Robert Bjarnason
Direct democracy, Citizen participation, Civil society, Digital democracy, Representative democracy
  Reykjavik , IS
The Citizens Foundation believes in non-partisan futurist solutions to current problems facing democracy. We have recently seen technology undermine our faith in debate in the public arena; the Foundation believes that innovations in technology can be used to restore faith in democratic debate and institutions instead. Our open solutions have been used in hundreds of engagement projects in 20 countries by over 1.5 million people for the past 11 years.

DETAILS

QUICK FACTS

  • Founded in 2008 in Iceland and now has offices in Iceland, the United States & the UK
  • Has helped improve decision-making in hundreds of projects in 20 countries f.e. Better Reykjavik & Scottish Parliament
  • 9 years of online PB, mostly in Iceland - projects now with over 12% participation rate - record is 19.7%
  • Believes in non-partisan futurist solutions

WHAT I CAN OFFER

WHAT I'M INTERESTED IN

HISTORY

Your Priorities is an online idea generation, deliberation & decision-making platform that connects governments & nonprofits with citizens. The platform is free and open source and the Citizens Foundation also offers a hosted cloud solution.
 

LATEST PROJECTS

  • Better Reykjavík
    Better Reykjavik is an online platform for the crowdsourcing of solutions to urban challenges launched by the Icelandic Citizens Foundation in May 2010.
  • Smarter New Jersey: ENJINE project
    Smarter New Jersey is a new project by the government of New Jersey in the United States. To make policies that work, the state is tapping its most valuable assets: the intelligence, expertise and know-how of its people.
  • Engage @ Scottish Parliament
    The Scottish Parliament is using Your Priorities to engage with citizens in Scotland. The first two consultations are about Community Wellbeing, Climate Change and a new Civil Partnership Bill.
  • Icelandic Constitution Crowdsourcing
    The Icelandic constitution is being reviewed during this election period in collaboration with all parties in the Icelandic Parliament. The University of Iceland & the Citizens Foundation created a connection with the government.
  • Make Your Constitution (educational game)
    We launched an educational game, called Make Your Constitution, to provide a college freshman level crash course on constitutional design concepts and history, which anyone participating could access and play.

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