The aim of the project was to explore and analyse the possible development of the two main activities of Citizen OS and to define a roadmap for their implementation over the next 3 years.

We explored:

1. The possibilities of adding artificial intelligence to the existing platform; and;
2. The role of public web discussion organisers in society.

What were the actions?

Five focus group interviews and five individual interviews took place during this time, with a total of 36 people providing their input.

The participants included representatives from local government institutions, NGOs, researchers, community leaders and entrepreneurs. The organisations represented were Gaia Academy, Estonian Youth Council, the Network of Estonian Nonprofit Organisations, Federation of Estonian Student Unions, TTK University of Applied Sciences, Tallinn University Student Council, MTÜ Mondo, Association of Estonian Cities and Rural Municipalities, SALTO Participation and Information Resource Centre (SALTO PI), Praxis Think Tank, Tallinn City Office, Tartu City Government, Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education and Research, Fundwise, Sixfold, University of Tartu, TalTech and Tallinn University. It is important to mention here that several participants in our focus interviews are connected and active in various initiatives and organisations.

Enn Saar was involved as an external expert, and he helped to develop the goals and activities of this project and also to conduct working groups and focus group interviews.

What was the starting point?

We began by formulating the main questions about the challenges related to the engagement of citizens and interest groups and explored how the role of and opportunities provided by technology are perceived in this process. We wanted to learn where and how knowledge of engagement is acquired. We also investigated to what extent Citizen OS could connect its e-participation platform with Artificial Intelligence, and what bottlenecks Citizen OS could help solve with its platform.

The key decisions

1. First, we will focus on improving the reliability and user-friendliness of the Citizen OS platform, in order to increase the number of platform users. In so doing, we enable more people to harness technology when engaging people in decision-making processes. We aim to be a reliable partner for all our users. 
2. Second, we will create a Knowledge Hub for the Citizen OS platform, which would enable both new and experienced users to utilise the platform most effectively for their civic engagement initiatives. From there, we will also develop short training sessions on the topics of democracy, engagement, argument-based discussions and collaborative decision-making.
   

As a result of these consultations and vigorous discussions within the Citizen OS team, we aim to make the Citizen OS platform the first choice for high-quality collaborative decision-making in both Estonia and Indonesia. For this, we have set measurable goals in regard to development priorities, quality and timeline.

Goal 1: Citizen OS is the number one choice for making good decisions!

In the upcoming years, our aim is to develop the Citizen OS platform to become the first choice for high-quality collaborative decision-making in both Estonia and Indonesia. 

In order to provide such quality, we will improve the reliability and functions of our platform to be even more effective in meeting the needs of civic society activists, local communities, organisations, decision makers, political parties and anyone who wants to engage more inclusively, initiate meaningful discussions online and improve the decision-making culture overall. A full list of development tasks were identified thanks to the focus group interviews, which will be a high priority for us up until 2026.

Goal 2: Ensuring our users have the skills required for smart and effective involvement!

The Citizen OS Knowledge Hub teaches existing and new users how to use the platform in the most efficient way in order to enhance democratic participation.

The goal of the first phase is to train new and existing users to use the platform in the best possible way. To do this, we have created a curated “tour” of the platform for new users, added contextual help buttons and created a subpage on the platform where people can obtain information about the product (for example, where to start, how advanced users could utilise it etc.).

In the second stage, we will further develop the Knowledge Hub to give people new knowledge about the fundamentals and values of democracy and an open society as well as information about engagement overall – for example, how to plan and carry out engagement, what is participatory leadership, how to initiate discussions and how to make effective collaborative decisions.