People Powered has published the first ever Guide and Ratings of Digital Participation Tools
Two Czech companies made it to this prestigious list of digital tools for participation. The Guide and Ratings was created by the international organization People Powered, which connects experts and practitioners in participatory planning and of which Participation Factory is a proud member.
Participation 21 and Mobilní rozhlas are the only two Czech products that have made it amongst almost 30 tools in a fierce international competition.
The Ratings then evaluate them in detail based on several criteria – from price, transparency and functionalities to the human capacity requirements for setting up and managing this tool. The goal is for users to be able to find their way around existing tools. So, in the Guide, you can see how Czech companies are doing in comparison with others.
In the Participation Factory, we organized a webinar for Czech and Slovak audiences on the occasion of the publication of the Guide and Ratings to present the outcomes and see how it can be beneficial to the local actors. Forty listeners took part in it.
The webinar posed a question: which digital tools for participation are now the best in the world. Participants learned that there is no universal tool. There are many opportunities and forms of online engagement and there are many digital products that are suitable for some and not for others.
At the end of the webinar, participants asked questions about the practical use of the tools similar to those posed by other actors all around the world. For example, how to communicate about digital participation to the public, how to proceed properly when purchasing such a product, or how to avoid the neglect of specific target groups in engaging the public online.
Do you have experience using digital tools and would you like to share them? Or did you miss the webinar and would you like to ask us something? Are you planning to buy a Civic Tech tool, but don’t know where to start? Contact us at info@participationfactory.com.