Evolving Democracy

Evolving Democracy

This Evolving Democracy event was hosted by engage2 as part of Vivid Ideas Sydney 2018.

It explored two questions:

Facilitated by Ross Dawson, a panel of leading academics and professionals in democracy and community engagement shared what they have learned and invite your participation in a discussion about the future of our democracy.

The topics discussed included:

• What has to change? Democracy 101: lessons from the past and the state of play in Australia
• New tools and techniques such as technology and deliberative democracy
• What sorts of things are working well around the world?
• What should participation in a representative democracy look like?

Participants were invited to share their thoughts about a series of questions about democracy at the start of the event and at the end, a deliberative poll to determine whether participants were more positive or negative about democracy after discussing it. Participants were also asked what they liked about democracy and what they would like to see change which influenced the focus of the panel. View the results of the poll.

About half way through the panel Ross invited participants to come up on stage to ask questions of the panelists in front of the room which made the event highly participatory and inclusive.

It was fun! Everyone who participated left on a high and told us so in our post-event survey. We hope to do more of these events in future.

Facilitator

Ross Dawson

Ross Dawson is globally recognised as a leading futurist, keynote speaker, strategy advisor and bestselling author. Ross has been named as one of the most influential people in the world in the future of work, Enterprise 2.0 and crowdfunding, and cited by Digital Media Magazine as one of the 40 biggest players in Australia’s digital age.

Panelists

Amelia Loye

Amelia is an internationally recognised expert in community engagement and digital democracy for government. For more than 15 years, she has helped governments in Australia, New Zealand and Canada to engage the people and organisations they represent, serve and govern in policy-making, planning and service design. Amelia was recently invited to speak to the United Nations Economic and Social Council about public participation in government and society.

Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas is a prominent Australian economist and commentator on innovation, CEO of Lateral Economics and Chairman of the Open Knowledge Foundation (Australia). He was formerly Chairman of the Australian Centre for Social Innovation, the Australian Government’s Innovation Australia and founding Chairman of Kaggle. Lindsay Tanner has described him as “Australia’s foremost public intellectual.”

Nicolas Hatton (webcast in)

Nicolas is the founder of the3million, helping the British Government and European institutions to understand the impact of the Brexit referendum on the 3 million EU citizens who have made their lives in the UK.

Nathan Spataro

Nathan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sydney based company SecureVote. He has a passion for technologies, politics, philosophy, and democracy. He is the Co-Founder of Flux, a political movement committed to advancing digital and participatory democracies in Australia and abroad. Nathan is an optimist and humanist who believes in a bright future powered by human creativity and problem-solving.

About the Event

Vivid Ideas is an annual global forum for ingenuity and innovation and the marketplace to share fresh concepts and track emerging trends. From education advances in mixed reality, screen and content harvesting, to music-making, smart fashion, wearables and robotics, this is the place where culture meets commerce and business benefits from creative thinking. Fans, makers, hackers, aspiring entrepreneurs, business builders and established practitioners from around the globe all gather in Sydney to connect, create, learn and make.