Urbanism as accountability
Introduction
CivicWise is a distributed and open international network that promotes citizen participation, developing concrete actions and projects based on collective intelligence, civic innovation and open design.[1][2].
Association
The CivicWise network is structured following the principles promoted by the Medialab-Prado municipal culture center in Madrid, where some of its founders came from, experienced in the collective practices of the 15-M Movement. The Madrid node was organized around Medialab-Prado, which also continued to be its meeting point and ended up being a reference place for the entire international CivicWise community. This node was established in the CivicWise Madrid Association, registered in the Association Registry of the Community of Madrid, First Section, number 38 024. Pascual Pérez and Cristina Martínez Aransa acted as coordinators and mediators from the Medialab-Prado, and promoted the research and development of new procedures that improve the experience of democracy applied to territorial, urban and architectural design.[3][4].
CivicWise members, located anywhere in the world but connected through the global network, work on the generation of tools and skills that enable collaboration and participatory co-creation between the different agents with influence in the territory: the public and private sectors, the educational world, the associative fabric and citizens. The CivicWise network promotes the empowerment of communities and their citizens through collective intelligence, civic innovation and open design applied to the territory, urban planning and architecture for the common good. Therefore, its projects and actions aim to promote democratic breadth and citizen protagonism applied to the design and management of the public, private and common.[4].
The network does not have a global hierarchical structure. Leadership or coordination is always associated with specific actions or projects. They remain connected to the global network through discussion spaces and digital meetings, holding a face-to-face meeting called Glocal Camp.[4].
History
CivicWise was born in London, in 2015, where Domenico Di Siena") together with other colleagues gave life to this international network as a community aimed at promoting collective intelligence projects applied to territory and urban planning based on citizen empowerment and collaborative participation.[2].