One Page Summary

• Which need/challenge are you addressing with your solution?
In the last years Athens has undergone a multi-layered crisis that is threatening social cohesion. Strengthening civic participation of vulnerable groups will be necessary in order to become a resilient city. And therefore, the 6th City District of the Municipality of Athens can benefit from implementing novel means of civic participation.
Collaborative decision making enhances the ability of a community to achieve social goals, as it has been recently recognised by the World Bank in its Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance project (see full report). But successfully engaging with vulnerable groups and with the wider public to carry forward high quality and stable decisions is a challenge that requires substantial governmental resources and know-how.
• How your solution aims to satisfy that need in practical terms?
Kuorum's multidisciplinary team of professionals has five years of experience helping organisations and governments to implement collaborative problem solving and community engagement strategies. In order to support these processes, our engineers have developed a technology that was awarded Best Tech for Politics 2016 by the Washington Academy of Political Arts and Sciences. Nonetheless, technology is always regarded as a tool to allow for mass participation, but never as a substitute of offline deliberation.
In the case of the 6th City District of the Municipality of Athens we aim to involve its citizens, a majority of which are in social risk, in collaborative problem solving processes around social issues in the district. These processes will be a combination of on- and offline activities and training sessions. Our goal is to activate civic engagement and innovation. And the Market of Kypseli will be at the centre of our activities.
• What are the implications of implementing your solution? Which actors need to be involved? Are there any competitors? If yes, why are you different?
The project will consist in a 6-month campaign with 2 decision making processes: A consultation and an open debate or participatory budget. Both processes will include an online action and an offline event. The provider will implement the project in close collaboration with the client, so that the client can learn how to continue carrying out this kind of activities successfully in the future without external support.
Initially, the community engagement site of the 6th City District of the Municipality of Athens will be launched. Then the provider will train the client for it to be able to carry out the workshops for the beneficiaries. In parallel, the provider will start the on- and offline campaign to acquire new users. And finally, at the closing events for every process, neighbours will be involved in a workshop to further refine the decisions made online.
Finally, there are plenty of online platforms for online campaigning (like Nation Builder), and debating (like Consul). But, unlike Kuorum, none of them offers a comprehensive service, where technology is a tool to serve a bigger strategic goal.
• The solution has been already tested and deployed in another context (geographical or sectorial)? If so, what are the strengths and weaknesses you identify that could help you in scaling it into a new context?
Kuorum was born in 2013 in Madrid. In 2015 we opened our headquarters in Manchester. And in 2016, Kuorum led a 2-year project co-funded by the European Commission to foster participation of young disadvantage people in 5 cities. Since then we have worked with organisations and governments in six countries.
Currently we work, among others, with the government of Extremadura (1M inhabitants) to co-design with its citizens a new public information service, with the city council of Toledo (80k inhabitants) to foster community engagement through on- and offline district assemblies, and with the government of the Province of Zaragoza (1M inhabitants) to involve the citizenry in the co-design of solutions to depopulation.
Our technology is mature enough to assist us in every project without major customizations. But it is not yet fully scalable. With the learning we have acquired with our past clients, we are now running a 4-month tech development plan to achieve this scalability. We will finish it right before the execution of this project.