New digital platforms for citizens' initiatives, such as Decidim, are becoming more popular. Adrian Smith and Pedro Prieto Martín argue that while the technology may not be developed in a democratic way, such instruments can develop into tools for democracy in today’s digital societies
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
Pedro co-convenes the IDS MA in Poverty and Development.
He is a member of the Digital and Technology Cluster, and the Participation, Inclusion and Social Change Cluster.
His activist-researcher work has focused on the areas of Open Government, Human Centred Design and in digital practices, tools and methods for accountability, citizen engagement and social change.
Pedro’s academic background includes degrees in Computer Science, Business Administration and Sociology.
He worked for six years for Hewlett-Packard in Germany, as Technical Lead of a B2B platforms development team.
Afterwards, he researched for a year on Participatory Budgeting and ICT for social change in Brazil, and for four years in Guatemala, working on Municipal Participation and Transparency.
In Spain, he supported and researched at the local level, the social mobilisation processes that resulted from the Indignados /15-M movement around new political parties.
At IDS he has done work on the application of Frontier Technologies to development challenges and on adaptive management: he researched adaptiveness in the context of ICT for governance initiatives, led the communications and outreach workstream of the USAID/DFID 'Global Learning on Adaptive Management' programme, and is currently supporting adaptive programmes such as CLARISSA in Bangladesh and Nepal and POTENCIAR in Mozambique.
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