AI-assisted methods of participation in major events

Conducting inclusive debates which take all groups into account is a challenge, especially online. Nevertheless, to make them possible at major participatory events, Dresden University of Applied Sciences and the companies Code Camp Leipzig, beta – Die Beteiligungsagentur GbR and Vivien Mast AI Solutions wish to develop an AI solution that will transparently illustrate the event dynamics for the event moderators and promote active participation for everyone.

Screenshot of a digital conference call, faces of different people talking on the phone. — The team of the project idea 'AI-assisted methods of participation in major events'

Why are you a strong team?

Together, our team has many years’ experience in developing software and artificial intelligence, in organising participatory processes and events and in designing and scientifically examining human–machine interaction. Furthermore, everyone involved has worked in multidisciplinary and innovative ways for a long time now. This gives us the best starting conditions to set up a successful project right where these different fields interface with each other.

Explain your idea in three sentences.

This AI solution is intended to help structure the discourse when hosting large, participatory events. In doing so, it aims to let attendees participate significantly more actively and let concrete results be defined in a more targeted way.

This should help large organisations (companies, associations or municipalities) involve stakeholders in decision-making processes with more precision and efficiency, making a key contribution to a democratic society.

What makes your idea special?

New participatory organisational techniques such as Open Spaces and Liberating Structures enable an extremely high degree of interaction and co-creation between many participants. On the other hand, digital tools are limited to individual aspects such as voting for predetermined options. Our tool is intended to make links between various contributions visible and navigable in real time, which gives optimal support for the dynamism and interactivity of ultra-modern event organisation techniques.

What are the next steps?

We are currently detailing our key use case, based on which we will be able to model, for example, a multilevel participatory process. We are also examining the technical feasibility based on a small case study and clarifying the parameters for organisation and data protection so that we can develop prototypes in iterations and test them regularly in practice at real events.