would be more of these projects because it truly helps communities.

ah I wish there would be more of these and it would become kind of day-to-day normal thing and mainstream.

especially when it comes to the youngest generation.

That would definitely help because I don't know how it's in Italy but uh elsewhere, whatever.

I have an opportunity to travel.

You have 17-18 year olds who everyone is expecting to be a first time voter uh in no time and everyone is expecting them to take a stand and be a responsible citizen but besides

few

ah Besides few theories and curriculum in school, we don't really give them hands-on experience on what it is to be ah really engaged and really influence something and really

see results thanks to their effort and so on and so on.

So I really wish there would be more of that.

But uh I'm positive, like I'm trying to be positive and I think that it's one of the best ways how we can secure the...

old good democratic systems and actually get people excited and interested in the environment around them.

I was thinking about Italy and now the situation is not the best one.

Something that made me a little bit mad sometimes.

uh It's because uh you know sometimes it happened that there are small things that in school you have to decide like if to take the if the windows has to be open or closed

And several times I've heard, but this is not a democracy.

And the professor decide, this made me like, how can we democracy or whatever, like cannot just be a name.

It has to be like something that you put in practice every day.

And I can understand that it can be in some way problematic maybe for the professor to stay there.

uh

debate if the window has to be open or closed, but at the same time I think it can be a nice example where everyone can understand how maybe it can be difficult also to...

I understand what you're trying to say, but it's a perfect example.

me elaborate on that.

ah We should really stop connecting the potential activities that our youth and children can do with small things such as, as an example, such as opening windows, yes or not.

We should really be engaging them in a serious projects, you know, in

It's a super interesting socio-demographics that has understanding of where they live, they are the future generation, future voters and from my experience children of 10-11

years old of age can very easily be part of actually very important

processes such as on cities public space, such as on coming up with different strategies and so on and so on.

They can just be one of the target groups that we work with and giving them the chance to actually work on something very meaningful.

ah That's, I would believe, which is implicitly convincing them, actually debating and finding consensus, it actually makes sense.

We're making things better.

Oh, and then by the way, after you turn 18 you can do this exercise of voting this dude or whoever that you want him to represent you in a parliament as on a side, it's basically a

side quest.

Then politics becomes a side quest, not the main thing, but the main thing is you should be really interested in what is happening around the near city or in the region where you

live.

And especially now with the climate change and with the environmental issues, it's very easy to get the children and young people engaged.

It's on us and the leaders, the public sphere leaders, who don't really open as many agendas to the young people as they should.

It should be a norm, to my opinion, you know.

So that's exactly what needs to, I hope it will change, that we actually become serious and start working with them on the real stuff as early as possible.

And participation is a great vehicle for that.

And is there a difference uh in relation to the participation between uh adults and young people or children, like in the way you organize it in the tools that you are using?

uh

uh To be honest, not really.

The only thing that you need to always double check is the level of know-how of the participants.

Know-how they have of the agenda you want to discuss with them or you want to feedback on.

uh Because again, that's one of the biggest obstacles for any successful participatory project that we are expecting people.

that they come to the meeting and they know it all.

That they did the self-study and it's a very naive approach, a very, very naive approach.

It has become, for example, one of our stepping stones when we plan the projects that first we always map what is the know-how of the participants and then we tweak the

narrative, the narrative that we talked about, the narrative that...

information, if there needs to be some extra training, capacity building for those and it doesn't matter if it's kids or adults.

Obviously when you are working with 13 year olds, 12 year olds, you cannot bring on the vocabulary that you're using when you are working with some professional expert

stakeholders on the same topic.

It's completely different game.

But I don't think there is much of a difference honestly.

People are people.

And if you are engaged and curious as a young 14 year old, is a big, big, big probability you will be similarly curious and engaged when you are 65 and vice versa.

So it's not really about...

I don't find a difference.

Okay, it's very interesting also.

And I agree about the importance of participation for young people.

um Because it seems to me that once you see that um you can actually change something, you can contribute to something, then you don't feel powerless as it happens in our society.

we call it that you experience participation catharsis.

You put an effort, something happens, and you see the results, and you see your own imprints on the result.

That's extremely important.

And to be honest, majority of the adults that we work with haven't experienced that.

It's extremely common when you have 45-year-old, 60-year-old...

coming to whatever workshop on wind turbines and it's first time in their life ever when they are taking part of a public debate.

Ever.

You know, and they never experienced anyone asking for their opinion.

Maybe they went to the ballot boxes to, you know, take part in elections, but again it's a super private experience and very intimate.

uh

where you don't have to stand up and be center of attention for a moment and actually be asking questions and listen and change your opinion and find consensus and so on so on and

so on.

And this is the experience that needs to be passed on to young and old alike in order to make the participation even more widespread.

And now I have a couple of questions related to you, to your experience, um so your professional or academic background, ah how you ended up...

ah I'll just cover it briefly.

was ah a coincidence.

ah I in my previous, previous, previous career, I worked in media for a long time.

Czech TV, Czech Radio, couple other newspapers here in the country and I focused primarily on Middle East uh in school.

I didn't graduate, but I studied ah

for long time Arabic and Hebrew Philology.

I didn't know nothing about participation till 2013.

And then the chance occurred and was, I think, the right time and the right place and took part in developing that voting solution, digital solution, as I talked about it before,

D21, which I was a CEO.

And this is how I got into the whole world of participation about 13 years ago.

I never studied it in university.

I never even thought about it.

But what really caught my interest is how much impact you can create, how much change you can deliver to specific communities and specific people just

thanks to organizing good, solid, transparent, trustworthy participatory project.

So it really caught my eye and yeah, 13 years later, still doing it.

I don't like my lifestyle that much anymore because I travel a lot and it's very active, but I truly, truly enjoy what I'm still, even more than before.

It's really exciting and it's really exciting to see at least in our part of the world that it's really taking off, it's being mainstreamed and seeing a lot of ministries,

regional governments, local governments, anyone, not just in the Czech Republic, all around, essentially Eastern Europe or Balkans or elsewhere, uh how they're taking

seriously and they really truly see the value in it because you're...

basically servicing citizens, you you're providing them with a good citizen experience and that counts.

uh that's what, there's very few other professions I would say that uh are so connected to impact.

This is beautiful.

And anything about your personal background, like also starting from when you were a child, so long.

Okay.

normal normal kids growing up I Don't know I like dogs.

I have a dog.

I love I love ice hockey ah That's my favorite sport I I grew up listening to a lot of punk rock music and skateboarding and I love arts

oh I don't enjoy traveling that much since I have to travel a lot for work, but definitely like have a very uh quite a few favorite places around the world where I enjoy returning

to and I don't know.

I really don't know what else to say.

I'm not that interesting to be honest.

But now I'm also curious about how much you travel like so like like every day every every week

I wouldn't say every day.

the participation factory, like traditionally, the past seven years, we always have about, I would say 20, sometimes 30 percent, sometimes some years it was even 40 percent of the

projects we do outside of the Czech Republic, either if it's for, you know, ministries, cities in surrounding countries or Balkans or...

Georgia or Northern Africa or wherever.

ah Katya, a colleague, recently did projects in 19 or 20 countries, with Ukraine 20 countries.

I just got back from Ukraine on Monday.

ah We do lot of capacity building and teaching, which is very rewarding, especially in places where participation is just starting.

And it's good, not good, it's interesting to see

ah that there are ah places that are experiencing basically what we were experiencing here 10 years ago.

So ah it's definitely easier to get them up to speed very quickly.

ah So we do a lot of teaching, lot of mentoring and I would say 20-30 trips a year, shorter or longer, depends.

ah Also, we just do projects outside, it's not always...

either it's public speaking or being called to run...

I don't know, before the summer we finished a large participation project in a very, very eastern town in Slovakia on the border with Ukraine.

was a participation needed as a preparation for architectural competition of like old spa...

uh old spa kind of area.

that has been neglected for past 30 years.

that's kind of public space related projects.

For example, we do that, you know, I was just in Lviv in Ukraine having a keynote about oh participation and Civic Tech mostly on behalf of Participation Factory as well as ACTE,

Association Civic Tech Europe.

So it really depends.

It depends kind of quarter by quarter, month by month.

Okay, it was just curious.

Is there anything that you're trying to fix, solve into your organization?

Something you have an idea, you don't know how to do it?

Maybe someone will listen and think, okay, I have the idea.

um Interesting question.

ah

Hmm.

I would say we've been playing a lot with...

We are really obsessed with the boring stuff, as I said.

Project management, process design, monitoring and evaluation.

Because I truly believe this is what brings the quality to those projects.

And obviously, everyone else in every other field around the world, we're trying to figure out how to make certain workflows.

more effective thanks to AI.

So that's interesting.

That's kind of like a challenge of this year and I think it's a must to think about it.

How to decrease the number of hours that you focus on the boring stuff.

I truly don't believe that AI would be able to just you you press the button and you have it everything.

and designed and checklists and you can do it.

I don't believe the reality kicks you in the butt always, you because people are people and small practical things matter.

So I don't, don't, I don't buy this.

But in a specific cases and specific parts of our work AI can definitely be helpful.

So that's a challenge.

Otherwise.

We're trying to do more projects abroad and trying to figure out...

That's actually interesting.

We're trying to figure out right now how to help the civic tech companies more.

ah Especially bringing them into Central and Eastern Europe.

So if there is anyone who is...

representing whatever civic tech company around the world and would like to kind of explore the markets in Central Eastern Europe, contact us.

That's something that we are really trying to figure it out because ah I think that's the next frontier for a lot of companies.

Central Eastern Europe is a very specific place thanks to its uh municipality system.

For example, Czech Republic, even though we have 10 million people, close to 11 million people population,

We have 6,300 municipalities, which means 6,300 clients for civic tech companies.

In other countries, it's usually in hundreds.

And there is a lot of interesting things going on.

So that would be probably kind of like the major challenges that we are working on now in 2025.

Okay and as last question if you have any message for people that are experimenting with software or maybe they're doing something similar to you but in other countries in other

places so

Just do it.

Just do it.

Experiment, but be humble.

ah Maybe the message would be ah don't turn a specific tools and methods into a fetish.

If it works once and twice and if it works in one place it doesn't necessarily mean it will work in other contexts.

ah So constantly reinvent and develop.

No single method, script, tool or kind of process uh is magic for all.

And I think it's very sad to see when...

someone gets into the ecosystem and learns about a specific method or tool and then sees everything through the lens of one tool or method.

ah Obviously, if you are a developer and you have a specific product, obviously you're trying to sell it and it's perfectly fine.

ah But especially when it comes to participatory methods, don't turn it into fetish.

Thank you a lot, Tomas.

And

you so much.

All right.