The world needs a purpose-driven social network to solve societal problems

Unless we learn how to collaborate better, we will continue to struggle with solving crucial societal problems as defined by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This means we need a step-change in our collective ability to solve hard issues (SDG17) to have a chance at solving the rest of the SDGs (1-16).

One of the steps is to allow everyone to much easier connect to the topics they care about and feel they can contribute. Creating a purpose-driven social network instead of attention-seeking popular social networks. One that is enabling us to establish a shared understanding of the future we want to achieve. This is currently missing.

Those were some of the highlights of the panel discussion “Achieving Real Change through Mass Collaboration” organized by Code for All Summit 21, pointed out by Alkemio’s co-founder Neil Smyth. During the one hour-long session on Monday afternoon, Smyth shared his perspective on this crucial matter with Jean F. Queralt, founder and CEO of The IO Foundation, and Mark Frischmuth, founder of DemocracyLab.

Interesting opinions were exchanged on why/how it is possible to achieve mass collaboration, change the way we collaborate on crucial topics, and establish trust and transparency with involved stakeholders. They answered questions such as: is there a difference between collaboration and co-creation; is it possible to measure a short or long term impact of interactions between end-users of platforms or software, and how does their utopian world look alike.

All discussion, including the answers to the questions above, can be found on the Code for All YouTube channel. In case you want to learn more about the current development in the civic tech community, we warmly recommend checking other events from this year’s edition of the Code for All Summit.