Technological advances are opening up an exciting array of possibilities for democracy. There is also growing interest amongst technologists to build tools and applications that can enhance deliberation.
And there are increasing numbers of practitioners who are using (or would like to use) more AI-powered and other technologies during citizens’ assemblies.
We believe there is power and value in bridging these two, sometimes disparate, worlds, and bringing them together.
It’s why on 23 September, we launched the the Deliberation & Technology (DelibTech) Network.
The DelibTech Network is coordinated by DemocracyNext (Claudia Chwalisz and Sammy McKinney) and the AI & Democracy Foundation (Aviv Ovadya and Kyle Redman).
Purpose
We are collaborating to:
- Guide technological innovation around a critically informed repertoire of deliberative technologies.
- Develop principles and protocols for deploying emerging technologies in deliberative processes.
- Share information and good practices with one another to encourage mutual learning, the cross-pollination of expertise, and a thriving community of practice.
- Disseminate research into the media and other public channels.
- Enable strategic collaboration and coordination between network members.
Membership
- Membership in the network is invite-only. We would like to keep the group size such that everybody knows one another, and that we have a good mix of expertise and geographies.
- Members commit to participating in virtual and in-person convenings as often as they can, held under Chatham House rules to encourage open exchange.
- Members’ profiles are publicly shared.
- Members are invited as individuals, but membership is limited to no more than two people per organisation. Members are able to suggest an alternative participant from their organisation to a convening if unable to attend.
- People can express interest to join the group, but we intend to keep the group small to begin with. We will prioritise the functioning of the group over openness and we seek to broaden the group’s geographic diversity.
Activities
- Convenings (in-person or online). Network convenings/learning calls will occur three to four times per year. In general, there will be materials for convenings distributed in advance that will form the basis for group discussion and activities. A first virtual convening took place on 23 September 2025 to launch the network, and a first in-person convening is happening on 14 October 2025 to examine ecosystem gaps and to comprehensively map applications. Beyond this, other proposed convenings in the first 12 months include a deep dive into risk mitigation and to provide a space for network members to share core learnings/experiences/challenges from the field.
- Developing resources for the field. The materials prepared for the convenings will be iterated upon and published following network feedback/engagement to provide shared resources for the field.
- Quarterly email or newsletter for members and funders with latest research findings, news of related events and opportunities.
- Webpage that has information about network members. We are seeking additional resources to develop this into a standalone website that could also feature projects underway, papers, and other relevant resources that can become a coordinated point of reference.
- Supporting/encouraging working groups or more formalised collaborations between members - e.g., on sortition, on deliberation, on sense making, on group building, on aiding the consensus formation process, on voting methods in assemblies, on virtual deliberative space, on different philosophies and approaches to ‘scaling’ deliberation, on the pros and cons of AI ‘facilitation’, on online versus offline, etc. A working group would need a clear lead.
Funding
We have a small amount of seed funding to support these initial meetings, but we will require dedicated funds to continue the sustainability of network activities and will be seeking this over the next months. If you would like to support the DelibTech Network, please get in touch.
Members
- Ione Ardaiz, Projects Lead, Arantzazulab (Spain)
- Philippe Beaudoin, Senior Director, Research, LawZero (Canada)
- Jeb Bell, Head of Research and Strategic Insights, Project Liberty Institute (US)
- Yago Bermejo, Co-Director, deliberativa (Spain)
- Matt Botvinick, Senior Director of Research, Google DeepMind (US)
- Matt Byrne, Senior Director of Deliberation, Unify America (US)
- Sebastián Calderón, R&D Manager, i4policy (Latin America, Africa)
- Claudia Chwalisz, Founder and CEO, DemocracyNext (Netherlands)
- Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou, Principal Research Scientist, MIT Center for Constructive Communication (US)
- Tyna Eloundou, Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI (US)
- Joe Elborn, Director, Evens Foundation (Belgium)
- Zakia Elvang, Partner, We Do Democracy (Denmark)
- Daniel Fusca, Manager, Public Consultation, Parks, Forestry, and Recreation, City of Toronto (Canada)
- Yasmin Green, CEO, Jigsaw (US)
- Hannu-Pekka Ikäheimo, Director, Democracy Innovations Programme, Sitra (Finland)
- Nicole Hunter, Managing Director and Co-Founder, MosaicLab (Australia)
- Andrew Konya, Remesh (US)
- Helene Landemore, Professor, Yale University (US)
- Scott Lappan-Newton, Director, Gauge Consulting (Australia)
- Miriam Levin, Director of Participatory Programmes, Demos (UK)
- Larry Lessig, Professor, Harvard Law School (US)
- Kelly McBride, Director of Capacity Building and Standards, Involve (UK)
- Sammy McKinney, AI & Deliberation Fellow, DemocracyNext and PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge (UK)
- Aviv Ovadya, CEO, AI & Democracy Foundation (US)
- Lex Paulson, Director, School for Collective Intelligence, UM6P (Morocco)
- Kyle Redman, Democracy Lead, AI & Democracy Foundation (Belgium)
- Manon Revel, Postdoctoral AI Research Scientist, Meta (US)
- Deb Roy, Professor and Director, MIT Center for Constructive Communication and CEO, Cortico (US)
- Kris Rose, Director of Governance, Meta (US)
- Lukas Salecker, CEO, DeliberAIde (Germany)
- Lisa Schirch, Professor of the Practice of Peacebuilding and Technology, University of Notre Dame (US)
- Alice Siu, Professor, Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab (US)
- Samantha Shireman, Product Manager, Applied Social Media Lab, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University (US)
- Jane Suiter, Professor and Director of Dublin City University's Institute for Future Media, Democracy (Ireland)
- Andrew Sorota, Editorial and Strategy Lead, Office of Eric Schmidt (US)
- Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s Cyber Ambassador, International Advisory Board Member, DemocracyNext (Taiwan)
- Jorim Theuns, CEO, Dembrane (The Netherlands)
- Luke Thorburn, Research Fellow, AI & Democracy Foundation (UK)
- Eugene Yi, PhD Candidate, Oxford, and Research Fellow, DemocracyNext (UK)
- Amy Zhang, Associate Professor, University of Washington (US)
