Tech Review Committee
To develop the 2023-24 ratings for digital participation platforms, we formed a review committee of six independent experts on digital participation technology from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, North America, and Western Europe. We chose diverse members with different genders and geographic locations to ensure they would bring different perspectives on what is most important and helpful for people in a range of contexts.
Katya Petrikevich, Participation Factory, Czech Republic. Katya is co-founder and international director of Participation Factory, a social enterprise that helps communities improve governance systems and quality of life through better participation and robust data. She has conducted research on current trends in tech and innovation for the EU Commission.
Stéphane Dubé, Institut du Nouveau Monde, Canada. Stéphane has been active in civic participation since 1992. Currently strategic advisor at Institut du Nouveau Monde, a non-partisan NGO based in Montréal, he advises public institutions and NGOs on the design and organization of public participation processes and the usage of technologies to support them.
Caroline Khene, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), United Kingdom. Caroline is Research Fellow and Digital and Technology Lead at the IDS. She is also principal researcher for and director of the MobiSAM civic tech project in Southern Africa, and founding member of the CSO coalition Imali Yethu (Our Money) in South Africa, which spearheaded the first open budget portal with the national treasury department, called VulekaMali. Caroline also currently serves as a member of the T20 Brazil (one of the G20 engagement groups) Taskforce 5 on Inclusive Digital Transformation, participating in subtrack 5.1. Digital Transformation and Platformization of Public Services.
Bess Lee, Taiwan. Bess is an advocate of open technology and has been active in civic tech since 2017 in both Taiwan and Japan. From 2017 to 2022, she worked as a staff member for the g0v Hackathon team (jothon) and coordinated community projects, such as the g0v CivicTech Prototype Grant, g0v Summit and information platforms for incidents (including “COVID-19 Info”). Meanwhile, she planned mechanisms to foster civic tech projects; in 2019, she initiated g0v School.
Matias Bianchi, Asuntos del Sur, Argentina. He is director of this think-do tank, focused on public innovations that foster more inclusive, equal and democratic societies in Latin America. Matias coordinates the consortiums ColaboraLat (dedicated to designing collaborative governance models for post-pandemic democracies) and CILA (Cities in Action, founded to develop civic infrastructure to achieve the UN’s millennium development goals. He is a political scientist by training, holding a master’s degree from the University of Oxford and received a Ph.D. from Sciences Po. Previously, he worked for the Woodrow Wilson Center and OECD Development Center, and led the Federal Institute of Government in Argentina. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona and researches democracy, governance, and technopolitics.
Tatiana de Feraudy, France. Tatiana is a researcher and consultant specializing in civic technology, open government, and digital democracy. She is currently pursuing her PhD in political science and sociology at Panthéon Sorbonne University, with a focus on citizen participation and digital democracy. Her prior experience includes researching sustainable cities and digital citizen engagement at the Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (Iddri), and she has also served as a researcher and coordinator for the Observatory of Civic Tech and Digital Democracy, Décider Ensemble. Tatiana holds Master's degrees in sociology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and in international affairs and sustainable development from Sciences Po. In addition to her research work, she is an instructor at Panthéon Sorbonne University.
