Building inclusive and participatory democratic spaces in Europe
There are silenced voices in democratic spaces as millions of people face language barriers and are excluded from key deliberative processes. In the European Union (EU) alone, around 6 million individuals, and globally over 90 million, have difficulties to read, write, and comprehend language, which restricts their full participation in democracy. In this context, the EU-funded iDEM project aims to break these linguistic barriers and begin a new era of inclusive and participatory democratic spaces with the help of artificial intelligence. Specifically, the project will create next-generation multilingual models, automatically adapting texts to the needs of each person and provide artificial intelligence tools for unbiased communication.
Promoting inclusivity and representation
iDEM Project started in January 2024 and will run for 3 years. It has a dual purpose:
- Design accessible tools to facilitate the reading and understanding of public documents.
- Promote the inclusion of people who experience exclusion from democratic processes or spaces, due to language barriers related to the language complexity, and support them in sharing their own opinions and messages.
iDEM project will provide...
Analysis of language complexity barriers in participatory democratic spaces, to identify users' needs and the reasons behind their difficulties in understanding information on public matters.
Artificial Intelligence tools that simplify and make information more understandable to participate in democratic debates. These tools are aimed at people with language comprehension difficulties or intellectual disabilities.
Develop and implement four use cases in different languages, with a deliberative approach and gender perspective, engaging groups who experience exclusion from democratic processes or spaces, due to language barriers related to the complexity of policy language.
Solutions to enhance participation
The tools will be developed in four languages: Catalan, Spanish, Italian and English.
Free and open source.
Comprehensive, accessible and user-centered approach.
Want to know more?
We would love to hear from you! Whether you have a question about our use cases or the team of European experts behind iDEM, we’re ready!
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