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Designing Open Democracy

Designing Open Democracy

By Designing Open Democracy Team

Designing Open Democracy is a forum of process engineers, social architects and philosophers aiming to explore the ways that technology, engineering and design of social systems can be applied to every levels of society.

In our episodes you will find detailed discussions in potential opportunities for reforming of existing democratic institutions; from local organisations to national governments around the world through technology or other practices. Our aim is to improve democracy: we think this can best be done by providing a forum for discussing democracy proposals, ideas, and to foster collaboration between people who would like to participate in democracy reform.

Think Outside The Ballot Box
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Designing Open Democracy 2020 Primer

Designing Open DemocracyFeb 23, 2020

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26:35
Basil’s Table: Building co-operative futures in the tech bros era (December 6, 2022)

Basil’s Table: Building co-operative futures in the tech bros era (December 6, 2022)

Basil’s Table: Building co-operative futures in the tech bros era (December 6, 2022)

Antony McMullen and Sonja Schulze from 888 Co-operative Causeway organised this particular event for Basil’s Table just before 2023. Which is an interview series conducted by Basil Varghese, a well-known Melbourne- based community builder and advocate for social justice, who has long been committed to ‘bridging the gap between those that have and have not’. As a Patron of 888 Co-operative Causeway, Basil hosts these conversations with special guests online or at the Kelvin Club in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD on topics relevant to building a connected community across Victoria Australia.

The event called "sheet: Building co-operative futures in the tech bros era" was a panel where the the cooperative community took stock on the year of 22022 and what to expect for the future. The Designing Open Democracy community believe this will be of interest to the wider democracy community because of the need to encourage democratic structures in not just the governmental level but in the workplace as well.

In addition – there will be a very special announcement – regarding an opportunity to join the 888 co-operative as part of a broader exciting initiative with a major university.

Have the tech-bros got all the answers? With the passing of Deliveroo, and Twitter appearing to slowly die like the proverbial canary in the coal mine (or alternatively morphing into a bird of prey) many are looking for new ways of organising and owning the platforms we use – to build stronger local community relationships for social, economic, and environmental resilience.

Event Reference: https://www.888causeway.coop/event/the-feeling-is-mutual-the-future-of-cooperation-in-a-time-of-uncertainty/

We ask:
  • In the face of global political and climate uncertainty – are populist ideologies from the left or right the only alternatives?
  • Mutual aid and reciprocity – what kinds of social, technological, and environmental systems, institutions and relationship building initiatives are required?
Featuring:
  • Elena Pereyra – CoHousing Australia
  • Jose Ramos – Action Foresight
  • Bridgette Engeler – Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Swinburne University
  • Alexar Pendashteh – Technologist / Social Entrepreneur.


Join our telegram channel https://t.me/+bHfGHtsTEKwwMTZl

Jan 21, 202301:33:31
Interview with Austin. Founder of Write In Stone

Interview with Austin. Founder of Write In Stone

Austin was previously working in the Journalism space when he saw an issue of the loss of trust in media. When you read a newspaper or watch a documentary, how do you understand or trust how Journalist obtained and researched the subject at hand?  As a fellow democracy innovator he seeks to create tools and apps to provide Journalist and media companies with the ability to provide a transparent and public verifiable trail of the journalistic journey that helped to create media pieces. 

You can check out his project at https://www.writeinstone.com/

This is a joint Designing Open Democracy and Innovation Trademarked interview of Austin and his Write In Stone PTY company. Which is of interest to us due to his apps potential contribution to the intersection between democracy and innovative technology startups tackling real cracks in the current social fabric of many nations around the world.  Listen to learn more about how his tool may one day come to power a media outlet near you.

Recorded on 2021-07-31

Aug 08, 202144:51
Catching up with Adam Jacoby. Founder of MiVote

Catching up with Adam Jacoby. Founder of MiVote

After a few years it is about time to catch up with Adam Jacoby, founder of MiVote. MiVote is a collaborative decision making and voting platform that aims to give the entire public a say in parliament. In this interview we aim to learn more about how MiVote has progressed after a few years and what success and stumbling blocks this project has encountered that can apply for other democracy innovation projects.  

Referenced Links:  https://mivote.tech/ 

Note that this was intended to be a one to one interview with Adam Jacoby, but on the day of the interview a lockdown was declared due to the ongoing worldwide pandemic hitting Melbourne Australia. Thus recording was done via video conferencing and was partially redubbed on my side to account for a live recording audio glitch.

Recorded on 2021-07-20

Aug 07, 202128:36
Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility towards Economic Democracy

Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility towards Economic Democracy

Hi and welcome to the Designing Open Democracy Podcast. We are an Australian based forum keeping track of democracy innovations in Australia and around the world. In the background of the banking royal commission starting at 2017 and the uncovering of banking misconduct by the big four banks in Australia, there is a need for the public to be able to trust that corporations will work in the interest of all stakeholders.

This podcast recorded and hosted by Alexar on March 2020, was a talk by Anthony McMullen from Co-operative Bonds, explaining how we can step beyond Corporate Social Responsibility towards a corporate structure with a fundamentally more democratic economic structure. Given the situation around the world with the global pandemic in 2020, social distancing requirements meant we had to record this episode by video conferencing. So audio quality will be different compared to other episodes.

The first half of this event with be a short primer by Anthony McMullen to get newcomers up to speed about what Co-operatives is and why it matters. Afterwards a panel led by Anthony McMullen will be held to discuss about the state of co-operatives in Australia and how co-operatives can gain traction against traditional forms of business structures.

# Speakers Biography

## Antony McMullen (Co-operative Bonds)

Antony McMullen is a Melbourne based co-operative entrepreneur and expert in co-op development, policy and enterprise for common good, with qualifications in social impact (social entrepreneurship) and community development.

Co-founder of Co-operative Bonds, his consultancy specialises in offering expert advice and support to help build and grow many other co-operatives.

He is also secretary and co-founder of Co-op Incubator, as well as co-founder of the cooperative network in Melbourne - 888 Co-operative Causeway.

In addition he also collaboratively prepared the Co-operative and Mutual Enterprise (CME) governance framework for the Australian Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals in 2018.

Serving as Vice-President of the Victoria Day Council (that administers the Victorian of the Year award), he also holds qualifications in social impact (social entrepreneurship) and community development.

www.bonds.coop/

## Sean Bezard (Earthworker Cooperative)

Sean Bezard is a membership officer at Earthworker Cooperative in addition to being an Earthworker representative on the Redgum Cleaning Coop board.

Volunteering with Earthworker for 6 years in a range of fields in every capacity, he hopes to bridge the divide between economic and environmental concerns.

Most of all, he is driven by a strong belief in every project with a core philosophy that emphasises the importance of a collaborative economy to foster a more holistic and inclusive democracy.

earthworkercooperative.com.au/

## Ian McBurney (bHive)

Ian McBurney is an ecological sustainability educator, entrepreneur, facilitator, speaker, MC and author.

His specialty is change practice: how do we inspire others around us?

Ian spent 5 years in the early 2000s at Vox Bandicoot (http://voxbandicoot.com.au/) in Melbourne, delivering the famous environmental theatre program to ten thousand students, workplace culture change training to six thousand staff in local government and manufacturing.

bhive.coop/about/

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Discuss:
Jun 14, 202001:09:40
Isegoria: The Way Citizens' Juries Deliver It, How Elections Destroy It (Nicholas Gruen: CEO of Lateral Economics)

Isegoria: The Way Citizens' Juries Deliver It, How Elections Destroy It (Nicholas Gruen: CEO of Lateral Economics)

Hi and welcome to the Designing Open Democracy Podcast. We are an Australian based forum keeping track of democracy innovations in Australia and around the world.

For this episode recorded on the 3rd of March 2020, I visited a prominent Australian economist named Nicholas Gruen, CEO of Lateral Economics.

As frequent commentator on economic reform as well as innovation, he will be joining us for this episode to explore the concept of Citizens' Juries and how it could be implemented in Australia and other countries.

Here is some links and concepts referenced in this talk:

•Considered Opinion Of The People


•Citizens' Juries Wikipedia Page:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_jury


•For this quote in this talk: "How we build online tools that amp down the aggro and qualify good contribution" it is in reference to this article "The middleware of democracy. Or from knowledge to wisdom: or at least knowledge 2.0" that was posted on July 30, 2014 by Nicholas Gruen found from this link clubtroppo.com.au/2014/07/30/from-knowledge-to-wisdom-or-at-least-knowledge-2-0/


•Gruen: detox democracy through representation by random selection: www.themandarin.com.au/75323-nicholas-gruen-detoxing-democracy/


•Nicholas Gruen Organisation Lateral Economics: lateraleconomics.com.au/


•Nicholas Gruen's Wikipedia Page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Gruen


•Isegoria - (Noun) Equality of all in freedom of speech: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/isegoria


•To reach out to Nicholas Gruen his email is: ngruen@gmail.com

Other Organisations Referenced In This Talk:

•Flux Party
•MiVote
•Proportional Representation Society of Australia
•https://newvote.org/
•https://www.newdemocracy.com.au/

Episode Discussion Page: discuss.designingopendemocracy.com/t/podcast-isegoria-the-way-citizens-juries-deliver-it-how-elections-destroy-it-nicholas-gruen-ceo-of-lateral-economics/195/1
Mar 08, 202001:18:44
Basil's Table - Banking On The Future In A Climate Of Change (888 Co-operative Causeway)(Special)
Feb 25, 202001:18:47
Designing Open Democracy 2020 Primer

Designing Open Democracy 2020 Primer

In this episode, we will be officially explaining about the aims and goals of Designing Open Democracy for this year. This was recorded as part of a February Designing Open Democracy Melbourne Australia meetup event "Designing Open Democracy 2020 Primer" that was held on 2020-02-21 During this primer, we were also joined in the Audience by a few members of other democracy related organisations. One was Kimbra White from MOSAICLAB as well as Willow from Coalition of Everyone. * Kimbra White (Director for MosaicLab) : http://www.mosaiclab.com.au/ * Willow Berzin​ (Founder for Coalition of Everyone) : https://www.coalitionofeveryone.com/ https://www.meetup.com/DesigningOpenDemocracy/events/268596525/ Discuss: https://discuss.designingopendemocracy.com/t/podcast-designing-open-democracy-2020-primer/193 ------------------- # Designing Open Democracy Primer 2020 Meeting Notes (DOD, Feb 2020) Current actors in this space that we are aware of * MiVote, Horizon State * Flux, SecureVote * NewVote * Politico * Linux Conference Australia * Open Democracy (UK) * Can we find a way to get democracy R&D? (Network of international groups and orgs) * GovHack * AngryAussie (YouTube) was part of the "trust as a concept" panel last year. * New Democracy Foundation * Code For Australia (Civic Tech) ## 4 Elements of a healthy society? * Mechanism - Law - Finance * Cultural - Media - Education ## Changemakers? * Passions * High Schoolers
Feb 23, 202026:35
(Bonus Content) Talk with Ben Ballingall about Flux Party and Issue Based Direct Democracy System

(Bonus Content) Talk with Ben Ballingall about Flux Party and Issue Based Direct Democracy System

This was part of a 10 minute warmup for the last episode "Talk with Ben Ballingall about Flux Party and Issue Based Direct Democracy System". Nevertheless it went well and contain a good summary of our entire talk, but focusing on the Flux Party system in particular.

This is a friendly talk with Ben Ballingall member of the Australian based Issues Based Direct Democracy political party.
Feb 15, 202012:21
Talk with Ben Ballingall about Flux Party and Issue Based Direct Democracy System

Talk with Ben Ballingall about Flux Party and Issue Based Direct Democracy System

This is a friendly talk with Ben Ballingall representative of Flux Party. Flux Party is an Australian Issues Based Direct Democracy political party, aiming to replace our government system with an issue based direct voting system.

In this talk, we will be talking about meeting a British citizen who told us about his experience with Brexit. From this background you will learn more about what is Issues Based Direct Democracy and Flux party as well as the potential pros and cons of such a system.

This was recorded on 2020-02-11

Flux Party Website:
voteflux.org

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Some of the questions we asked is about the IBDD system that Flux is implementing:
* Q: What Issue Based Direct Democracy
* Q: Citizen Juries vs Flux (Issues Based Direct Democracy)
* Q: People aren't engaged; not aware they're not in democracy; media doesn't tell them their choices. How to get to people if not aware of?
* Q: Is there an algorithm for selecting issues - as representative as possible?

We also talked about more Flux specific questions:
* Q: What is the theory and philosophy behind IBDD and Flux?
* Q: Will interest groups cause problems? How would you stop that in your proposal?
* Q: If you manage to get a representative into parliament, how is it going to work with the normal representative? (They're assumed to be an autonomous actor in the parliament.)
* Q: What sort of result would you need in the next elections before you can get a representative into parliament?
* Q: Is there an algorithm for selecting issues - as representative as possible of the public?
Feb 12, 202028:14
Citizens' Democracy (part 3): Question & Answers

Citizens' Democracy (part 3): Question & Answers

Originally recorded on Monday, 21st August 2017. This event called Citizens' Democracy, introduces the idea of citizen juries and deliberative democracy. In the interest of podcast listeners, it is split to a 3 part series. For this podcast, this is the Q&A segment where these questions were asked about the Citizen Juries and Deliberative Democracy models that Nicolas and Hubertus presented about: How do you introduce this idea to the general public? What sort of result do you need in the next election, before you can demonstrate to the public that this system can work? Is there an algorithm to help select a citizen juries to make it as representative as possible? Have you heard of any kind of meritocratic appointment system? How would your system avoid corruption and manipulation? Citizens can deal with issues, but are they dealing with the right issues? How will citizen juries work within existing systems? How do you hold your citizen juries party representative accountable? Are you suggesting to have citizen juries replace the senate? Host noted a question from a previous event. What are the main factors for the acceptance of citizen juries? Did the press humanise the citizen juries members? Lateral Economics CEO Nicholas Gruen will be presenting his idea of Citizens Juries for improving democracy, then Austrian Chief Futurist and CEO of Prediki. Hubertus Hofkirchner, will talk about his proposal for a citizen parliament fresh from the Austrian elections via video link. After both speakers have spoken, a Q&A session was held with both speakers after their presentations. https://discuss.designingopendemocracy.com/
Jan 03, 202056:24
Citizens' Democracy (part 2): Hubertus Hofkirchner

Citizens' Democracy (part 2): Hubertus Hofkirchner

Originally recorded on Monday, 21st August 2017. This event called Citizens' Democracy, introduces the idea of citizen juries and deliberative democracy. In the interest of podcast listeners, it is split to a 3 part series. For this podcast, Hubertus Hofkirchner will be presenting. Lateral Economics CEO Nicholas Gruen will be presenting his idea of Citizens Juries for improving democracy, then Austrian Chief Futurist and CEO of Prediki. Hubertus Hofkirchner, will talk about his proposal for a citizen parliament fresh from the Austrian elections via video link. After both speakers have spoken, a Q&A session was held with both speakers after their presentations. https://discuss.designingopendemocracy.com/
Jan 02, 202028:25
Citizens' Democracy (part 1): Nicholas Gruen

Citizens' Democracy (part 1): Nicholas Gruen

Originally recorded on Monday, 21st August 2017. This event called Citizens' Democracy, introduces the idea of citizen juries and deliberative democracy. In the interest of podcast listeners, it is split to a 3 part series. For this podcast, Nicholas Gruen will be presenting. Lateral Economics CEO Nicholas Gruen will be presenting his idea of Citizens Juries for improving democracy, then Austrian Chief Futurist and CEO of Prediki. Hubertus Hofkirchner, will talk about his proposal for a citizen parliament fresh from the Austrian elections via video link. After both speakers have spoken, a Q&A session was held with both speakers after their presentations. https://discuss.designingopendemocracy.com/
Dec 31, 201926:55
Challenges Facing the Present and Future of Democracy
Dec 27, 201914:58
Trust, a concept analysis
Dec 23, 201901:24:39