Kakogawa's Decidim is a city-run online participatory-democracy platform (on the open-source Decidim software, with Code for Japan) where residents propose, debate, and shape local policy, running continuously since 2020.
Kakogawa's Decidim is a city-run online participatory-democracy platform (on the open-source Decidim software, with Code for Japan) where residents propose, debate, and shape local policy, running continuously since 2020. One of Japan's earliest and most sustained municipal Decidim deployments, it currently gathers citizen input on the city's next comprehensive plan, Kakogawa-station-area redevelopment, its smart-city program, a public-facility booking system, and a community "watch-over" safety app, and was redesigned in 2025 for easier mobile use.
True Causes is a web tool for group root-cause analysis at scale: everyone writes causes alone, the group links them pair-by-pair at 75% agreement into a shared map whose "roots" are what to act on, digitising the decades-old Structured Democratic Dialogue method.
The Digital Civic Infrastructure Initiative is a new Harvard Kennedy School program (in the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, led by Danielle Allen) helping local governments use technology to strengthen democracy, transparency, and citizen engagement, with an early output being Open Book, a free open-source municipal budget-transparency tool.
Zeitgeist is a public-deliberation platform from Nesta's Centre for Collective Intelligence Design that combines qualitative group discussion with quantitative polling in one experience, letting governments and charities run scalable, engaging consultations.
Joycotter is a collaborative "worldbuilding game" for real-world activism, built around the "joycott", a conditional commitment ("if this exists or this change happens, here's what I'll do") that makes latent demand and support visible before anyone risks building the thing.
