KT4D at EmpoderaLIVE 2023: the leading event on Digital Citizen Sovereignty and Civic Technology solutions in Europe

Author: Ángel Sola

In an increasingly digitalized world, the protection of citizens' rights online has become a fundamental concern. How can we ensure that our rights and freedoms are safe on the vast territory of the Internet? To address this issue and explore innovative solutions, EmpoderaLIVE 2023 brought together advocates of Digital Citizen Sovereignty, on September 26 and 27, 2023, at the Echegaray Theater in Malaga. The event was organized by KT4Democracy partners Fundación Cibervoluntarios

European projects that are shaping the digital future

At EmpoderaLIVE 2023, more than 20 international leaders and researchers and around 250 experts gathered worldwide to define the new rules of the digital era, focused on the protection of citizens' rights against economic and interests of power and in improving people's lives. 
The event served as a source of inspiration for the launch of new projects aimed at guaranteeing our rights and opportunities in the digital age. 
The EmpoderaLIVE 2023 topic, “Digital Citizen Sovereignty: under construction,” made clear the objective of the event: to analyze how pioneers and leading organizations are shaping the digital future. During the event, innovative projects were presented in areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence, digital identity, participatory democracy, EdTech, citizen participation, decentralized internet, ethical software, the fight against misinformation or new uncensored social networks.

Thus, EmpoderaLIVE 2023 was attended by prominent Next Generation Internet projects and Horizonte Europe that are working on tools and solutions that place Europe at the forefront to guarantee the construction of a people-centered Internet, and that address some of the great challenges in the defense of citizen sovereignty in this new technological ecosystem: the ethics of Artificial Intelligence, protection and privacy and data, cybersecurity, the right to free and accessible software, and the fight against disinformation, among others. 

KT4Democracy session focused in Participatory Digital democracy labs to be developed to promote civic participation through AI and Big Data.  

Eleonora Lima, researcher in Digital Humanities at Trinity College Dublin, was in charge to showcase the goals of KT4Democracy. Her main role in the project is to investigate the cultural influences underlying AI and Big Data by addressing people’s real and imagined interactions with it. Her work is built upon her expertise in the cultural history of information technologies, particularly in literature and the arts, a field in which she has extensive publications. Eleonora shared with the audience how the project will validate its approach and results through four use cases in four European Cities (Brussels, Madrid, Warsaw and Dublin). Each Use Case will be hosted in a different city, and face different target groups, with the exception of Use Cases #2 and #3, which will both engage citizens and citizen-facing CSOs. The reason for this is to account for the fact that democracy and civic participation are in essence local phenomena, requiring that participants be able to participate in a concrete rather than abstract context, in their local language and within cultural norms and expectations.

Watch the entire intervention here

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