We believe that citizen assemblies hold great promise towards increasing our individual and collective citizen agency within an environment of uncertainly and political polarisation.
Today we are seeing very concerning behaviours within our online spaces that are having profound implications towards the health of our democracy. It's become almost impossible to distinguish real from fake and a select few individuals hold an immense amount of control over the attention of the masses.
"We envision a world where technology supports our shared well-being, sense-making, democracy, and ability to tackle complex global challenges."
Centre for human technology
We align with movements such as that by the Centre for Human Technology and Civic Signals who understand that digital spaces play a huge role in shaping our behaviours and we as citizens have a responsibility to ensure they serve us for the better.
What's a citizens assembly?
A citizens’ assembly is a group of people who are brought together to discuss an issue or issues and reach a conclusion about what they think should happen. Citizens’ assemblies give members of the public the time and opportunity to learn about and discuss a topic, before reaching conclusions. Assembly participants are asked to make trade-offs and arrive at workable recommendations.
Citizens’ assemblies have been used in the UK and other countries – including Australia, Canada and the United States – to tackle a range of complex issues. A citizens’ assembly in the Republic of Ireland – established by the Irish parliament – addressed a number of important legal and policy issues facing Irish society. These included equal marriage, abortion and the opportunities and challenges of an ageing population.
How does Tula help citizens assemble?
We make it easy for people to gather within a facilitated space where everyone can be seen and heard. Tula has been designed to enable a depth of conversation and connection we expect from a physical gathering without any of the hassles and harm of commuting our bodies or finding an accessible expensive venue.
Tula can be used to completely replace the physical delivery of an assembly or utilised to deliver a hybrid gathering which is a blend of in-person and virtual meetings.
The current cost to deliver a national citizen assembly was in the region of 200K. A large percentage of this is attributed to venue hire and the cost of travel expenses for participants. We believe that using Tula could reduce these cost by 30-45% and therefore increase the frequency of what is a very robust form of citizen engagement.
The bigger picture
Our vision is to help the transition away from our current event-based democratic engagement which is vulnerable to the manipulations of digital infections and move towards an environment of digitally assisted conversations.
Our focus is on creating 195 global gatherings to help solve climate change. We're working to create partnerships with organisations such as Extinction Rebellion, Global Planet Authority and Democracy Earth Foundation to provide them with a beautiful, functional and personal space to bring citizens together to help turn the tide on climate.
If you're to learn more, please feel free to connect with us. If you would like to become a finical contributor to our work you can do that over on our Open Collective page.
Until the next time fellow human,
Adam Nosal - Founder and CPO