Brussels Public Innovation Week

Objective:

Support all those committed to better addressing today’s challenges through policy, social, democratic and political innovation.

Mission:

The Public Innovation Week is an initiative of Dreamocracy, Civic Hall Brussels and Tokvil, and is similar to the ones in the Netherlands, France, Ireland and Brazil.

It is a week filled with on and offline events of all types: webinars, talks, workshops in Brussels and Europe more generally.

As part of our mission to foster collective intelligence, we aim to bring together people with different backgrounds and interests like policy makers, practitioners, advisors, citizens, entrepreneurs and academics.

Every event is centered on discussing and taking on today’s public policy challenges and opportunities. This week is dedicated to sharing, teaching and learning, inspiring each other on topics ranging from GovTech and AI to citizen participation and deliberative democracy.

The first edition of Brussels Public Innovation Week was held in November 2021, featuring fantastic speakers such as Geoff Mulgan, professor at the UCL, Aline Muylaert, co-director of CitizenLab and Kevin Françoisse, CEO of Sagacify.

 

2022 edition 

Focus : DEMOCRATIC RESILIENCE – How to accelerate democratic innovation in critical times?

If autocracies tend to make catastrophic decisions, democracies don’t by default make better decisions. In the face of attacks from within and from outside, how can we equip public administration to make democracy smarter and increase the legitimacy of the decisions we make collectively? Join a week of dynamic conversations and be inspired by recent innovations from thought-leaders from Brussels, Belgium, Europe, and beyond. The sessions included in particular:   

#1. Fighting political disengagement with political entrepreneurship

Are parties the problem or the solution? Can parties reinvent themselves? With:

#2. Let’s be Smarter Together!
Soft launch of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy and Governance with its 3 co-editors. 

#3. Imagining the worst to prepare for the EP Elections 2024: What are citizens’ nightmares in the EU?

By understanding people’s fears for Europe and what they see as possible future challenges, we can start thinking about how to prevent them and find solutions. But what are citizens’ EU election nightmares and how to stop them from taking life? With: 

#4. What role for public innovation labs?  

Are public innovation labs an actionable tool in times of crisis? What impact did they have in the face of Covid, Ukraine and other fast and slow disasters?

With:

  • Liza-Maria Norlin, process Manager GovTech Sweden
  • Kamila Gasinska, Civic Tech Alliance 
  • Arūnė Matelytėn Govtech lab Lithuania 
  •  Guilherme D. F. Dominguez, Brasilab