Hello. You might know me from writing the weekly dispatch from Democracy Club towers.
Months before we managed to Brexit ourselves, I’d decided that the gap between the EU Referendum and the next elections could be usefully spent having a bit of a holiday and learning a bit more about European organisations doing similar stuff to Democracy Club.
I’d lazily presumed I could take the whole of July and August to do this, given that the next elections in the UK wouldn’t be until May 2017…but of course there’s a chance of a General Election rather sooner now.
Nonetheless, until the timing of the next general election is clearer, I’m off on a mini-trip around some European capitals to learn more about the state of civic tech. And to see if there are ideas we can steal, code we can share, or funding we can tap.
So I head to Brussels tomorrow, before Paris, then maybe Amsterdam. I’ll take a bit of holiday in Switzerland between, then on to Hamburg and Berlin.
I’ve got some really interesting meetings lined up with the likes of VOXE.org, Démocratie Ouvert, VoteWatch Europe, and ParliamentWatch in Germany. And I’ve got some leads into Germany’s state-funded voter information body, the BpB — which I think could have some really valuable lessons for the UK.
Do you know of any other folks I should be speaking to on my travels? Anyone doing anything with digital and democracy or civic participation – and that extends to folks in political parties. All contacts welcome! I’ll blog my meetings and spread whatever wisdom I can glean from our colleagues across la Manche.
Til then!
Update: Here’s what I learnt in Brussels, Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam.
Image credit: Wikipedia
Joe Mitchell 