A city, evolving with (the voice of) its citizens – a utopian dream? Not quite. Wietse Van Ransbeeck is the Co-Founder and CEO of CitizenLab, a digital platform for cities and governments that brings citizen participation into the 21st century. Whether it’s on mobility, environment or infrastructure, CitizenLab gives citizens a well-deserved seat at the decision making table.
What is CitizenLab?
CitizenLab offers a digital democracy platform to local governments. We give citizens a voice on the topics and policies they care about in their neighbourhoods and cities. It initially started out as a university project by me and my co-founder Aline Muylaert four years ago. We looked at established ways to participate in the decision making process and came to the realisation that there was no easy and practical way for citizens to provide input. We wanted to explore how we could make our voices heard, as we really wanted to contribute ideas on how to improve things in our city.
How did your first project look like?
When we started four years ago, participatory democracy was still very new. Some cities might have experimented with it but it was definitely not the standard. If you take a look at the situation today, participatory democracy has become complimentary to representative democracy. This is obviously good news for us.
Our very first project was in April 2016 in Hasselt, Belgium. It was launched when the city was planning to set up a new park. Typically only 20-30 people showed up to their town hall meetings. We ended up getting over 600 people involved, so I’d definitely say it was quite a success. Back then we were using a prototype with more basic functions. But as we expanded our team and our co-founder and CTO Koen Gremmelprez joined, we scaled up the technology to a degree where over 150 cities from many different countries are using our platform today to keep their citizens engaged.
How does it work exactly?
As citizens, there are two ways to participate. The most common way is through the projects a city proposes. Within these projects we provide governments with a toolbox that includes a variety of methods they can use according to their needs. There are different ways to include citizens – think participatory budgeting, idea collection or surveys.
But citizens can also make their voice heard through an important instrument that we call “citizen proposals”. They can launch their own proposal and once it gets the required amount of support from other verified citizens it gets passed on to the city council for consideration. This is a way to have a very direct impact and determine the political agenda from the bottom-up.
When it comes to governments, we provide them with a back office where they can design their individual participatory process, explore the data to get detailed insights and gain a better understanding of their citizens’ needs. Our customers are mostly local governments. They buy an annual subscription for our platform and the software. But CitizenLab is obviously not only a tool or a technological platform, we also offer consulting services to help governments get the most out of it. A tool in itself is just a tool but it’s also crucial to know how to utilise it correctly.
What was your biggest challenge at CitizenLab so far?
It’s a challenge to really create change and institutionalise citizen participation. It’s easy to convince governments to do a project to engage their citizens but a paradigm shift towards opening up dialogue is harder. There needs to be a cultural change in the way administrations work, as citizens are asking for more transparency, more responsiveness from policy makers and more means to participate.
Initially we thought that we just needed to provide a platform but we now understand that we need to look at it more holistically. Cities need guidance on how to actually get the most out of the platform and help to adopt and adapt to these new processes.
Do you have any kind of criteria for cities that want to use your platform?
We work with cities of all sizes. Generally we’d say cities should have at least 10,000 inhabitants in order to get a lot of value from the platform. If your smaller community is spread out it could definitely still be useful. However we realised that with large cities it’s easier to achieve change and see a high adoption of the platform.
As of now we’re focusing on local governments but we are looking to work with regional and national governments too in the near future. Of course this will be a very different dynamic. Local governments are very action focused while it’s more about bigger policies and citizen dialogue on a regional or national level.
We actually developed something that could be very useful for higher level governments as a response to the pandemic. A new online workshop-module for our toolbox enables online public meetings, with moderators asking questions, citizens giving their input and collaborating together in breakout groups.
What was your best moment as a founder so far?
First I would say that getting people on board that are truly motivated by the purpose of your company is just fantastic. When people believe in your mission it enables you to build a culture where your employees have more responsibility and autonomy because they are very self-driven. Our people believe that the work they do is important and recognise the contribution they make to society. This is by far what gives me the most energy and satisfaction on a daily basis.
Second, I would say enabling governments to give people a say gives me a lot of gratification. Every single project on the platform is a meaningful opportunity for citizens to engage.
I think there are a lot of stereotypes about the public sector. Five years ago this was something investors wouldn’t even look at. But today we are in a totally different era and people understand that policies that affect thousands of people are a great way to create impact and actually improve quality of life for so many. It’s remarkable to see how much more interest there is these days for government technology.
Where do you see CitizenLab five years from now?
I see us as a global company. We already worked with partners who have a local network and expertise in different countries in order to enter into new markets, so expanding globally with local experts is definitely a plan for the future.
On the other hand we also want to make sure that we increase the uptake among citizens. We want to create lasting impact and enable citizens to meaningfully engage on the platform. We want to lower the barrier and get even more citizens to engage with their government.
Do you have any advice for upcoming or already active impact tech founders?
Yes, my advice is actually pretty straightforward. From day one, hire people who are devoted to your mission. Your mission is your biggest draw, it’s what sets social enterprises apart from other businesses when it comes to attracting talent. Be authentic about your vision and create a brand that is trustworthy. In the end, building a successful business is mainly about finding a very talented group of people who work towards the same goal. Managing to bring across your mission is the best way for social changemakers to really grow their impact in the long run.
My second advice is that there is a great importance in sharing your expertise openly and collaboratively. For us this has been a focus from day one: sharing our knowledge, connecting with thought-leaders in our field and collectively shaping the future of digital democracy. Don’t be afraid and don’t keep your ideas to yourself – share what you know with others! It’s a really great way to build a reputation in your domain and create leverage.
Do you have any books or movies you’d recommend?
“Against Elections: The Case for Democracy” by David Van Reybrouk