On June 16th, the seventh meeting of ROSI (Research on Open Social Innovation) took place, and we were delighted to welcome Beth Simone Noveck as our guest speaker. Beth, a Professor and Director of the Burnes Center for Social Change, shared her work at the intersection of social innovation, crowdsourcing, and open governance. From 2009 to 2011, she was the United States deputy chief technology officer for open government and led President Obama‘s Open Government Initiative, held advisory roles for several governments (e.g. UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s Open Government Initiative) and has written numerous books on the topic of open government.
Beth’s presentation began with the distinction between thinking and doing democracy, highlighting the importance of active citizen participation and tangible outcomes. She emphasized that while passive participation in the public sphere, such as being present for the sake of optics, exists, it often lacks significant results. Instead, she advocated for a practical form of democracy, combining different formats such as representative citizen assemblies, oversampling, self-selection, and knowledgeable groups. This approach, which she referred to as “combinatorial democracy,” can lead to increased trust in institutions. Furthermore, Beth discussed the potential of AI in supporting citizen participation formats, citing its ability to cluster opinions and analyze large amounts of text, such as chat conversations. AI can play a practical role in facilitating and enhancing the democratic process. After Beth’s presentation there was a lively discussion about opportunities and pitfalls when organizing open innovation processes.
What’s next?
After a brief summer break, ROSI looks forward to continuing its activities with fresh new formats. Thomas Gegenhuber and Amanda Porter will share their experiences in implementing Open Social Innovation formats in the September session. Additionally, the ROSI group will meet at the EGOS conference in Cagliari and the AOM conference in Boston.