 good afternoon. This is Iceland calling. So welcome to Reykjavík. My name is Cyril Anna and I am a democracy advisor at the Human Rights and Democracy Office in the city of Reykjavík. I will just dive right into my presentation, which I have chosen to call democracy in the city, direct or representative, past, present and future. So I'm very honored to have been invited to speak to you all and thank you to my society for the team for hosting these events and thanks to you all for participating and listening even in these strange times. I thought it would be a good idea to begin my slideshow by showing you a picture of Reykjavík, of our beautiful Reykjavík and use the opportunity to encourage you all to visit. Reykjavík as soon as we all can start traveling again and this picture is of our pond here in Reykjavík and up in the right corner you can see the city hall where I am speaking to you from. So who am I? I am a political scientist, studied at the University of Iceland and became interested in direct democracy 14 years ago and the topic of my battery thesis was referendums, pros and cons and the question I put forward was whether there was a well if they were a good method for society to reach a collective decision on controversial topics. I also asked whether what other if any methods there were to be used that do not come with the difficulties of referendums such as the public debate, the populism or the costs and all that comes with referendums and to make a long story short as you all probably know there is not a simple answer to these questions and after my bachelor studies I worked at the University with my professor on his research and on direct democracy at the local level in Iceland and we edited and wrote chapters in a publication which is a guidebook to direct democracy for municipalities and cooperation with the Icelandic Association of Local Authorities. So a conference like this is very exciting for a nerd like me. The only sad thing is that we couldn't all meet in person. So where have we been? I will be telling you a little bit about how we do things here in Reykjavík City and what our thought and future plans are. Some of you may know the city of Reykjavík has been running a BB or participatory budgeting program for eight years now which means that it is time to reflect and I am actually reflecting using this opportunity to reflect so I would be grateful for all questions and comments afterwards. I would like to emphasize that I am a public servant and I speak to you as such but people like me meet people like you to advise first up for the future of direct democracy to become as great as it possibly can and it probably will be. Sometimes it is useful for me and as you can see on the slide I made a description of a modern family. The direct democracy is you can imagine that it being a modern family where all diversities are welcome, where everyone has a role and is equally important. So our platform is called my district the BB budget. For the past eight years as I said we've been running this project and we call it my district. It started in the form that we now know it with the comedian who became mayor and the point here being that it was the agenda was set by politics which I think is a very important factor because if you want an inclusive democratic process to thrive it needs a strong representative democracy. A project like ours which is very time-consuming, expensive and complex for the people working the project like me we need space resources capital support and understanding from our directors and elective representatives to be able to make the project a success and also a successful project like this does give a lot in return. It gives us a feel for the people a better feel for the district as well. It gives us a reason not that we need any but it gives us a chance to communicate on a collaborative project which initiates a conversation between people with a joint interest of district matters which is very valuable. So if I describe shortly how our project works it begins in March every year with the idea collecting when we start collecting them on our online platform. In May we review the ideas with various relative experts within the administration who determine whether the ideas are valid or not and for them to become valid they must meet a certain criteria. Firstly they have to fit within the budget of the district. Second they have to be implementable in the same land. Thirdly they need to comply with the planning of the area and they need to of course be within the rule of law. So last year we received over 1,000 ideas. About 400 of them were valid. 250 of them ended up on the ballot in 10 districts. 25 in each. Usually we consult with the district councils to make the decision on which of the valid ideas go on to be voted on but last year they were inactive so we invited the public to participate in open houses and select the final ideas and Civic Tech could obviously have helped in making this process easier in the spring when we went through this but that's another story. All ideas that go forward to the election phase are pre-designed to give the voter a better idea on the end result what it would look like. So then the voting takes place in October-November. Last year there were 91 ideas elected to be executed next summer in 2020. So from the moment we begin receiving the ideas until all voted ideas are implemented and executed there can pass from 18 to 20 months and the cycle has begun again before it has run its course. So in these 18 to 20 months there is a lot of reviewing and consulting done within the administration. For example authors of the elected ideas are invited to participate in development and designing of their ideas. Also all other authors of ideas get an individual response on explanation on why their idea was not accepted but the dilemma of direct democracy is and yet in spite of all our efforts to make the project as transparent and collaborative on every level we find ourselves frequently in a dilemma. To give you an example I can name a few concerns that we have. Firstly the process of deciding which ideas are valid and implementable takes place in the administration and once the decision is made it is final. Here technology could be of much help in making this decision more transparent which hopefully would generate a more understanding and less disrespect satisfaction. Each year we learn something new and make some adjustments and changes to our process and this is one thing that we are trying to figure out how to solve and to keep up with our constant changing environment the platforms also need a constant development and another thing that is concerning is the participation rate which is which in 2019 was 12.5% which was the highest number of turnout we've had so far. And lastly I would like to mention that every year when ideas the elected ideas are being executed we get into a heated discussion with neighbors and stakeholders who are unhappy with some aspects of our implementation. No matter how hard and nicely we try to explain and find solutions for our middle ground sometimes it works but not all the time. Maybe there will always be people strongly for some ideas and some other people strongly against them maybe it's not to be helped but even as it has even happened that politicians they know to an idea that has been elected and the residents make strong claims about wanting it implemented. There we the officials find ourselves between a rock and a hard day. Maybe again this is something civic tax could provide a solution to. These are just examples of some issues we faced when working the project. Now I want to turn off the slide so I can talk to you directly. I receive a lot of calls from researchers and journalists from all over the world who are interested in our work. When asked I always tell it like it is many times I get the feeling they are overwhelmed when when they hear about how much work it really actually is and make no mistake it is a lot of work but it is rewarding and necessary work that pays off in so many ways and will do even more so in the future if we continue to develop and strengthen our processes. The civic tech industry which will hopefully develop methods to make steps for us the officials fewer and easier in the future. And now I want to tell you a little bit about where we are at the moment. My district is not the only project online project that we use to in the attempt to engage in a democratic discussion with the people with the public. The platform where my district is hosted also hosts other projects for example my voice which is a platform that can be used to engage in discussions on various things. For the second time now we have used the platform to invite people to have a stay in policymaking. First when the education policy was in the making in 2017 and also we recently opened a new page at the City of Reykjavík is in the process of making its first democracy policy. In the policymaking phase it this platform is the part where people can freely express all ideas regarding the relevant topic at each time. In trying to get people to participate we use all our resources to advertise and encourage people to take part. When this method is combined with an open meeting and randomly selected focus groups we feel that we have exhausted all possible ways to give people the chance to make an impact on the policymaking process. In addition to these platforms there are two others that we are using. One of them is resembles the platform Fix My Street as I'm sure you all know. As I mentioned earlier the fact that there are different projects on different platforms with similar looks and similar names it makes it confusing for the users. Two years ago we asked a consulting firm to look at all our processes and advice on how to move forward and if any changes were needed. The review concluded that we needed to simplify and make decisions on what to keep and what to strengthen and how and the question we asked ourselves was what is it that our users need and want from us. This is still a work in progress but I can tell you that we have decided that the project my district will from now on be executed every other year instead of every year and we will put even more emphasis on cooperation throughout the process of the project on all levels and also I can tell you that some changes will be made in the definition of the project. So to the final part of my presentation the future as I spoke about earlier we are in the process of making a democracy policy which will hopefully be presented this summer for reviewing of the public as a part of the implementation process. The idea is to present a democracy policy that emphasizes the importance of cooperation and clear opportunity for the public to participate in the development of the community. The policy will outline how the public can be active in decision-making processes throughout the city where it is relevant and interesting for each and every person. In the attempt to reach these kinds of goals many approaches are needed and here are the family members I want to try to share my slides with you again if it is possible yes. So here they are in the attempt of reaching these kinds of goals as I was speaking about how the public can be active in decision-making processes in the attempt to reach these kinds of goals many approaches are needed and here are the family members of the direct democracy family that I spoke about earlier. It cannot be emphasized enough that in the end all of the components of direct democracy need to work together. To explain a little bit the components of democracy policy could look possibly look like they are they look like this open and transparent governance access to elected representatives, active district councils, active student councils, parent associations, neighborhood associations, citizen meetings open, few and clearly defined platforms of citizen participation and possibly some new experimental methods like many publics and such and on all of these in every aspect the civic pack could be useful. So a few and clearly defined platforms of citizen participation is what we are going for and are in the process of designing. So all of these methods are a name to reach the same end goals active citizens who participate in decision-making processes that lead to a fruitful discussion and collective results in the local community. For this exciting future to become real we all need to support each other and keep developing and communicating and also as I said in the beginning if you want an inclusive demographic process to thrive it needs a strong representative democracy to go with it. Civic pack is already and will continue to play an important role in the future of democratic processes. Hopefully it will keep on developing and offer new exciting revolutionary ways for governments and local authorities to communicate and involve the public in decision-making. So basically to all of you who are developing platforms and any type to help us officials to do our work better I want to encourage you all to keep on going. So I would like to conclude with these words and thank you all for listening and I hope we will get a chance to talk later.