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I have the feeling that we can all agree

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that we're moving towards a new

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model of the state and society.

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But, we're absolutely clueless as to what this is

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or what it should be.

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It seems like we need to have

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a conversation about democracy

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in our day and age.

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Let's think about it this way:

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We are 21st-century citizens, doing our

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very, very best to interact with 19th century-designed
institutions

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that are based on an information technology of the 15th century.

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Let's have a look at some of the

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characteristics of this system.

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First of all, it's designed for an information technology

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that's over 500 years old.

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And the best possible system

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that could be designed for it

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is one where the few make daily decisions

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in the name of the many.

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And the many get to vote once every 
couple of years.

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In the second place, the costs of

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participating in this system are

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incredibly high.

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You either have to have a fair 
bit of money

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and influence, or you have to devote your entire

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life to politics.

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You have to become a party member

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and slowly start working up the ranks

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until maybe, one day, you'll get 
to sit at a table

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where a decision is being made.

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And last but not least,

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the language of the system —

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it's incredibly cryptic.

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It's done for lawyers, by lawyers,

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and no one else can understand.

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So, it's a system where we can

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choose our authorities,

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but we are completely left out on how
those authorities

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reach their decisions.

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So, in a day where a new information technology

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allows us to participate globally
in any conversation,

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our barriers of information are completely lowered

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and we can, more than ever before,

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express our desires and our concerns.

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Our political system remains the same

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for the past 200 years

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and expects us to be contented with being 
simply passive recipients

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of a monologue.

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So, it's really not surprising that

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this kind of system is only able to produce

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two kinds of results:

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silence or noise.

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Silence, in terms of citizens not engaging,

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simply not wanting to participate.

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There's this commonplace 
[idea] that I truly, truly dislike,

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and it's this idea that we citizens are naturally

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apathetic. That we shun commitment.

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But, can you really blame us

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for not jumping at the opportunity of going

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to the middle of the city in the middle

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of a working day to attend, physically,

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a public hearing that has no impact

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whatsoever?

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Conflict is bound to happen between a system

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that no longer represents, nor has any dialogue capacity,

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and citizens that are increasingly used

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to representing themselves.

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And, then we find noise:

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Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico
Italy, France, Spain, the United States,

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they're all democracies.

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Their citizens have access to

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the ballot boxes. But they still feel the need,

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they need to take to the streets in order 
to be heard.

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To me, it seems like the 18th-century

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slogan that was the basis for the formation

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of our modern democracies, "No taxation

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without representation,"

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can now be updated to "No representation
without a conversation."

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We want our seat at the table.

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And rightly so.

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But in order to be part of this conversation,

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we need to know what we want to do next,

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because political action is being able

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to move from agitation

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to construction.

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My generation has been incredibly good at

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using new networks and technologies

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to organize protests,

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protests that were able to successfully

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impose agendas,

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roll back extremely pernicious legislation,

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and even overthrow authoritarian governments.

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And we should be immensely

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proud of this.

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But, we also must admit that we

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haven't been good at using those

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same networks and technologies

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to successfully articulate an alternative
to what we're seeing

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and find the consensus and build 
the alliances that are needed

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to make it happen.

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And so the risk that we face

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is that we can create these huge power vacuums

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that will very quickly get filled up by de facto

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powers, like the military or highly

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motivated and already organized groups

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that generally lie on the extremes.

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But our democracy is neither

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just a matter of voting once every

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couple of years.

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But it's not either the ability to bring millions
onto the streets.

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So the question I'd like to raise here,

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and I do believe it's the most important 
question we need to answer,

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is this one:

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If Internet is the new printing press,

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then what is democracy for the Internet era?

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What institutions do we want to build

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for the 21st-century society?

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I don't have the answer, just in case.

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I don't think anyone does.

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But I truly believe we can't afford
to ignore this question anymore.

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So, I'd like to share our experience

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and what we've learned so far

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and hopefully contribute two cents

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to this conversation.

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Two years ago, with a group of friends
from Argentina,

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we started thinking, "how can 
we get our representatives,

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our elected representatives,

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to represent us?"

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Marshall McLuhan once said that politics

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is solving today's problems with yesterday's tools.

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So the question that motivated us was,

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can we try and solve some of today's problems

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with the tools that we use every single
day of our lives?

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Our first approach was to design and develop

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a piece of software called DemocracyOS.

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DemocracyOS is an open-source web application

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that is designed to become a bridge

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between citizens and their elected representatives

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to make it easier for us to participate 
from our everyday lives.

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So first of all, you can get informed so every new

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project that gets introduced in Congress

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gets immediately translated and explained

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in plain language on this platform.

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But we all know that social change

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is not going to come from just knowing

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more information,

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but from doing something with it.

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So better access to information

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should lead to a conversation

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about what we're going to do next,

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and DemocracyOS allows for that.

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Because we believe that democracy is

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not just a matter of stacking up

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preferences, one on top of each other,

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but that our healthy and robust public debate

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should be, once again, one of its fundamental values.

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So DemocracyOS is about persuading 
and being persuaded.

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It's about reaching a consensus

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as much as finding a proper way

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of channeling our disagreement.

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And finally, you can vote

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how you would like your elected 
representative to vote.

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And if you do not feel comfortable

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voting on a certain issue,

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you can always delegate your vote

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to someone else, allowing

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for a dynamic and emerging social leadership.

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It suddenly became very easy for us

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to simply compare these results

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with how our representatives were

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voting in Congress.

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But, it also became very evident that

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technology was not going to do the trick.

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What we needed to do to was to find

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actors that were able to

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grab this distributed knowledge

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in society and use it to make better
and more fair decisions.

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So we reached out to traditional political parties

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and we offered them DemocracyOS.

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We said, "Look, here you have a platform
that you can use to build

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a two-way conversation with your constituencies."

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And yes, we failed.

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We failed big time.

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We were sent to play 
outside like little kids.

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Amongst other things, we were called naive.

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And I must be honest: I think, in hindsight, we were.

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Because the challenges that we face, they're not

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technological, they're cultural.

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Political parties were never willing

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to change the way they make their decisions.

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So it suddenly became a bit obvious

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that if we wanted to move forward
with this idea,

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we needed to do it ourselves.

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And so we took quite a leap of faith,

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and in August last year, we founded

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our own political party,

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El Partido de la Red,

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or the Net Party, in the city of 
Buenos Aires.

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And taking an even bigger leap of faith,

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we ran for elections in October last year

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with this idea:

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if we want a seat in Congress,

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our candidate, our representatives

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were always going to vote according to

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what citizens decided on DemocracyOS.

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Every single project that got introduced

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in Congress, we were going vote

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according to what citizens decided
on an online platform.

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It was our way of hacking the political system.

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We understood that if we wanted

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to become part of the conversation,

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to have a seat at the table,

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we needed to become valid stakeholders,

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and the only way of doing it is to play by the 
system rules.

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But we were hacking it in the sense that

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we were radically changing the way a political party

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makes its decisions.

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For the first time, we were making our decisions

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together with those who we were

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affecting directly by those decisions.

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It was a very, very bold move for a two-month-old party

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in the city of Buenos Aires.

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But it got attention.

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We got 22,000 votes, that's 1.2 percent of the votes,

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and we came in second for the local options.

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So, even if that wasn't enough to win a

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seat in Congress, it was enough

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for us to become part of the conversation,

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to the extent that next month,

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Congress, as an institution, is launching

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for the first time in Argentina's history,

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a DemocracyOS to discuss,

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with the citizens, three pieces of legislation:

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two on urban transportation and

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one on the use of public space.

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Of course, our elected representatives are not

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saying, "Yes, we're going to vote

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according to what citizens decide,"

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but they're willing to try.

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They're willing to open up a new space

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for citizen engagement and hopefully

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they'll be willing to listen as well.

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Our political system can be transformed,

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and not by subverting it, by destroying it,

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but by rewiring it with the tools that

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Internet affords us now.

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But a real challenge is to find, to design

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to create, to empower those connectors

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that are able to innovate, to transform

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noise and silence into signal

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and finally bring our democracies

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to the 21st century.

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I'm not saying it's easy.

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But in our experience, we actually stand a chance

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of making it work.

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And in my heart, it's most definitely

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worth trying.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)