ParticipateDB

Citizen Space is a consultation management system designed to support government agencies and councils to coordinate large number of consultations, both simultaneously and over time. The system provides a single front-end for citizens and stakeholders to view all upcoming, open and closed consultations from a particular agency, and to search for consultations relevant to them. RSS is supported for streaming consultation information into news readers and other sites. Under the hood, Citizen Space allows agencies to manage all their consultations – online and offline – through a single platform, creating consultation records and including information on audiences, locations and types. Staff may be allocated to manage a group or single consultation and an ‘analyst view’ allows agencies and councils to give external consultants access to analyse, but not modify, specific consultations, preserving respondent privacy. Citizen Space includes the Quick Consult tool for surveys and also integrated with other online consultation tools, providing flexibility for different government needs. Additionally, the front-end may be customised to match an agency or council’s branding or, through the Citizen Space API , integrated with an agency or council’s website seamlessly. Budget Simulator is developed by Delib, a company assisting governments with public consultations based in Bristol, UK and Brisbane, Australia.

is a cloud-based civic engagement software allowing city officials to share proposals, collaborate with citizens, and obtain data on community engagement with the platform. Key features for citizen use: - Public consultation and idea collection through commenting, votes, surveys, and open proposals. - Single-step and multi-step ideation. - Co-creation of ideas and projects with two-way conversation mechanism, which enables discussion with other citizens and feedback from administrators. - Citizens can track the status of an idea (considered, accepted, rejected, implemented and archived). - Visualize ideas on maps. Citizens can pin their ideas on the map and see what is happening in their neighbourhood. - Citizens can filter content to find ideas of particular interest to them. Key features for administrators: - City brand customization (e.g. custom domain). - Administrators manage idea statuses (considered, accepted, rejected, implemented and archived). - Limit the consultation region to a specified geographic space. - Manage newsletters, information pages, and email notifications. - Segmented demographic analytics for administrators, as well as insights on engagement score. For a comprehensive list and description of software functions, visit the website here . Introductory video Read some of the case studies for a deeper understanding of how the tool has been mobilized for civic engagement. The CitizenLab team is based in Brussels, Belgium.

From the about page : CitiZing! is the first ever civic networking platform, providing a space for true collaboration on public problems. CitiZing! combines the power of social networking with new decision-making processes focused on collaboration and actionable outcomes. It brings together individuals, organizations, businesses, academics, and government with each other to establish common ground, provide meaningful, clearly-defined roles for each participant, and ultimately elicit better outcomes. This online platform is structured to provide key missing ingredients from today’s civic problem-solving arena: action, and not just talk; transparency; the opportunity to learn from one another; and new social connections. It provides citizens with the opportunity to get involved, and decision-makers with the opportunity to harness the perspective and passion of citizens. What’s so different about the process? CitiZing! helps decision-makers create meaningful and transparent public processes with clearly-defined and influential citizen roles. It also provides a space for citizens to collaborate together and bring forth their concerns and ideas in a productive and effective way. It does this by facilitating the Citizens League unique model of problem-solving, taking place in three phases: problem diagnosis, analysis and conclusion, and implementation. How does it work? CitiZing! combines the power of social networking with easy-to-use tools, like surveys, wikis, forums, prioritizers, and stakeholder maps, to provide the toolkit to work through problems collectively. Work can be done either exclusively online or in complement to existing in-person activities. Right now CitiZing! hosts one of the Citizens League’s most important projects, which aims to refresh how we think about and solve poverty. We’ll be adding more projects soon, and in the future both individuals and organizations will be able to start and run their own projects. CitiZing is a project of the Citizens League, a non-partisan and non-profit organization that promotes democracy for Minnesotans based in St. Paul, Minnesota

From the website: Crabgrass is a software libre web application designed for social networking, group collaboration and network organizing. Our goal is to create communication tools that are tailored specifically to meet the needs of bottom up grassroots organizing. […] Crabgrass is a secure alternative to for-profit social networking and organizing platforms. From the about page (original site is now defunct, archived copy provided): What Crabgrass Does Crabgrass enables social change organizations to get things done, get the word out, collaborate and network. To get things done, Crabgrass provides tools like task list management, meeting scheduling, asset management, wiki, and decision making. When it is time to get the word out, Crabgrass allows groups to create a customized home page where a group can list their event calendar, blog postings, and other public content. To help collaborate , Crabgrass allows users to rate content, add keywords to content, comment on content, annotate content, alert others to content you need their feedback on, and track participation and revisions. Additionally, Crabgrass comes with many tools for democratic decision making. Since no group is an island, Crabgrass allows groups to create networks with other independent groups. These networks provide a place to work together on shared content and make decisions. Alternately, you can share a single document if that is the extent of the cooperation (in development). Among the decision making tools are approval voting and ranked voting. Among the features are personal messages, discussions (public or private forums), wikis, file management, task lists, privacy, and security. Crabgrass is open-source and its source code is available on 0xacab . Crabgrass is developed Riseup Labs based in Seattle, WA (US). Update : The site for Crabgrass is no longer viewable. In order to view the site, view an archived copy .

Crowdbrite is a web application for team collaboration and community engagement. Crowdbrite can be used to “communicate plans, build community, prioritize investments, and inspire action” using mobile surveys, public kiosks, and in-person workshops or charrettes. The project-driven interactive web platform include a number of features for both municipalities and community members: Vision & Values : the core values behind the project Discover & Explore : details project background & existing conditions Poll & Comment : identifies priorities using Crowdbrite’s Visual Interactive Survey ( VIS ) Share results : use social media to expand reach and share up-to-date feedback Follow the Project : allows community members to follow the project by providing their contact information Review Alternatives : provides scenario planning tool Draft Plan : municipalities can provide a draft of future plans or proposals Drag & Drop Map : municipalities can put all their projects on a map and receive meaningful input from stakeholders Crowdbrite is based in San Francisco, CA (US).

From the website: What is Decision Hosting? DecisionHosting is an online service powered by InfoHarvest’s DecisionHarvest technology enabling our clients to publish their Criterium DecisionPlus models to the web for data gathering, preference surveying and results/analysis sharing. What does Decision Hosting do for me? Decision Hosting lets you gather criteria weights or alternatives ratings from key decision-makers and diverse stakeholders online. Decision Hosting gives you the ability to take the specialized decision models you build and validate on your desktop and publish them to the web for data gathering, real-time results and analysis. DecisionHosting is developed by Seattle, WA-based InfoHarvest .

From the website: DemocracyLab is an experiment in direct democracy, powered by open source software, and built on the idea that technology can empower us to harness freedom of speech and the power of the vote to solve today’s most challenging problems. DemocracyLab uses participants’ posts and votes to build a dynamic map of political thought designed to facilitate consensus and solve problems. The result is an engaging public forum where the best thinking rises to the top, creating a community-driven alternative to traditional politics. DemocracyLab is anticipated to launch publicly on July 4, 2018, but in the meanwhile, has a public prototype . DemocracyLab’s site is created with Nationbuilder , and is developed by DemocracyLab, a non-profit organization that creates and curates open-source civic tech tools based in Seattle, Washington (US).

Demosplan is an online portal for planning officials and agencies to encourage community input on urban planning initiatives through project documents and maps, comments, and bundled organizational feedback. The spatial-planning cloud software allows public authorities to import the relevant geodata for consultation and invites citizens and stakeholders to comment on an online interactive map. Comment filtering, editing and sorting functions allows submissions to be evaluated by the project’s administrators. Statements are filterable by keywords and text references, and lengthy comments can be disaggregated and organized according to content. After a decision is made, results can be sent to participants. Additional modules enable project initiators to manage notifications and contacts of the participating institutions and individuals. Introductory video about Schleswig-Holstein’s (German state) online portal built on Demosplan: Demosplan is a product of DEMOS . The e-Participation tool developer is based in Germany, with offices located in Berlin and Hamburg.

Dialoguecircles is a solution designed specifically for realizing the benefits of public involvement and informed participation. It provides a single point of access to a broad set of on-line approaches and traditional face-to-face events, which can be tailored to meet various objectives and goals. Dialoguecircles functions through online and in-person approaches. Highlighted online approaches include: Choicebooks : Allows participants to place themselves in the shoes of decision‐makers and, as the name implies, make tough choices. They provide balanced information on the issue(s) at hand, outlining benefits, drawbacks and tradeoffs associated with various approaches or options. Participants consider this information before responding to questions pertaining to their preferences, priorities, and experiences. Workbooks : Similar to the choicebook a workbook focuses on providing relevant context, information and facts to facilitate issue exploration, allowing participants to familiarize themselves with an issue by “working through it”. These guides are often prerequisites for participating in other online engagement activities since they provide a common baseline of information to all participants before they are asked to respond to questions. Personalized Participation Reports : With the online choicebook or workbook a customized report is generated for each participant and includes content that is reflective of how he or she responded to specific choicebook or workbook questions. The intention of the report is to close the feedback loop with participants and demonstrate assured listening. Story and idea submission : This tool allows participants to share their thoughts and experiences in a structured, confidential way by submitting personal stories and ideas. These qualitative submissions represent an invaluable source of experiential data that puts a human face on the issue(s). Additional information about other online approaches (surveys and polls, discussion forums, and website hosting) and in-person approaches can be found on their fact sheet (archived copy). Update : Dialoguecircles has been discontinued, as the developer, Ascentum, was acquired by Hill+Knowlton Strategies. An archive of the site can be found here .

The discourse machine is the functional tool of the Dialog Management System ( DMS ) which has been designed specially for public participation projects. It is being used in various big cities and towns for city planning and civic participatory budget proposals. Today, the DMS is the most frequently installed e-participation tool in Germany. Comprehensive online discourses and online dialogues on urban development, budget planning or political issues for cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich or for the Federal Ministry of Education or for the German Parliament have been successfully developed. Beyond that, cities in Great Britain, Italy, Greece, Spain and Austria have carried out several projects with our Dialog Management System. In addition to the basic functions of writing articles, giving comments, making evaluations, citing quotations, collaborating work, creating rankings, locating geographical areas, searching tools, etc., numerous additional special modules were created for the DMS . In close cooperation with the administrations of different federal states, special functions were developed, in which almost every single participatory project was given maximum support. For example, different types of budget planning or budget calculators were designed for the Participatory Budgeting Project. This was necessary to meet the unique requirements of a big city like Hamburg or a city district like Berlin-Lichtenberg. The discourse-machine, which originally evolved from the basic scientific research in the field of e-participation, has been continuously developed by Binary Objects, based in Berlin, Germany.

Dito is a web 2.0 communications platform that enables large groups to collect, develop and structure suggestions and ideas around a topic or event. It is currently a family of products developed for specific needs (participation, campaigning, consulting…). From the website : dito is a 2.0 Plattform for e-participation. Its origins root back to the mid 90ies, when researchers at Fraunhofer IAIS / former GMD started the development of a decsion support system foro alrge [sic] groups. You will find many publications on the dito predecessor ‘zeno’ * Improve e-participation processes by enriching the discussion with relevant contextual information from knowledge data bases * Discover implicit information and connections, navigate across data boundaries * Boost the interest of users and decision makers by extracting relevant information and relations * Break down unstructured silos of data in a structured and linked data cloud * Linked open data – provide semantic endpoints to promote interoperability and transparency according to Open Government directives. Additional functions are theme customization, language adaptability, prioritization and ranking of projects, information moderation, and GIS . From the products page , dito is divided into four key products: ditoask (ideal for meaningful dialogue with large audiences), ditomood (measures the daily attitude of your employees and provides actionable insights as to why), ditopoll (measures readiness indicators during organisational change programs and helps to fund activities using fact based insights), ditoinnovation (helps you to manage crowdsourced idea generation and innovation challenges). dito was originally developed by Munich, Germany-based Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS . Since 2006, dito is being maintained and distributed by by Bonn, Germany-based ontopica . Ontopica and Fraunhofer Institute IAIS both own the copyright to dito.

eConsult is a comprehensive and unified consultation, research and dialogue management system enabling total control over the whole consultation cycle from planning to presentation to document management. Selected features from eConsult’s brochure (archived copy) are: Create and manage multiple consultations and campaigns : eConsult is an enterprise level solution which enables different administrators, departments or your strategic partners to run separate consultation exercises simultaneously, and of course allows participants to access them. Comprehensive questionnaires, analysis and reporting : All survey types and questions easily created and integrated to the participative process; real time analysis on feedback; reports on consultation methods and results, enabling the management of consultation activity to be improved as lessons are learned about what worked well and what not so well. Stakeholder Registration and Consultee Database : Registration and alerts system; importing, targeting and communications with participants; email, SMS ; profiling and selections; analyses by profiles as well as cross tabs within surveys. Groups and ePanels : You can create or import Groups – a citizens’ panel, customers, suppliers – and undertake specific activity – of course all the tools in eConsult can be used. You can build and manage an ePanel of experts, or businesses or people with special needs. eConsult is developed by Community People based in the UK. Update : eConsult has been discontinued. Additional information about the tool can be found on an archived copy of the tool site.

From the website: End-to-end online consultation The Engage module manages the entire consultation lifecycle enabling organizations to consult all relevant stakeholders, citizens, employees, shareholders or partners through the widest variety of response mechanisms, and analyse and manage the results through complete back-office functionality. It lists the following five key features: 1. Enterprise-wide consultation: ensure you have a co-ordinated, strategic approach to stakeholder consultation across your entire organisation 2. A Single Consultation Portal: in a single web-based portal, tailor access and response mechanisms to suit end-user requirements through polls, surveys, questionnaires, forum, discussion boards and bulletin boards 3. Stakeholder management: store and manage demographic information to identify, segment and report on consultees; communicate with more stakeholders via the web, Internet-ready kiosks, mobile devices such as PDAs and mobile phones 4. Reporting: event-based, configurable reporting on all consultation activities including geo-demographical analysis through integration with GIS systems 5. Rich user experience: users create and manage their profiles and respond to events in an interactive, intuitive way Update : The developer, Limehouse Software, was acquired by Objective Corp in 2009, and the tool has since then been discontinued. In order to access the website, view an archived copy . Additionally, Objective Corp. has developed a similar tool, Objective Connect .

EngagmentHQ is a flexible online community engagement platform designed to meet the learning needs of a community. It has multiple ways to provide complex information to users, such as engagement tools (surveys, forums, questions, polls) and information tools (e-newsletters, social platforms, blog, information widgets). Tools can be integrated with other third-party apps, such as Mailchimp, Browsealoud, and Campaign Monitor. Any forums are moderated 24/7 by Bang the Table’s independent moderation team. Administrators are also able to export data for further analysis into Excel as well as comment-based reports into PDF format. A video tour of EngagementHQ can be found here . EngagementHQ is developed by Bang the Table, headquartered in Australia.

eNgageSpace is a unified survey, consultation and research tool used to maintain connections and receive input from valuable stakeholders. Each consultation is housed under its own online Consultation Community that is a hub for surveys, discussion forums, and idea sessions resulting in audience engagement. Easily create and publish consultations, surveys, discussion forums and idea sessions. Capture attention and focussed feedback. Use classic consultation and deliberation and/or Ideas or Ideas Sessions widget as a gateway to insight and trust. Display the latest consultations and ideas to start engaging your audience immediately. Notable features include: * Create Content Pages : You can have introduction pages and preface text – top or bottom – that explains, elaborates and encourages. You can have thank-you pages that describe the next step, keeping participants informed about next stages – very important since consultation and engagement is never a one-off act. * Upload Supporting Information : Document Library – providing key information at the right time, in the right place. From the detailed activity page a link will appear – “Background Documents” (of course, which you can rename) where the consultee can view all these files which are associated with your activity. * Decide On Access Policy : You can give different access rights to different consultations. You may only want a specific group or set of consultees to respond – or in fact view the consultation. You can have private ? invitation only or open consultations. * Build Groups & Manage Your Lists : Easily create special interest groups – Groups can be Delegates, Exhibitors or any stakeholders. The can be consulted by you or speak to each other, sharing ideas, experience and knowledge, You will benefit from such emphasis on dialogue which will inform your subsequent decisions. Additional features of eNgageSpace can be found here . eNgageSpace is headquartered and developed in Glasgow, UK.

EngagingPlans is an interactive public engagement platform that improves outreach and engagement in public processes, creating meaningful opportunities for citizen and stakeholder feedback. The platform is intuitive, versatile, and mobile- and tablet-optimized, making it easy to convey complicated information throughout a project life cycle. The platform is composed of a Core website that can be enhanced with apps provided through EngagingPlans or extensions from EngagingApps . EngagingPlans includes a number of elements for supporting public engagement: project updates, event calendars and timelines, a searchable document library, FAQs, a survey builder, polls and open questions. This one-stop hub forms the backbone of project communications, keeping all project information clear and up-to-date in one accessible location, and allows for collecting user input on projects and proposals. Additionally, there are opportunities for unique, intuitive opportunities for public involvement and feedback. From community mapping to interactive plan documents, these apps can be tailored to fit any objectives, whether that’s getting feedback on growth scenarios, using games to expand participation, or presenting your draft plan in a simple, interactive format. EngagingPlans is developed by Urban Interactive Studio based in Denver, Colorado.

Gov2DemOSS is an open source, informative and collaborative e-participation platform. Gov2DemOSS provides an efficient channel for institutions and organizations to keep their communities informed, manage their information repositories, to interact directly with their constituents and gauge public opinion. From developer Gov2u’s projects page : Equipped with advanced interactive and participation functions, including forums, polls, calendar of events and geospatial information systems, wikis; Gov2demoSS enables citizens to directly define the content, shape and direction of municipal policies. By combining service provision functions and facilities for voluntary, community and business organizations Gov2demOSS greatly enhances social capital in local communities and strengthens knowledge and civic commitment, allthrough a single web-based geographical interface. Gov2DemOSS also has an entry in the European Union’s online tool database . Gov2DemOSS is developed by Gov2u, a non-profit organization creating ICTs, based in Brussels, Belgium and Athens, Greece.

iCanMakeItBetter is a platform enabling companies, communities, and users to brainstorm, share, and act upon ideas to drive innovation. Its key features are: Ideation Sessions : Crowdsource ideas with group brainstorming. Commenting, rating, and voting help you prioritize ideas and drive on-target innovation. Focus Groups : Interactive discussions capture in-depth insights. Collect text, images, or video on the soccer field, in a store, at home – anywhere. Surveys : Get answers fast. Deploy powerful, engaging surveys across any device in minutes. View and securely share real-time results. Additional features include recruiting tools (emails lists, web widgets, etc.), survey templates, customized branding and design, unified dashboard, integrated incentives, email integration, and activity alerts. Find out more information from the features page . The tool is being developed by Sentient Services based in Austin, Texas (US).

INOVEM Consult is a highly configurable framework for stakeholder management and collection of input. The tool allows administrators to present issues to stakeholders and the public easily and clearly, encouraging high levels of participation and response, and works within mixed online/offline consultation programs to maximize inclusion. INOVEM Consult utilizes a variety of customizable consultation methods that can be used independently or together, such as: Questionnaires with variable question types, mandatory/optional questions, randomisation, wizardbased conditional branching, progress bars, ‘Save as Draft’, supporting document upload option, anonymous response support and automated thank you emails. Structured Documents for Comment providing interactive, hierarchical web documents that are easy to browse and search, comment on or submit supporting evidence for saving partial responses, custom tracking references, moderation, View Comment permissions and section-by-section report summaries are also available. Discussion Forums enabling submission of issues and ideas via the site or directly by email, full or partial filtering and moderation options and consultee-driven notification preferences are also provided. Add a Response on behalf of a consultee, enabling staff to input manual and offline responses and so ensure that everyone’s views are taken into account. This ensures that the consultation and stakeholder databases are the central repositories for all your consultation data. INOVEM Consult is developed by INOVEM , based in Weston, Berkshire (UK).

From the website: Jadu eConsultation [now Continuum] provides a comprehensive interface for the publication of long and often complex consultation documents with cut-and-paste ease, enabling rapid deployment of interactive online consultations. Available as a fully managed service to enable your colleagues to collaborate and publish online to deliver detailed consultation documents, forms, surveys, working drafts and proposals. Jadu Continuum is a suite of software with a number of options: customer experience management (Continuum CXM ), web content management (Continuum CMS ), online vendor portals (Jadu Content Portal), and enterprise eforms (Continuum XFP ). For information on each option: Continuum CXM is a cloud based solution for creating and managing customer conversations. CXM provides a seamless, intuitive and consistent experience for your services teams and customers Continuum XFP is a powerful, secure and flexible eForms solution that provides non-technical tools to build online forms. [Continuum CMS is] a flexible platform to make beautiful websites for large organisations. Continuum CMS is an easy to use publishing tool that helps you create and publish meaningful content. We’ve embraced responsive interface design, so when you’re on the move Continuum CMS can be right there with you. Jadu Content Portal provides rich and powerful ways to present enterprise and back office content to your Website or Intranet users, on any device. Open-source versions of Jadu Continuum can be found on “Github”: https://github.com/jadu. Jadu Continuum is developed by Jadu, based in Canberra, Australia; Leicester, UK; and Chicago, US.

Objective Connect is a secure, private, online workplace that can be used to manage projects, collaborate with partners, and serve as a hub for project materials. The three key aspects of Objective Connect highlighted on their websites are: Document Collaboration: Documents can be easily drag and dropped into the online space and are accessible and available for anyone that has been invited. All files (up to 1GB) are have end-to-end encryption, an audit trail in order to track changes and interactions, version control, and alerts to stay up-to-date on changes. Objective Connect can integrate with many popular EDRMS including MS SharePoint, HP TRIM and Objective ECM . Online conversations: Conversations in the form of comment threads are always linked to specific documents or files in order to provide context. Rather than having conversations spread over emails, file notes, and verbal conversations, all communication is located within the online space. Task management: In order to create transparency and assure accountability, tasks can be created and assigned to individuals, along with a due date. Tasks can also be linked to uploaded documents or files. Therefore, all project partners are informed and kept into the loop about progress. ObjectiveConnect is developed by Objective Corp. with worldwide offices and headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

Open Active Voting is an open-source, secure voting tool targeted towards citizen input during participatory budgeting processes. Generally, the process begins with citizen submission of ideas to improve their neighbourhood. The cost of implementing these ideas is then evaluated by the city. After city officials communicate the costs and budget limitations, citizens vote on their favourite ideas. The city then implements the best ideas and citizens are informed of the results. The voting system is electronic, binding, and secure. Since 2011, the tool has been used for Reykjavik’s annual participatory budgeting project “My Neighbourhood” (formerly, Better Neighbourhoods). This project best illustrates the voting process: Citizens submit ideas for projects to improve their neighbourhoods. Anyone can submit an idea. This takes place for one month. Authentication is easier for this phase of the process, through Facebook Connect or with email/password, allowing for richer participation. The City of Reykjavík’s Construction Board then evaluates the cost of ideas and feasibility of each project. For this step, transparency is key. Citizens then vote on the ideas through an electronic, secure and binding vote. One vote per person is ensured through strict authentication. Reykjavík City’s Internal Audit monitors the election, with external experts conducting a security audit every year, before, during and after the vote. After authentication, the voter chooses a neighbourhood to vote within, then the projects they want to vote for. The voting age is 16 (whereas in national and local elections it is 18). When you choose a project, you see your budget being spent, so you become familiar with the use of a budget. When you have chosen a project, the ones you do not have budget for get grayed out. Most voters utilize as much of their budget as they can. You can vote as often as you like, with the last vote counting. A tool demo can be found here . The voting tool is being developed by the Citizens Foundation , based in Reykjavik, Iceland. The Citizens Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 2008, is also responsible for e-democracy initiatives like Your Priorities , the crowdsourcing web app, and Better Reykjavik .

From the homepage: Open Debate is an online consultation tool that helps you to engage with a broad audience in an accessible, convenient, interactive and auditable way. It can be used for multiple consultations, allowing you to manage website content, view feedback and contact participants from one central system. It also generates instant reports and enables you to immediately see how your consultation is going. Features include: Online questionnaires Forums Comment forms Interactive plans and maps News sign-up Facebook and Twitter profiles Manage website text and images See who’s participating and keep a log of any contact you’ve had with them Add details of ‘offline’ participants and keep a contact log Send out news alerts Respond to questions and comments View live questionnaire results Filter questionnaire results e.g. by postcode or age Identify key themes and issues Generate instant reports For a quick summary on Open Debate, view their info sheet . Open Debate is developed by Consense based in Suffolk, UK.

Participare is a multilingual platform for online participatory budgeting and is “an SaaS platform designed to manage the entire process of promotion, proposal, voting and execution monitoring of participatory democracy initiatives.” Anti-fraud mechanisms, audited participation, process control, simplified voting, and multilingual support are some of the platform’s key features. Participants may contribute either online or offline. In 2015, Participare was first released in beta and officially launched in Paris at the Innover dans le financement des territoires européens par les processus participatifs et coopératifs event. The tool is being developed by Portuguese startup Changetomorrow , the company responsible for WireMaze .

PlaceSpeak is a location-based citizen engagement platform. Its two-sided network brings together participants, who have authenticated their address, and proponents of consultations, who wish to connect with residents within specific geographical boundaries. According to the Wikipedia profile, “its suite of feedback collection tools and features was designed with the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) Spectrum of Public Participation in mind.” PlaceSpeak is free to participants, who receive notifications about proposed changes and events in their neighbourhoods, and can interact with other residents. Organizations set up topic pages that includes a map, information, feedback tools including polls, surveys, discussion forums, participatory mapping, and ideation. Spatial reporting is generated in a variety of formats and real-time analytics are produced transparently. Proponents pay a license fee for use. PlaceSpeak was developed utilizing Privacy by Design principles. The ability to connect participants’ digital identity to physical location (e.g. residential address) builds legitimacy in the online consultation process. The platform was developed with the support of the National Research Council of Canada in 2011. It is headquartered in Vancouver, BC.