New project: Open-source, LLM-powered Civic Assistant

We are happy to announce a new project in which we will be working in a consortium of partners on AI-powered tools to integrate in the CONSUL DEMOCRACY code base. The project will run from 2025-2027 and covers a research phase, feature development, testing as well as piloting in different European cities that are already using our platform.

Partners:
Danes Je Nov Dan (https://danesjenovdan.si/en)
Cosla (https://www.cosla.gov.uk/)
Mehr Demokratie (https://www.mehr-demokratie.de/)

This project is funded by the Google Impact Fund.

Project description

To address the low rates of citizen participation in Europe’s democratic processes, particularly among underrepresented groups such as youth, migrants, and low-income communities, the project will develop a free, open-source Civic Assistant powered by large language models (LLMs). This assistant will enhance public organization’s existing CONSUL platforms by incorporating features like voice input, real-time translation, and AI-generated proposals, making participation more accessible and inclusive.

By implementing this solution, the project aims to significantly improve engagement in democratic online discussions, enabling citizens and administrations to interact more effectively. With the Civic Assistant integrated, we aim to increase the number of people engaging with the pilot cities’ platforms, as well as to reduce the administrative efforts and costs on the part of local governments. Ultimately, this initiative seeks to empower marginalized groups such as youth, migrant groups and people from low-income communities, hereby creating more resilient and inclusive participation processes.

We will be keep you updated through our newsletter and in our Slack channel. If you want to know more about this project, don’t hesitate to get in touch through e-mail.