so why come on in these episodes
of democracy in way in the weekly
podcast the and today we are here
we for valentine shabu from open source
politics and the why come to this
podcast and a and they would like
to ask you as as a
first question i yeah what is open
source politics
yeah so what does a pencil spectacle
that's a pretty sixties and is a
combat at we belong in the social
economy sixth or but yet we are
a company almost nine years old
at we are based in paris with
house and and as the name says
we are trying to bring open-source to
the political sphere and and impact the
political
debates with a pencil software so we
can provide open source tools at to
read and the battery democracy processes and
at we especially to use a desert
him which is one of the the
software us and obviously we have to
all multiple marriages and also and
consulting and methodologies to in order to
to succeed in in those processes but
yeah basically at the very beginning it's
using open source tools though political discussions
and decision okay so nine years it's
quite a long time especially and his
field and i would like to ask
you how did he change like have
you felt any any changes in time
yeah i think so there are different
the obvious the and
ways to answer this question what i
can say is that almost ten years
ago
in cross and was seem quite typically
french at the moment at that moment
we are a lot of projects the
thought the way it using subic technologies
and we had a lot of hope
that twitter to really bring a big
changes
and it's it was not the only
place of just leave spain it was
a advanced the we had connection with
taiwan or was latin america with greece
and all in all those countries and
political backgrounds there were
a desire to use a new tools
in order to do pretty political action
a bit different kid so that was
really ten years ago
a lot of enthusiasm and a lot
of volunteering and and and or of
projects that were just starting at bootstrapping
and and then we add another failure
the where and especially for us in
closet it was after the two thousand
and seventeen a leg
russian president direction and what was before
just to let's say at movement air
became
it's our business or markets and and
most of the the people including us
at were advocating for those new tours
and new politics and became a company's
became and civil servant with responsibilities on
the field
so we already at the more
yeah professionalism and using those tools as
we became very concrete and and i
would say that for the past
three five years and we are in
a second
your the where are we have had
the innovations we we made all the
first pilots and and pioneering with a
few projects and and now we are
running a lot of them replicating indifferent
spheres and also we are starting chores
will criticize somehow what has been done
what could be done differently
and and at the moment especially in
france but they said i think in
in all southern europe and we have
a trend that is slowly decreasing artists
are discussing the real impacts of those
tools and i think that too
trance two options one is to consider
that and it's open it opens a
new direction it's that we need new
tools new technologies especially using ai and
because obviously it will have an impact
on those are typically riches so there
this
it's a socialistic vision and and and
then there is also another trend that
is can we need to to go
deeper with the processes to make them
maybe do a little less but make
sure that they have an impact make
sure that they are really really
events die involving people are and in
at the end the bring real change
and not chester new tools new innovation
in a lot of communication so those
to transfer interesting and actually we are
trying to explore both are at the
pencil six
because of leave from the very beginning
we are saying that the tools almost
magical the bring a lot but the
magical and we have to make sure
that to really useful
yeah of course of developing at all
is not enough for the rest of
your an adoption and really exists and
so it seems to me that if
i understood correctly that there was an
increase in the the little fears about
the developing tools yeah and the
i think there was maybe also some
more interest the from the institutions
of the this kind of tools and
the so open source politics works mainly
in french
in and the or not
mostly in for us in terms of
number of contracts but are we also
walk at the european level we were
krista european commission of europe and projects
a few european cities as well in
other countries and member states and also
we have at some projects
it's outside of europe especially were walking
with the city of new york in
the u s
because they also used to sit him
the the mostly obviously it's in france
and what it was in europe now
okay and as he feared the
to go deeper in in the processor
in the researchers
the to trends one could be building
new to sir especially wi fi and
other to understand more the processes
that made the tools work
i wonder like on the political side
the like a institutions politicians are aware
of beer potentiality of of technology and
like yeah so obviously as a saw
i saw those two trans but they
think they are complementary like we we
we need to always improve the tools
and also reflect on how to use
their
i i would say that do some
public institution and some politicians are well
aware of
the the potential impact the the needs
to use those tools but also do
the interests of the looking open source
technologies and to be of rain with
the tools that we use especially in
europe and it's vault of the news
those days with the water
appends in the u s was older
the big thick and so for that
there is a yeah political concern probably
some people are really reflecting and on
that
i would say also that there is
a trend that we see
that some of the politicians all decision
makers or institutions are considering that the
tools they are proposing new ways to
interact the damage that revolutionary and somehow
i doubt and sometimes the cannot
completely follow the trend and and and
always use them and we see that
some
territories are somehow going back at like
reversing what was done mostly for political
power from the financial reasons like didn't
look have the budget to continue or
it's not considered as a priority in
this world where we have a lot
of
what or concerns
so it's it's very a mixed and
sir i would say on my side
bets for sure there is also
of progress that was made in advocating
open source technologies in promoting acidic technologies
of the past ten years crusher
okay and thinking about new tools
but also about the tools that are
used to right now so audacity me
the think it's it could be for
maybe the core yeah
but the are there are other tools
that the are very use the
by institutions right now
yeah yeah so
the city it's interesting to just to
tell the story once again
in spain two thousand and eleven
among all the occupy movement so around
the world they were the the can
submit your in in in spain so
yeah those as we also said and
political demonstrations a new generation asking for
a new innovation new ways to do
the
so to interact with the institutions new
wasted the politics of for your list
for years later and citizen conditions of
on the largest cities in in spain
madrid and in job i sorta nine
cornea and in the dame
this new generation started to create new
tubes and one of them was created
in marines it was console it's all
stages and and his team was created
by the city of barcelona because they
didn't agree with a madrid on the
roadmap for the to
the city was created from the very
beginning as very modular article so as
you say it's a car
engine and then you you can play
the matures and from the very beginning
it it leads a lot of freedom
to the administrators to create processes to
assign roles to use different features and
at our surveys and i degeneration even
talk
musician
participatory budgeting voting phase petitions
collaborative writing and blogging even so it's
authority did did they wanted to create
kind of an alternative and political social
network at the local level and and
that was a disodium is is a
is generic it it'll feel a lot
of possible configurations and and it's really
the kind of is the main website
an institution that will want to to
open about cemetery battery democracy or use
digital democrats are obviously it as sort
of competitors the can do almost the
same data in the same array of
providing different tools within the same bottom
so but i think on this field
of generic tools the is probably the
best in the way that is the
most ethical
it is run by an association it
is a one hundred percent open-source it
is very interesting and in the components
suspect also between we probably come back
to that later and and then the
other tools that are more maybe specialized
in what interaction
so for example there is a to
let exist for almost ten years also
that is quite famous it's police pulled
that is and this is a it
was an advance and the trend of
ai and from the very beginning it's
a
asking users to answer some some
some questions artist to the ticket to
make a stance on on different them
questions and and it designs a map
of the controversies like it for groups
people who have the same interests of
the same answers and it can very
efficiently
sure you if to a debate is
controversial or are and what are the
two or three groups that can be
identified when talking about something or it
was used for is putting taiwan almost
ten years ago
in a debate on on the use
of from you bear and odor kind
of from
the services the though the same like
a car sharing
it was quite new for them so
they they use the tool and it
was one of the best use case
priority for that it has been used
and more recently we have seen and
order tools like are the ones from
another french company that does make the
toward at which is one of our
partners or endeavor to let
is very efficient to it's quite simple
in the sense of it is limited
to and shot proposals smith by users
and then voting
on those and really fast analytics and
and with the idea to reach a
lot of and participants and and then
also identify controversies all more supported proposals
and and are bringing more a
the into the into the tools as
well as to explain and
and describe all the aspects of a
political debate so those are more specified
like a specialized tools and i think
it's the the train we have we
seen boss happening so very large and
generic and and very useful bottles
the shooting being promoted the the best
possible option
and and then more specialized tools with
one direction that they're really do well
and we can connect the photo was
obviously now
okay thank you very interesting
maybe we go back to tooth later
i wanted to ask you again about
open source politics like and how did
it happen
because i read now st louis i'm
very niche like not a lot of
people are in these the field data
that can imagine that ten years ago
it was seven
but what is surprising
and maybe it's an issue it's that
people that were the thought here today
were already there ten years ago at
least in france and and in mostly
if for consider if we look at
are also other countries like this again
to see dim it was created eight
years ago at on
nine years ago so it's really happening
it was happening at the same time
and and the woolwich very different it
was before the first mandate of original
tribes was before brexit i just before
cambridge analytica it was really the time
when we consider that
the digital edition was the only solution
of the ventilation and we were very
again optimistic about
about it
twitter was very different obviously and so
and yeah ten years ago
i if i bring my own story
i was already walking in the political
field in the local institution and then
in the french parliament was advising decision
makers and the
i felt that there was a divide
between the population in the the the
decision making process and obviously the politicians
so i was not obviously the only
one to see that spitzer i decided
to
yeah to try something else and i
followed a bootcamp to learn the basics
of cutting
as it was exactly ten years ago
and and the in this or bootcamp
i drafted the prototype
of a tool that never existed but
a tool that could help
citizens understand the process of writing the
law the new law and and the
we wanted it to be open source
and after this boot camp i
met with the other people who were
interested in the field or embarrass the
were already quite a few of them
and and among them are i met
my future of on us at first
we are published a few should texts
we organize the show a workshop
https and hackathons add to improve the
the genius thing tools and and one
of the the events that we did
she organized i was a
away through the draft or to to
create a neutral the for a city
near paris and from there we received
requests to
provide additional tools to other
territories and we decided to creates the
combined with from the very beginning we
really at this
commitments to open source will reconsider it
was very important
in general but especially when we are
talking about
political technologies are
obviously digital democracy and it hasn't impact
on decision making and and we were
also a very attracted by what was
are being created the outside of for
our country and its there with as
we met people from taiwan in mexico
and and in in especially in spain
and in barcelona so the story of
the city in an open-source politics is
really are closely related because we will
one of the first partners of the
city him outside of of catalonia and
and and he was really
the true this a deal that we
were able to grow as a company
as a and also
consultants looking at how we can use
those digital tools
felt his face it is participation so
yeah the story was that and and
from there i come
obviously we had one or two first
years of exploration and after that it
was a general increase
of the time it's interesting that you
do not came from computer science so
if you can see maybe towards about
your background because i think it's yet
interesting so one of the the key
ingredients in the recipe for just what
it takes is that we were for
co-founders
coming from different backgrounds but sharing the
same interest so on my side i
came from a political science so and
attended that and and really i was
and
an expert on and on previous knowledge
and experience in basically the jury are
were all clients were so the public
institutions and especially local ones
with my coffin this one of them
was more on the product side
of of online tools and one of
them are still has to offer princess
but it takes a was a developer
forum already almost ten years or so
yeah we had we had all the
expertise and combining our different backgrounds
are we are quite successful in the
first years because we were very complementary
and agreeing on the roadmap and and
it was too is quite to the
quite simple yet to to true really
understand
everything that was needed
on day decide and also the business
side
okay and there was like i dunno
if you remember la carte a moment
in your life when you realize the
that the
this union between politics and technology was
interesting for you
do program that were several but until
like
i was interested in in in digital
affairs but i was reading not understanding
anything
before i attended the camp and that
was the reason why i wanted to
to be more and of have no
more knowledge about it better i would
say probably
priority during the january the american presidential
election of barack obama there was a
lot of interest like social network with
were growing
he made it all his team has
made her of progress and in organizing
through the internet and i what i
was think i was more interested in
politics than a digital first and i
understood that it was a new way
to the basics so i think
that came it came from there but
also i was always interested in in
new technologies and you're trans
but relieve fall very long time i
was just the
not understanding anything about the computer science
and i still understand the prisoners sir
an alternate that the accused i understand
that it's a bit more and yeah
yeah so i think yeah with so
so in terms of her
age i was probably
twenties early twenties when i started really
hunting and interests for that
okay it's been interesting to see how
people a the yeah i think i
was also i was also blogging and
liking to read blogs so it really
was ten twenty years ago
the and blogging at the and at
a few impacts are in france we
had the this moments that twenty years
ago in two thousand and five where
we are the referendum on the european
treaties and twas the
like to do people rejected the treaty
and and and a lot of the
debates
as it been online true blogs and
and forums as a very whole school
but yeah that that produce interest also
came from that
bouquet now and and talking about the
maybe be going back to tulsa get
the that the
i mean they are an important part
because i mean
you from
depending how the tool is design than
also the people behavior in different way
because the citizen have to do something
instead of something else
and the thought how do
thinking about the new tools to do
you feel that something is needed
i mean we will say that the
now the recently i heard the probably
the we will see more integration we
fi in the future
but is there something like i dunno
tools should be more i dunno bottom
up or or something related to the
design that you think it's important to
yeah so i would say
the first what we are currently the
tools well designed mostly for by institutions
of for the the interest of institutions
so they are somehow quite top done
obviously some of them are made to
let image new ideas new proposals that
it's sir most of the time are
coming from the institution and sadhana completely
grass roots and citizen based
for that we have petitions would say
that's the main tool and the people
organize and
and and the other aspect is that
the tools are built for an age
of writing and reading and
the trend is that new generations tend
to speak and watched videos and and
reels and and chats formats and not
focus on on the text
and so the tourists are not completely
aligned with the basic habits of people
on on the internet
especially younger generations now so there is
any false to be made in all
the first to integrate more direct interaction
property for example letting people just the
recalled the voice when the sharon id
the and bring that eighty two the
system and
at the moment it's not completely done
but it's feasible technically and and also
pro like using
artificial intelligence capacities for an interesting propose
that would be helping people understand the
debates what is a steak because of
his head in the one reads the
thirty pages reports are that you should
read before taking part in the in
the process but he should have a
summary and you can
ask a few questions then you can
obviously be more informed you can propose
an eighty and and the be assisted
in the real formulation of decided in
order to make sure that to is
some of the same idea as someone
else as was just published all
it can all in the contrary or
create a bridge between different ids and
make sure that the we we cristo
those ideas and and we can enrich
them so for that and i think
that there is a need for mute
declarative new or another aspect is that
and and we are looking at it
and the moment wizard of partners be
to open it is removing that it's
or are we make sure that sir
those contributions are interoperable with other tourists
suffers from the just before i told
you that may be frightened better make
those org as a very powerful tool
to make people vote massively in favor
or against different problems but the a
degenerate
one is is more powerful the because
of and even kind of categories attachments
commands endorsements on proposals for example you
you could have first purpose of some
this idiom of then you and send
them to to make the target to
have a massive voting on them and
maybe the top twenty proposal
you can enrich them on this theme
and and quebec or so that's would
be the kind of interaction that we
want you to create the making sure
that are also when i dunno there
isn't debates in italy or on climate
change
there is also these debates in france
and maybe it's interesting to compare all
to even share the proposals
because obviously the seventy bits are happening
everywhere at the number of debates on
governance of ai at the moment everywhere
there is that seems to be one
that if we could just have a
larger space where we could share on
the the insights from those debates are
obviously the decision and the deliberation we'd
be more
the porphyry we also need a and
i think it's one of the interest
of for your own work the tools
for the liberation like to go bit
further in the process not just sharing
an id your command to vote but
really co-creating caucus co building
the
put his political and public places that
that would be necessary to also developed
may be new tunes that can again
and blend with weapons are physically in
workshops in public assemblies are citizen
finance and me so found that i
think yeah we we might need you
tools
and to lower the barrier but also
go very and
like really deeper in terms of from
understanding analysis of and and complexity of
yeah it seems to me like to
see two different trends in the tech
field
one is the more two's sort of
replicated the actual functioning office who shot
just in the digital space to make
it easier to vote in to will
receive feedbacks and the other one is
more like to experiment to to find
new ways for people to decide
i bought something and the and these
new ways of course have to be
tested the and all
or eventually of the that the by
institutions yeah and the that i see
this part as very interesting and the
yeah i think it was a very
the yeah yeah but i think it
was all else
the it was always the the debate
i on should we improve the current
the functioning of our institutions all somehow
generate new one song
all even yeah create nuance and and
consider the current ones on the talking
so i've just the and i think
the to again can evolve in the
huddle
and for the disodium it's a tool
designed by an institution for other institutions
and in some ways we when we
provide the tool to new institutions they
are just functioning as they are down
get more open maybe than ten years
ago
go
on some topics on some processes
but
prodi it's not revolutionary it's not changing
the rules enough as for the also
voices that the want to read bypass
the current institutions had some all generate
more citizen engagement creating projects using the
the power of the clergy and
and i think and what is interesting
ways open sources that are with the
same tool that the institution elk designing
and creating developing and we can have
all the types of movements that we
use the same to benefit from the
public investment and generates more engagement was
that
that's what we you could hope for
yeah
thank you
and thinking about the old
the people the threat now i dunno
how to cook them a digital activist
people interested in the civic tech
yeah
how do you think the they are
collaborating right now and is there space
to any kind of improvement to make
it more efficient to
yeah so i think what i have
seen is that most of all competitors
jodo companies that created tools
the created their own to so it's
difficult for them to go beyond the
tool and because he always wanted to
improve it
and and said he and and and
said it more and where's the city
we have a different approach we consider
that we have to be or collaborating
on the same tool and it's what
is also very interesting like we we
consider that for example
the order companies deploying service providing services
around the city him we we do
not consider them as competitors but as
as partners and and obviously sometimes they
will gain a contract that will not
have that
it's a it's more important that we
have this am
come on projects where we all
share our resources with contributes ready to
improve the demand for that disodium was
really a very interesting project because as
it is a digital democracy platform it
was used by the creators of the
city him in order to run the
project democratic
so there is now so it came
from this each of us with an
to for several years now it is
run by an independent to association and
ways a different type of partners some
of them all companies or those eyes
additions or there are more
and technical side the universities also researchers
and and and citizens that are really
interested in committing to the to the
common at the rear the project and
and the we have this process of
an open road map of the tool
anyone can share and is for new
features and i take you did soak
the the tool saw the their the
the options are then evaluated by a
professional to product team some of them
being then funded by public institutions
the and are different providers will share
the same some doubts in order to
add new features to to the platform
so that has been ready success maybe
it's not the tool that evolves the
fastest but it it is one of
the the richest in to
terms of take off from spaces features
combination that you can create and it's
also the one that is the the
most transparent like you can access all
the story of the tool online you
can really be part of it contributes
as so for that again
would say it's a to it's real
good inspiration for someone discovering civic tech
to who gets what the city has
done
and again in order to expand that
it's what we want to do is
interoperability saw it sir and really making
sure that we created turned out to
share content from one platform to the
other and we can imagine that and
five ten years no matter the to
let you use
years old data will share the same
protocol the same out and you would
be able to to as a user
as a citizen bring your own data
and that the and not a story
on the platform itself and and then
interact with people using different platforms probably
differ
is it different countries and all that
being here and also facilitated by a
machine translation
a i analysis
that would be that would be interesting
to see all we can add
move from everyone every institution having its
own platform every company developing its own
software to reveal a public space very
disturbed kids using different technologies or pencil
standouts
at the larger scale that that could
be interesting
yeah it's it's very exciting to think
about to all the technologies that are
being developed the i mean that were
developed and are being developed the and
we will be developed to to now
out all these the i would say
a sort of ecosystem where do i
dunno someone as a new media about
a new tool the just developed that
the small part that the then can
be a module of density the just
a standalone product with some way poi
that through the product can use
and then
i never liked us q if theresa
i dunno any any project that you
are excited about also a project that
you have seen on the internet the
the
i am so i bought from the
ones that we are already involved in
i
i don't know if they will be
projects really directly related to what we
want to talk about
and yeah i would say the project
so i considered a to speak the
courage it did damn testing when they
interact with the the the life cycle
of a public debate predict decision so
at first there is religious importance of
information and quite each of information and
it's something that as a it's read
the butter at the moment we have
seen a lot of
fake news spreading for the best in
you as a we we we see
with the ai the fake that now
it is
more simple if you have to the
defense and and knowledge to even disrupt
the political debates particular elections
and we already at risk was that
will get swept up in romania always
someone emerging in one months and a
lot of research is the content and
fake news and able to almost winner
president's election we see what happens in
germany at the moment with
on masker supporting the far right and
day they are raising the bots a
asleep so we see that the that
it's it's really important to have to
improve the quality of information and to
resist to all the attacks adequacy and
for that i the
new new tools that the probably are
being developed a the twill the also
helped pupil
i like detects when there is a
manipulation weather is a fake news and
we can of tomatoes that as that
that's interesting
and then we have tools to
so information than mobilization you are informed
you are into you want to act
on that field i think the are
very powerful tool that already exist to
organize campaigns fund raising so that i
would say it's over the almost covered
between obviously improve
it's a it's already exist and then
when you are mobilized new you you
have your debate in your in need
to make a decision you need a
bitter deliberation and i think the yet
among the different
the tools that are should exist and
the and vision then maybe developed already
there is this a
this wall and objective of and
recreating the
the advantages of face to face discretion
in order to bring deliberation the line
at a larger scale may be multilingual
may be
on very different difficult topics and for
that they are there are some new
technologies
it could be summarizing discussion with
real humans and online in order to
are held to yeah because it's it's
we always share more when we discuss
then when we write down a comment
and and we wait five hours before
there is a native or so it's
it's a
this recreation of her face to face
interaction in larger group or by letter
on a thanks to a synthesis made
by ai thanks to maybe translation as
well that's that's really interesting and important
korea to create that
and then so they are the fall
steps information mobilization decision slashed deliberation and
then i think what is important is
also evaluation and
sharing data sharing knowledge and thanks to
things to again on the open data
analysis we have neutrals new visualization
it's is simpler than ever to
i really are
understand what came from one thousand ids
the are written on the platform so
he had awesome tools that are very
interesting as wedding this field and i
think if we're gonna make it kind
of from a career and ecosystem of
different tools addressing all those parameters a
we will improve
the quantity of digital democracy obviously it's
a big challenge also because as you
said it says more niche or a
the on there is not a lot
of money and six or more yeah
and and are very powerful tools outside
of its that for do not swamps
to have a long and peaceful now
deliberation as so it's a it's a
big challenge but i think what are
some interesting stuff
and the do you have any method
for the people like active in the
field the or that would like to
do something about i dunno developing new
tools so
i can
yeah i said okay
i think and most importantly of and
tools
like its
as you said in a previous question
it's important to
considered at the core already exists we
already have tools are we already the
other networks are to discuss that
we have to be marjoram a bring
new modules new features new ideas new
people and and the and yeah that's
the way we will create a digital
common that is more powerful and and
so yeah the the the the suggestion
would be just to connect with people
already in the field share the ids
a try to
to the to proof of concepts of
what it could be and then make
sure that it is interoperable with what
the roads exists because a yeah we
need so much more the flophouse much
more designers as so much more political
leaders
re contributing to to bring these filled
to the next level
and so it's it's open away we
need more people
and real
and the good news is that the
bases already exist i think it's it's
quite solid it's quite stable and bitter
we have to to extend its yep
okay thank you
and then is there anything else that
you'd like to share that you think
it's worth it to
no i would say tincture father invitation
that discussion and it's interesting to see
that there is a new interests and
in in the san
for this projects in general and you
energy also from
yeah maybe new parts of europe
and
so yeah thank you for that could
look for this podcast
of this discuss the cast
i was reacting to to be thought
of it and then let's discuss again
further
and on how we can improve those
to cottages altogether
yeah absolutely thank you thank you
thank you
a