Tools and Tips for youth E-Participation

0:00 yep is the one of a partners in the 0:02 project youth tools and tips for mobile 0:05 and digital youth participation in and 0:07 across Europe and I'd like to start with 0:10 defining a participation as we see it 0:13 because Abe has been one of the first 0:16 pioneers in the field of youth 0:18 participation on European scale with the 0:21 project youth part and one of the 0:24 outcomes of that process we're also will 0:27 young people and other European 0:28 countries have been involved was that we 0:31 defined a participation as interactive 0:33 online decision-making in action so it 0:35 is not necessarily about policymaking 0:38 and here this breaks down and maybe 0:44 helps also to understand our focus 0:46 because we see a participation from two 0:50 different dimensions and the first one 0:52 is direct a participation which means 0:54 that it is clearly embedded and it is 0:57 clearly docked to a process that has a 1:00 start and has an end so it means that 1:03 young people are giving their inputs and 1:05 there is a clear path where the output 1:08 will happen and where whereas in direct 1:12 participation can be seen that one that 1:14 takes place in Twitter Facebook or 1:16 whatever where you are sharing liking 1:19 position and different various issues 1:21 however there is no clear promise that 1:24 your input is going to lead to something 1:26 concrete or to any kind of decision 1:28 making so the first one is the one that 1:31 we focus on and where we also try to to 1:36 foster that approach and here you can 1:39 see one of the examples of projects that 1:41 took place locally which is also most of 1:44 the success stories come from local 1:47 level this is one of our insights that 1:48 we have got through out a couple of 1:52 years of our project so here you can see 1:54 a map function wedding people could just 1:57 pin what they are still missing and then 1:59 very easy comment and vote that okay I'd 2:03 like to have a bus stop here as 2:04 Christine's example or I'd like to have 2:07 a drink automat on that 2:10 bus stop because I'm in any case waiting 2:12 there for half an hour for changing of a 2:14 buses so and what's even better that 2:17 these proposals have been implemented 2:20 now we got the documentation of that 2:22 process it is a small community in 2:25 Germany and now the municipality took 2:29 over the output of that process and they 2:31 started implementing it why do we do it 2:36 and what are the main reasons especially 2:38 when we come to young people there are 2:40 three at least that it is independent of 2:43 time and place and this is also from the 2:47 site of initiators you have a easy 2:51 collection and processing of many inputs 2:54 so you don't need to print and cheer 2:56 several thousands of service and then to 2:59 gather them together analyze which takes 3:01 several months most probably so now I'd 3:06 like to show you how we are working in 3:09 the recent project in the youth project 3:12 and here we are aiming to get more young 3:16 people involved in political 3:17 decision-making and to increase their 3:19 trust in European political institutions 3:21 we are part of horizon 2020 scheme and 3:24 we are already in the middle of a 3:26 project one and a half years to go there 3:29 are 11 partners from eight countries and 3:31 that's one of the strengths of our 3:33 project that we have all possible 3:37 sectors involved in the process that we 3:40 have researchers we have two different 3:42 software developers we have a public 3:44 administration and Youth Work 3:45 representatives in in the project 3:50 consortium here you can see the 3:51 geography and also who is involved in 3:56 the consortium so we have to research 3:58 institutes from one from Sweden and the 4:01 other one from Denmark the project 4:03 coordinator Nexus based together with 4:06 liquid democracy software developer in 4:08 Berlin as in bonn and european youth 4:12 information and counseling agency Erika 4:14 which has more than 7,000 youth 4:16 information centers all over the Europe 4:18 for the dissemination and then there is 4:20 a French 4:22 software developer Alf store and then we 4:25 have all the rest are our pilot projects 4:28 about which I'm going to tell you later 4:30 on so our three main Taj groups are 4:32 youth organizations public 4:34 administration's of any level so these 4:37 can be also municipalities of local 4:39 level and governments regional national 4:41 European if you want and also youth 4:45 workers or any kind of NGOs also civic 4:48 NGOs and open centers what whatever kind 4:54 of nonprofit organizations that are 4:55 interested in working with young people 4:58 on their participation so what are we 5:03 doing and what has three main focuses of 5:06 our work that we create software tools 5:09 on already existing ones so we are not 5:12 inventing the wheel as it was mentioned 5:15 several times today but we are taking 5:18 the best of the best and trying to merge 5:20 it into one so we are basing our work on 5:22 German and French software's advocacy 5:25 and flash poll and trying to create 5:28 software tools for web-based and mobile 5:31 participation our research work goes to 5:35 the direction of understanding how a 5:39 participation processes work the best or 5:42 what our success and failure stories and 5:47 because we want to come up with some 5:49 very practical tips for those who want 5:51 to initiate the participation processes 5:53 and one of our focuses is on combining 5:56 online and offline approaches this was 5:59 mentioned already I can only confirm 6:01 that also our experience shows that 6:03 there is no online without offline and 6:07 then there is one of a one of 6:11 innovations maybe that are very 6:13 important for nonprofit organizations to 6:17 have a so-called decision support tool 6:19 where you describe how your 6:21 participation process should look like 6:23 and then you get a pre generated process 6:26 so it means that it saves time and money 6:27 for software development and the third 6:32 part is while we are analyzing different 6:35 cases and different 6:36 experiences already done in an in 6:40 previous projects avi participation 6:42 we're waiting generalized guidelines on 6:45 how to make successful participation 6:48 processes for and with young people one 6:51 of our features should be that it is 6:53 embeddable to any kind of websites or 6:56 platforms where you can just embed the 6:58 iframe because we understand that not 7:00 everybody will come to our platform just 7:03 because of the sake of participating so 7:05 you need to leave the young person there 7:07 where he or she is and then mobile is 7:11 self-explanatory and therefore desktop 7:15 is not most probably any more the case 7:17 or so relevant so we're also focusing 7:20 very much on having both we're already 7:23 multilingual we have seven languages of 7:26 consortium and we are heading for more 7:28 so if you would like to support us 7:30 please contact me because we can offer 7:34 the possibility to to offer us your 7:37 language skills and help us in making it 7:40 even more multilingual tinnitus now and 7:43 what we are heading for its making it 7:48 for beginners without being a pro so 7:51 this is one of our main approaches 7:53 towards the project so those who are 7:56 still not experienced so they are not 7:59 having any fears of how they can deal 8:02 with it and of course therefore we are 8:05 offering support and consultations for 8:07 their work yes and there are we are 8:10 working on three iterations so the first 8:13 one is launched in march this year and 8:16 there are three processes that are 8:18 working already idea collection 8:20 collaborative text work and mobile 8:22 pulling and starting of next year we are 8:26 onboarding two more features which most 8:28 probably will be participatory budgeting 8:30 and mapping and then there will be a 8:33 third iteration which will follow by the 8:36 end of next year and one of our 8:41 important lessons that or inside that we 8:44 could also share with you is to involve 8:47 pilots already do 8:49 in the process not to create something 8:51 in two years and then 20 it doesn't 8:54 really work but to give them the 8:56 possibility to feedback so therefore we 8:58 have on board this from the very 8:59 beginning five pilot project so these 9:03 are one of the biggest european student 9:05 forums I Asia who is trying it out in 9:08 their internal organizational structure 9:10 so it doesn't mean any policy making or 9:13 or anything like that but the 9:15 decision-making processes on their local 9:17 level or on the internal organizational 9:20 level so to say then we have city of 9:22 Paris a cross-border partnership between 9:24 italy and slovenia and the region heart 9:27 of slovenia so all of them are working 9:28 on very different levels piloting the 9:31 software that we are creating and then 9:32 getting back to us with their feedback 9:35 on what still needs to be improved and I 9:40 have good news for all of you if you are 9:42 a nonprofit organization and if you are 9:44 more or less European in broad terms of 9:47 geographical European 49 countries now 9:51 we have just launched the open call for 9:54 participation processes and projects of 9:57 young people so this is part of our 10:00 deployment strategy and we are going to 10:02 support 10e participation projects all 10:05 over the Europe with not more than 10:08 10,000 euros for their activities plus 10:10 the software that we give and there are 10:12 two only criteria that you need to 10:15 fulfill the first one is to use our 10:17 software and to give us the feedback 10:19 also and the second one is to prove a 10:24 clear impact for decision making because 10:27 this what we have also learned during 10:29 the youth part project that we can't 10:34 foster youth trust in political 10:37 institutions if we are always leaving 10:39 them with false promises this is 10:42 something that no I participation 10:45 process should start without having a 10:48 clear agenda where we are heading to the 10:51 tower output because in the end we'll 10:53 just create the files that we now have 10:56 most of the times also with the 10:58 structure dialogue process and many 11:00 other processes that too 11:02 place until now so for us this is the 11:04 most important criteria that you show 11:06 and prove how you are going to to lead 11:09 this input of young people towards a 11:13 very clear output in terms of 11:15 decision-making however this can take 11:17 place on internal organizational level 11:19 in a youth information center how to 11:22 design your strategy of next three years 11:25 or whatever towards also national or 11:29 trans national level we are very much 11:31 looking forward to various different 11:33 levels of project so the timeline now 11:36 until the end of this month you have the 11:38 possibility to have the technical 11:41 feasibility check whether your idea is 11:43 compatible with that what we can offer 11:45 because we also don't want to give you 11:46 any false promises because technology is 11:49 some sometimes limited and then the 11:52 final deadline for submission is the end 11:54 of the year so the technical feasibility 11:56 check is optional but we invite very 11:58 much to have it already so you are sure 12:01 that at least the technical part is fine 12:03 and then the projects will run next year 12:06 March December before onboarding will 12:08 also give the possibility for a 12:11 participation training for those who are 12:13 going to initiate and more information 12:16 you'll find on our website we have just 12:18 had I'm very sorry that I'm late here 12:21 but on 6 of October we had the webinar 12:23 where you could get direct answers to 12:26 your questions but we have recorded it 12:28 and it's going to be posted most 12:29 probably tomorrow so you can have a look 12:32 at it if you want to and what is next 12:37 also on our agenda next year I'd like to 12:40 you to save the date in your calendars 12:44 that by the end of next year we are 12:45 going to invite those who are keen on a 12:48 participation to Berlin and to discuss 12:51 what's the future of your participation 12:53 and how do we deal with that in the 12:55 field of use so this is going to take 12:57 the open summit in in the framework of 13:00 our project is going to take place end 13:01 of 2017 and also I'd like to invite you 13:05 to join our participation community on 13:08 facebook if you use that and to share 13:11 and to get updates on the 13:13 we have also the German version so you 13:16 just change the sea touzet and that's 13:19 how it's easy yes and I'll be glad to 13:23 answer your questions I'll be also 13:25 staying around for lunch and afterwards 13:27 so I hope that we'll have also some 13:29 ideas coming from your side to our open 13:32 call so we can cooperate thanks a lot