Blockchain-assisted Democracy

Join us for our next Blockchain for Good meetup on Tuesday the 21st of May at Impact Hub Berlin. We will talk about the relevance of blockchain for democracy.

A timely topic in the age when democratic processes and institutions are in crisis. According the Freedom House, democratic principles such as political rights and civil liberties have been in decline globally for the past 12 years. At the same time a record number of people around the globe will be using their right to vote this year, owing to general elections in India where +900M people are voting. The challenges of democracy have been discussed at length in public discourse, however, solutions remain scarce. This meetup sheds light on blockchain and whether such technology can bring about positive change for democratic governance or rather pose a risk to democratic values, as observed with ‘filter bubbles’ in social media or plutocratic tendencies among public blockchains.

Through their characteristics of being incorruptible and inherently transparent, decentralized applications running on a blockchain are considered a technological enabler of human coordination that relate to a variety of SDGs from sustainable communities (11) to institutions (16), ranging from simple voting mechanisms to complex models of cooperative governance. Among the technical concepts we will discuss are technodemocracy and quadratic voting as well as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

We will have couple of blockchain projects presenting (DAO Stack, Aragon and others). And as usual in our format, a panel discussion with practitioners and experts - in the field of democracy - will follow.

The event will be recorded and published in the Analysis in Chains podcast.

No tech background / knowledge is required. We make our meetups accessible and inclusive for non-tech audience.

AGENDA:
18:00 - Arrival & settle in
18:25 - Welcome note - Maciej Bulanda, Positive Blockchain
18:30 - Democracy in crisis - what is the problem and does it need assistance? - Moritz Becker, Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society
18:40 - Intro to Decentralization, DAOs and Blockchain - Theo Beutel, GIZ Blockchain Lab
18:50 - Rethinking democratic coordination through mechanism design - Beth McCarthy, Starfish Network, DAOincubator

PROJECT PRESENTATIONS + Q&As
19:00 - Aragon Black, Daniel Shavit
19:15 - DAO Stack, Pat Rawson
19:30 - Democracy.Earth, Maximilian Kuck

19:45 - PANEL DISCUSSION with blockchain projects & democracy and governance experts. (Moderator: Theo Beutel, GIZ)

20:15 - Open Floor Discussion
20:30 - Networking & drinks

See you there!