ELDW partners participated to the first Hackathon during the 2015 WFD edition

The first Democracy Innovation Hackathon, organized by "Démocratie Ouverte" in co-operation with the Council of Europe, took place on 20 November during the World Forum for Democracy 2015, dedicated to the theme “Freedom vs control: For a democratic response”.

This participatory democracy workshop gathered experts, researchers, elected representatives from cities, social and democratic innovators with the purpose of implementing democracy innovations at the local level and accelerating their growth and success. Two of the ELDW “12-Star” cities, Falun (SE) and Katowice (PL) also took part in the one-day meeting. “What we are focusing on here, in this hackathon, is about active citizenship, and how can active citizenship really make a difference”, emphasised Bruno Kaufmann, Chairman of the Election and Democracy Commission of Falun.

In this spirit, strong ideas came out of the Hackathon: structures need to be created for a proper communication and effective activities between cities and the civil society. This goal-oriented community should be a first step to prioritize the main concrete initiatives on the ground.