democracyinnovators.com
46 episodes listed below
PRESS PLAY
The Democracy Innovators Podcast is an independent publication launched in February 2025 by Alessandro Oppo and Carlo Michaelis. Society is complex, and technology is evolving rapidly. Today, we use technology extensively in governance, and in the future, it will become even more pervasive in the political sphere. This podcast provides a space to discuss these changes, explore possibilities, and ultimately shape the future together. Our mission is to share insider stories about civic tech by interviewing those working on new forms of participation. We aim to highlight and add value to the incredible projects created by civic hackers. www.democracyinnovators.com
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
It tests ambitious ideas for democratic participation against the practical constraints of institutions, technology and citizen control.
Democracy Innovators Podcast makes institutional change concrete through interviews that begin with basic definitions and move toward implementation.
Civic apps cannot talk to each other; your dream of better democracy has a compatibility problem.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A civic-tech conversation about shrinking dialogue spaces and the software built to widen them.
Yuting Zhang's conversation about Agora Citizen Network frames deliberation software as a practical answer to familiar democratic strain: elections keep coming, while spaces for dialogue narrow and polarization deepens online.
FIELD frames public innovation around adoption, not just launch, with collaboration at the center.
Marcello Coppa presents FIELD as an accelerator for innovation in the public system, with the GovTech Forum as one of its main think tank activities and the rest of the organization built around advisory services and capacity building.
A grounded look at civic tech as a field that needs memory, coordination, and better ways to connect.
The Civic Tech Guide is framed as a practical field map for civic tech, built from sticky notes and spreadsheets and now at its 10th anniversary. It points to a field that surged in 2015 and 2016, yet is hard to sustain over time.
A clear case for citizen-led democracy, with AI kept under public rules.
Marco Cappato and Francesco Vecchi frame A-Humans as a case for a wider democracy, one that reaches past national borders and does not wait for the next election cycle.
A clear case for making debate easier to read, and harder for noise to win.
Vir Sanghavi treats Tilt.Vote as a place for posting debates, voting, replying, and taking positions in a more orderly way. The strongest stretch is the one about mechanics: short or weak arguments should not float to the top by default, a logic score can help separate force…
A careful look at how online communities can govern themselves before centralization takes hold.
Nathan Schneider uses modular politics to ask what happens when online communities outgrow informal norms and slide toward oligarchy and centralized control.
A thoughtful governance crossover that mixes reflection, experimentation, and a small tool demo.
Democracy Innovators and Governance Futures come together in a live crossover that keeps returning to the same useful center: how the hosts and guests met, why they began, what they have been building this year, and what they hope to seed next year.
A clear argument for better questions before better systems.
Stefaan Verhulst frames democracy as more than solving public problems: the deeper issue is how societies make decisions, and whether those choices are seen as legitimate and effective.
Antiwar interviews without institutional politeness.
Combative civics for an unstable political moment.
Homespun conservative reactions to public disorder.
Georgia politics, climbing fast.
Practical tech, local questions, plain answers.
Campaign mechanics, without the polish.
Samuel Vance-Law from the Decentralization Research Center explores why governance is both critically important and perceived as unsexy, arguing that ignoring it allows power to concentrate, especially in emerging technologies like blockchain and AI.
Stefan Verhulst traces his work back to research on how information technology can serve public needs.
Nathan Schneider starts with modular politics, then brings it down to the messy places people actually gather online.
Interview with Thiago Peixoto discussing democratic systems, civic tech, and his work at the World Bank and University of Southampton.
Interview with George Lagarde about LabX, Portugal's innovation lab for public sector digital transformation.
Hélène Landemore starts from political theory and keeps one foot there.
Yuting Zhang of Agora Citizen Network describes building a fully open-source deliberative tool in Paris after seeing polarization grow while dialogue spaces shrink online.
Security expert Bruce Schneier joins the Democracy Innovators Podcast to dissect the intersection of technology and governance.
Democracy Innovators Podcast crosses over with Governance Futures for a live conversation with Alessandra, Carlo, Jamila, and the host.
Vir Sanghavi lays out Tilt.Vote as a social platform built around debates, replies, takes, and structured argument.
Simone Maria Parazzoli discusses the Agentic State initiative, exploring how AI agents could transform government services, policy-making, and civic participation, while addressing tensions between technology and governance.
Matt Stempek explains the Civic Tech Guide and why the team set out to map the field.
Alessandro talks with Marcello Coppa about FIELD and the GovTech Forum, beginning with the simple question of what FIELD is and how it aims to speed up innovation in the public system.
A-Humans starts with democracy trying to handle problems that cross borders and outlast election cycles.
Sylvain Le Bon of Startin'blox explains data spaces as an "internet of data" where organizations share data without a platform intermediary, in the way email works.
Interview with Witzel von Rasbick about GoVocal, a platform improving resident engagement with cities through digital tools.
Hosts interview Jonathan Moskovich about his experience observing the Irish Constitutional Convention and the power of deliberative democracy.
This episode discusses the origins of Decidim, a participatory democracy platform, with its co-founders.
Interview with Alex Blaga about Trollwall AI, an AI platform for moderating toxic comments on social media.
An interview with Professor Sonia Bussu about her research on participatory democracy and democratic innovations, including the Inspire project using arts-based methods to enhance inclusion.
Interview with Garrett Ferry about his project applying law from a social justice perspective and exploring different legal jurisdictions.
Interview with Artem Zikanov about Harmonica, a civic tech project, and his background in product marketing and innovation.