Democracy Innovators Podcast

Alex Blaga works at Trollwall AI, a platform designed to moderate toxic comments on social media. In this episode, Alex explains how harmful content is often used to spread narratives through repetition alone. The conversation also touches on the need for user identification on social media and the balance between freedom of speech and accountability. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider maki...

Sonia Bussu is an Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on participatory democracy and democratic innovations. In this episode, we explore the role of emotions in democratic engagement, the potential of civic technology, and how assemblage theory can help us to understand the fluidity and complexity of democracy. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making...

Graham Wetherall-Grujić is researcher at the Innovation in Politics Institute. With his background in political theory and a PhD in philosophy, he has a differentiated perspective on contemporary democracy, power and deliberation. He emphasizes the need for a reasoned discussion that needs to happen before any voting process. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really h...

Richard Bartlett is the co-founder of Loomio, a collaborative decision-making tool for communities and organizations. He started his career as an engineer, but the financial crisis caused him to change direction. He joined Occupy Wall Street and eventually founded Loomio in 2012. With over 13 years experience in digitally assisted consensus decision-making, he has valuable insights to share. If yo...

Martín Carcasson is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Colorado State University. After focusing on theoretical academic communication work, such as analyzing the rhetoric of U.S. presidents, he transitioned into a more applied direction. As the founder and director of the Center for Public Deliberation, he has organized over 500 deliberation events in the United States. If...

Tomas Rakos began his career in the Czech media industry. In 2013, he was co-founder and CEO of his first participatory company. 6 years ago, he started the social enterprise Participation Factory, through which he designs, consults, and manages participatory projects around the world. With his extensive knowledge and experience in this field, he is able to offer valuable insights on participation...

Margo Loor is CEO and co-founder of CitizenOS, an open-source platform for grassroots decision-making. The platform allows communities to gather ideas and take decisions. As an early adopter and optimist, Margo draws a picture of a technological and participatory future of democracy, though he favors a careful integration of AI into deliberative processes. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider...

Daniel Mackisack is a democratic systems and innovation expert with a career spanning international development, tech entrepreneurship, advisory, advocacy, diplomacy, journalism and research. Inspired by experiences in the Arab Spring, he has spent the last decade working on projects to strengthen democracy and empower citizens, including most recently a participatory initiative to bring citizen v...

Guido Saracco is professor at the Polytechnic University of Turin and author of the book “Tecnosofia: technology and humanism for a new science” (title translated). He believes that future education needs to combine technological and human teaching, since engineering increasingly implies social impact. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the p...

Andrew Gray is co-founder of Suffrago, a civic tech platform providing politicians with anonymized polling data, specific to their constituency. With his background in politics and law he is passionate about changing democracy for the better. He was especially amazed by how Polis is collecting wisdom from crowds, which had influence on Suffrago. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a d...

Magnus Strobel is co-founder of Nexus Politics, a digital democracy platform bridging citizens and politicians for more accountable governance. Inspired by growing dissatisfaction with democracy, Magnus and his team set out to build inclusive technology that empowers people to voice their concerns and enables political representatives to act transparently. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider...

Robert Bjarnason is an early Internet entrepreneur and is co-founder of the Citizens Foundation in Iceland 2008. This was at a time when the financial crisis hit the world and trust in the parliament of Iceland was at a historical low. The idea was to start a civic tech non-profit to help create technology that enables better decision-making in society. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider ma...

Evelien Nieuwenburg is co-founder of Dembrane, a company that is developing a tool called ECHO which uses AI to record conversations of large groups. Analyzing these recordings in real time finally reveals insights into how the group thinks. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast. PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/7KCR9XBSCQV...

Guillaume Saunier & Lucien Langton both work at Octree, a tech cooperative that operates the Voca project, among others. Voca is a software as a service (SaaS) product that simplifies and extends the citizen participation platform Decidim. The aim is to facilitate the distribution of tools for civic participation. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us...

Legal scholar and digital democracy expert Gianluca Sgueo explores how gamification can revitalize democratic participation. From his research on participatory democracy across different legal systems to real-world examples like the World Bank’s global crisis simulation game and Lima’s innovative pollution monitoring project, Sgueo discusses why traditional civic engagement is declining and how ga...

Stephen Boucher, democracy consultant and author, explains how collective intelligence can solve complex public problems. From climate change to political creativity, discover how groups can be smarter than individuals under the right conditions. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the podcast. PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/7KCR9X...

Meet Michihito Matsuda, the masked founder of Japan’s AI Party, who’s conducting a radical experiment in digital democracy. From running as “AI Mayor” to envisioning a future where artificial intelligence replaces traditional politicians entirely, Matsuda challenges everything we think we know about governance in the digital age. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It real...

Interview with Oliver Klingefjord: AI Alignment and Human Values In this episode of Democracy or Spot Guest, Alessandro Oppo interviews Oliver Klingefjord, co-founder of the Meaning Alignment Institute. They discuss how AI systems can be aligned with human values, the challenges of current democratic systems, and potential futures in an AI-centered world. Oliver explains their unique approach to u...

Gareth Farry, a qualified lawyer from New Zealand with a background in music, arts, and social impact, shares his journey into blockchain technology and how it intersects with his interests in law and identity. The conversation explores Gareth’s innovative SOL (Sovereign or Self-Actualized Identity Layer) project, which aims to provide a blockchain-based identity solution that acknowledges differe...

22-year-old Tate Berenbaum discusses Arweave, a permanent data storage network designed to store data for 200+ years, along with his journey as a young founder in Web3. Learn how decentralized technology can preserve knowledge for future generations and the challenges of building in the crypto space. If you enjoy our podcast, please consider making a donation. It really helps us to sustain the pod...

In this episode of Democracy Narrators podcast, Alessandro Oppo interviews Bjørn Bedsted, International Director of Democracy X, discussing the organization’s work on deliberative democracy, citizen participation, and sustainable development. Democracy X is a nonprofit foundation working to find solutions for societal challenges like developing technology in desirable directions, addressing planet...

In this episode of Democracy Innovator, Alessandro Oppo interviews Josef Lentsch, founder and CEO of the Political Tech Summit. Josef shares insights on political technology, the distinction between civic tech and govtech, and how technology can strengthen democratic processes. Drawing from his background in psychology and public administration, Josef offers a unique perspective on the challenges...

In this episode of Democracy Innovators Podcast, Alessandro Oppo interviews Lukas Salecker about deliberAIde, an innovative platform that uses AI to enhance deliberative democratic processes like citizens’ assemblies. Lukas shares how deliberAIde helps make democratic participation more accessible, efficient, and scalable through AI-powered transcription, analysis, and reporting tools. If you enjo...

Media theorist Geert Lovink discusses the internet’s military origins, its evolution, and its problematic relationship with democracy. He explores how digital networks democratized information while proving dangerous for voting systems. Lovink shares insights from his work with alternative media and warns about AI excluding cultural knowledge. He calls for Europeans to develop alternatives to Sili...

NOTE: Because of some network problems, I had to repeat some questions. I had to cut the video a couple of times: to make it comprehensible, I’ve inserted a “beep” sound, to make it clear that is not Marcin that is repeating himself. I hope it is comprehensible. :) In this insightful episode, Marcin Woźniak discusses SwarmCheck, an innovative argument mapping software developed by the Optimum Foun...