Automatic transcription, there may be errors.

Alessandro: Welcome to another episode of Democracy Innovator Podcast, and our guest today is Evelien Nieuwenburg. So thank you for your time.

Evelien: Yes, thank you so much for inviting me. Really happy to be here.

Alessandro: You're working on Dembrane, right? You are also co-founder of Dembrane. So first question: what is Dembrane?

Evelien: Dembrane is a civic tech company that builds tools to capture in-person dialogue sessions. So from brainstorm sessions, focus groups, to whole citizen assemblies - basically whenever you are using post-it notes and flip charts, you could use Dembrane to make sure you don't end up with just the "what," but also the "why" and the whole conversation and all arguments that are at the table. That's what we do in a nutshell.

Alessandro: So basically it's called to have a lot of people together, maybe talk together, brainstorm together about a topic, right?

Evelien: Exactly, yeah. So it's really about encouraging people to talk to one another because I think democracy really needs people to come together and speak face to face. The disaster is it's super hard to scale and data analysis is a pain. I come from a qualitative research background - not exactly, but I love qualitative research. I've done it a lot. And the moment you want to reach a high end, telling you, and really make an impact that will persuade policymakers and strategy builders, you need to have more than just your twenty-five interviews and more than just your stack of post-it notes to convince them to really do something with what people are sharing.

Alessandro: And when did you have the idea, or maybe one of your co-founders, about this tool?

Evelien: So it's definitely a collision of worlds. My co-founder, Jorim Tims, was studying social media for a long time in his master's degree in information design, and really looking at the infrastructure and architecture of what was happening behind the scenes on social media and what type of interactions it enforced. And looking at the effects it has on society, he asked himself the question: what if we were to design a social media platform with democratic principles at the front? And how would it change the architecture to really allow something that is much more aligned with what we consider, in Europe at least, as democratic?

So he came up initially with a first version which was very focused still on the digital space - more of a digital platform - but also was almost a philosophical architectural design concept, which for most people was a little hard to understand. Now, Jorim and I have known each other for more than ten years, so I knew where his passion came from. I knew the research he had been doing. And from my own expertise in innovation science - by degree I focused on innovation strategy and policy - and inevitably I ended up in stakeholder engagement in innovation strategies.

And I saw his problem as well in the community organizing that I was doing next to my degree: that it's just so incredibly hard to really capture the essence and nuances of all arguments that people bring to the table that you need to really make a good plan. And his architecture actually was the perfect solution for that. He just didn't know that it would work in this context. So I angled my thesis kind of as a market research angle, looking at the digital participation tools, and that way we found also how we could actually use his designs in a practical way. So that was the beginning of Dembrane.

Alessandro: And when did you first have the thought that technology will help society?

Evelien: I think for myself, I was maybe thirteen when I first really got into contact with nanotechnology - hearing about it, reading about it. And that was a moment where I was like, "Whoa, this is possible, that is mind-blowing." And that means it's almost like magic - I need to understand it and I need to see what happens. And even though I am by nature a people person, technology fascinated me. So I wanted to do an engineering degree. I have two engineering degrees now, but even in my engineering degrees, I'm always looking for the edge where technology meets society and how it comes together, because I think that's where the magic happens. That is where it comes alive.

And so I know also for my co-founder that he had a similar moment. His parents have done a lot of community work, helping people one by one, but a very linear effort in that sense. And for him, technology was always something to scale beyond what a person can do and really reach bigger impact. And that to him was something that definitely drove him also into the direction of technology. We met in our bachelor's degrees - that's how we've known each other for so long - but we went different ways for our masters but found our way back together afterwards.

Alessandro: And how many people are working inside Dembrane right now?

Evelien: Yes, we're including co-founders, a team of seven now.

Alessandro: And how is the team organized?

Evelien: So when we started off, Jorim was really in charge of the technical product and building the prototypes. And I can only code if it's an emergency - I'd really rather not. It's not something that gives me joy. And so I'm in charge of making sure that we actually can sell - like positioning, strategy, getting to know what's happening in the space around us, but also building up the team together.

And so now we have a product-focused team and a growth-focused team, and then we have two people which are their own little small team for operations, because the company also needs some people to do the less very fun stuff - but the super crucial business things. And especially working with AI compliance is one of these examples that takes somebody to really be structured and focused for a long time.

Alessandro: And what was the path of the project? Because I see that the project was first called Echo, right? And then it became Dembrane. So how...?

Evelien: Actually, Echo is our product, and the company is still Dembrane. And Echo is like our first product, part of the bigger strategy that we're working on with Dembrane, which is really about building the infrastructure for democracy and rebuilding trust. But we're also the kind of team that wants to start doing things tomorrow to make a difference, to make an impact, learn. So we figured, okay, what is the first thing that we need to build? And that is what Echo is.

Alessandro: Okay, so there are other ideas that you want to implement that you want to build in the future? Maybe you can mention some.

Evelien: So I think right now with Echo, the idea is that in the sessions that we mentioned - citizen panels, assemblies, strategy sessions - the idea of Echo is that it echoes back to you directly. So you very quickly can see your insights, you can see what the most important points are, what we agreed on, where there's attention. And by giving back to people, they can verify that. So you don't have to wait weeks until you finally get a report and outcome - you can actually already do that in your session.

And so by starting there, we're working on a bigger vision where it's also the verification and sharing of ideas or concepts - something that you can actually do beyond just the physical setting and going into the space of more hybrid structures to really enable also continuous forms of democratic dialogue and exchange. Because I think that's a really crucial part.

Alessandro: Yeah, that is something I was also very curious about - the continuity. Because maybe you can organize a sort of meeting where people discuss about a certain topic, but then two weeks after, maybe other people who want to discuss about the same topic, but lack the context from the previous meeting.

Evelien: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the first prototypes of Echo was built on the idea of Polis - I think that's quite a familiar tool in this space - and we called it "multiplayer Polis." So the idea was that you needed to discuss a statement together and figure out as a group what did we think about it. But also, if you as a group had another idea or wanted to contribute something, you could also put your statement in that became part of the mix.

A similar dynamic I think you can create through Echo, where the outcomes per table or for the entire session can be shared and then be reacted on by new people. And this is also kind of the dynamic between having a mini public and a maxi public - like how do you make sure that there's also accessibility to a larger public? Because assemblies are very often a very specific group. Even if randomly selected according to the gold standard - that's amazing, of course - but even then it's still the question: how is the broader support for certain ideas? Finding that interplay is also really crucial, and that's also something we're exploring right now, for example with Go Vocal by doing a partnership together.

Alessandro: So in this way, how will this partnership work?

Evelien: Go Vocal is an online participatory platform where you can do a lot of engagement already. But also what they heard from their stakeholders was that what they also really would like is especially these very dynamic and very energetic moments of citizen participation - citizen panels, conversations - to have that captured as well. Right now their software doesn't allow for that, so you're still reliant on people taking notes and then plugging that in. So the idea is that with Dembrane, by getting those insights really quickly and having that fed into sessions, they can have participants go onto their platform and then be used in the process as they use it.

Alessandro: But this is very interesting because something that I felt is that because I mean we are physically talking about solutions that will enable people to collaborate, and sometimes there is not so much collaboration in the civic space. But I'm living that compared to other fields, here when you find someone that is doing the same thing, you shall see that person is not a competitor but a potential collaborator.

Evelien: I very much agree with this. I think the mission that we have to improve democracy is something that is shared in this space a lot. To think that that is a market where you have a winner-takes-all situation just seems really contradictory with what we are representing and the values that we're driving. So finding people that agree with that, that are also seeing the importance of interoperability of tools, being able to specialize in a certain area, really refine it, but then also find a way to integrate with other solutions so that once you approach a municipality or national government, they have a choice - a choice that they don't have this problem of the big tech lock-ins, you know, something that a lot of the public actors are really scared of.

Also, while historically speaking, something that happened a lot. And I personally also think that as a European company in a European space, we want to offer European solutions. But we can't build everything. A lot of the companies also have been working on something. So now suddenly branching into, like, transcription AI combination and the whole interface that comes there - it's not something our company has built to do either. And finding each other there, I think that's really special. And this is why we also joined the group ATESE, which is the Association for Civic Tech Europe. And the whole theme this year, for example, is also interoperability - finding ways to collaborate, to work together, and to really strengthen European democracy and protect it.

Alessandro: And if I'm not wrong, you are also part of the... you are president? No, sort of?

Evelien: Yes, yeah, I am since this year also the vice president, indeed.

Alessandro: And would you like to tell us something more about this? How is this interoperability? How is the approach to interoperability for software companies?

Evelien: So I gave a talk about this at TICTeC two weeks ago as well. Interoperability initially is something that we know from a very technical standpoint of view. But what you see is also interoperability on an organizational level is something that's coming up a lot more. A really concrete example where this applies is healthcare, which is also looking at the different levels that you have for organizational interoperability, which is really interesting. It's also to see how we can coordinate ourselves as a field.

So the first level is basically figuring out: are we using the same words? I think for me as well, initially when Dembrane started, we didn't know what to call ourselves. We were just another AI startup. We were like, "No, we're not an AI startup. We're a civic tech company. Like, democratic technologies." And then we thought we were kind of alone, or like, "Well, we can't be the only one, surely." And then we found at some point the term "civic tech," and then we found a whole ecosystem. So it's like these types of words can really already help unite us, but it really starts by almost syntax, so to speak.

And then the levels that come after that are increasingly integrated, where the final level is really about having a fully integrated product where the user has one fluid experience as well, going through different platforms where the backend also communicates with one another. And this is definitely, for example, the aspirational goal that we have with Go Vocal. We're still building towards that level yet, but it also kind of gives us a sense of like, "Hey, where are we actually when we're discussing interoperability?"

But it begins with using the same language. The second one is finding similar values that we are representing and how we're acting on that. And I think this is also a really interesting one. For example, when we look at the Netherlands, what's happening here: there's a big digitization strategy happening, and a lot of the municipalities are trying to figure it out on their own. Some are asking for a national one. But then, who is going to be involved in this process, for example? But again, it comes to also here of figuring out how to make, on the country level, different elements interoperable. And I think it's a very current theme.

Alessandro: And also, besides practical things, are you working on different ontologies related to interoperability? I mean, because the first thing is the language - like, what do we care about? What is needed?

Evelien: And yet, and I was curious - so now Echo is doing everything in real time, right? So this means that it's also expensive to run an assembly, let's say, on Echo?

Alessandro: Or is it still relatively okay? The costs aren't too crazy, and you're still comparing it to bringing in people that need to do handwritten notes, which will also be incomplete. So it depends a little bit on what you're compared to. But even that - like, transcription isn't the most expensive thing by far. The analysis is still a lot more expensive.

Evelien: This is interesting. And then I'm quite curious to know about the technical aspects, but maybe nothing besides... nothing too complex. And yeah, have some other questions as well. Because you provided something about your academic and professional background, but maybe you would like to say something about your life? I don't know, also from your childhood?

Alessandro: Okay. I think as a kid, but also still today, I have been somebody who is almost notoriously positive. I am very energized. I am solution-oriented - I always want to find a way to do something and to stay active. And that is very defining, I think, for me as a person. So you will find me in a lot of places. You will find out that more people know my name than I expect to know my name, because I'm just going around talking to people. And I was exactly the same when I was younger - lot of energy, always played sports. I'm absolutely a team person.

Also, this is also where building a company for me is a completely strange thing. I didn't know I was going to do this. I had no idea until it was happening. And then the way I approach it is like the way I approached learning to play with a team in sports back in the day. So everybody brings a special quality, but you also need to figure out how to harness it and how to make them grow and what is it that challenges them.

So I think this is another very repeating pattern in my life, also when I was in university. This was something that I did that I didn't even understand that I was doing, but I was really trying to figure out everybody's position and how to make people play together in the best possible way - to give them space to do their own thing and at the same time be aligned enough that it comes together relatively seamlessly. And I think this is something that I'm only understanding now - that I was actually good at that, and it was something I provided to the team that's not a given to be present in every team.

I am also - maybe it's because I'm the oldest, I have two younger siblings as well - there's a sense of responsibility. But my sister and I are really close together, so we did everything together as well when we were younger. So sharing and caring and collaboration as well in my childhood.

Yeah, and also something next to my university degree: while I was studying, I got a lot of knowledge there, but I didn't necessarily get the social engagement and wanting to be part of the city culture that was happening there as well. So I did a lot of volunteering on the side and also setting up what is now one of the largest queer communities in my city, which was really meant to be a low-barrier meeting place that wasn't about parties, but that was really about connecting people, making sure you had a place to talk, to explore. We were really focused on younger queer people that didn't necessarily want to go to really loud parties and these pretty bars that are not a great place to meet people. So it was much more about board game nights, having a craft afternoon - these types of activities. But it was always linking back to what I was also learning from innovation studies - from how landscape shifts affect the practices that are happening in technology, but also in practice in society.

Alessandro: And I was thinking about what you're saying - that the more people you meet, the more people know you. This is also something that I felt. And also I was trying to foster collaboration, but sometimes I failed. Yeah, because I remember in high school, I have done the same when I was a bit older. And my goal was actually to, okay, let's try to go out from the evening high school and let's try to have a sort of thing where we can work together. But I discovered that it's not always easy to collaborate.

And also about the queer community - I mean, that space is in some way sort of... the space has been colonized by men, as other kinds of spaces. So what are your thoughts about that?

Evelien: I mean, the majority of people around me are still men, still today, which can be challenging in terms of culture. Sometimes I do really miss female energy. And that is not to say that men don't have nurturing qualities, but it's not necessarily something that our space is created for, I think. And I think that's a bit of a shame, and especially seeing what has happened in tech. I think the element of care is so important, and this is something that is accessible to anyone, but the culture really needs to adopt it. And that is definitely something I see with women who are in the space - they have an extraordinary amount of care that they bring into their development, to their strategies, to their products. And that is really inspiring.

And I think sometimes this is for me personally the hardest part - finding role models that you recognize yourself in that give you a way of like, "Okay, this is a path I can follow while being myself, while staying true to my qualities and values." That can be really challenging. And this was something I felt quite lost in the first year especially - there's so much coming at you and not really having a role model and somebody you can connect with on that more softer level, I want to say. That was challenging, and that's something I hope that this space can have more of, also for the men and all the other genders - to feel like there's space for that. Because I think that's also key to building a sustainable culture in your own company. You need an element of care to one another as well, and to the company, and to who you're serving.

Alessandro: Yeah, absolutely. And also thinking about the fact that this kind of tools - I mean, in the future could enable different ways for citizens to... I mean, for people to decide, to talk about the problems, input, and also put aside the soil in some way. I mean, it's things that regard everyone. And so it would be nice to have inputs from all different genders, and also different kinds of classes.

Evelien: Yeah, definitely, definitely. And to feel like it's an accessible space that you can also belong to. And we still have a lot of women in tech initiatives, which are really great, and I'm really grateful for them. And of course, there's also the sentiment of like, "Do we still need them?" My honest answer is yes, because we want to find each other. It's not easy to find each other. But not just because we want women to be together - we just want to have that space to share. Ultimately, these meetings also help to bring that energy back and to feel grounded in who you are as a person and to be that person again in your own team as well. And I think that's also a big part of that. So I'm also definitely here for allies and the people that want to contribute and feel that too - like, let's do that together, right?

Alessandro: It would be nice also maybe to organize some sort of assembly run on Dembrane or this kind of tool to maybe brainstorm about why some genders are not participating in this space, and what could be possible solutions.

Evelien: I mean, I'm always up for a deliberative project that is about future dreaming. I think this is a super important exercise because if you can understand why or what our future could look like, it's really hard to go there.

Alessandro: Yeah. And for you, how could the future hopefully be better?

Evelien: I think by nature I am somebody who keeps the future open but determines clearly what I don't want. That is what guides me most. So I know what I don't want - that is what I'm not doing. But then what do I want? I only understand a part of the space, so I don't think I know the perfect solution. But it is something that emerges by staying true to your values and not doing things you don't believe in. I think that way the path will unfold.

Alessandro: Both to be... because what you're saying is interesting. And the thing I can watch I couple of things: I'm very optimistic in the long term but pessimistic in the short term. And so when I was wondering what is the meaning of life - so there are too many options - then I started with excluding things. So in some ways...

Evelien: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I do feel you, because looking at the current geopolitical state of things, it's extremely worrying and it's really scary to see it. And it's hard to grasp that this is still happening today. I study history now, so looking at the past, how we've seen these things before, and here we are again. It's heartbreaking, I think, and shows that there's ample space to do something that's better.

Alessandro: Yeah, absolutely. And yet there's also like this is the moment to then also be bold in what we believe in. So I am seeing a future that definitely has this deliberative democratic nature. And how exactly we're going to get there, how exactly it will look, I don't know. But also from the innovation science perspective, we can go back to what we have done before. We've seen that it didn't work, so we need to innovate a path forward. And I think it's naive to think that somehow we are currently in a position that will sustain itself far into the future. So political innovation is required. And this is a tipping point also. If we're not doing this now, we are creating the future already. And every decision that we make that we put out there will affect what we will be doing in two to three years. And if we make decisions right now that are not in favor of this transparent, trust-building, deliberative democracy, it's also naive to expect that it's suddenly going to be there and be possible in three years. The work starts today. I really believe that.

Alessandro: Yeah, I feel like people maybe don't feel that they really have power to change things. And maybe allowing them to collaborate and to discuss... and also this is a thing - like the result of polarization. So most of the times I just speak with people that think like me, and we speak with people that do things like we do. So we don't speak together, we do not empathize, we start hating each other. And so that's why tools like this could really help.

Evelien: Yeah, but definitely, definitely. I think this is also why conversation is so crucial. When you're talking face to face to another person, there is a moment when... also what you see in the projects that we're doing: you are still trying to figure out what your future is together, and highly probably you're both going to be in it. Like, there are extreme situations, but let's focus on the day to day.

For democracy, I am personally part of trying to figure out how to live together in a future that includes us both. And in that conversation, you find out that there are shared values that you absolutely hold. It's not that we want such radically different things. We both want our kids to be safe, to have good education, to get opportunities. And this is something that can bridge differences. But this is also why the conversation is so important, because as long as you're behind a screen as an individual making individual contributions, saying like, "I think this" or "I want this" or "I see this," the way of interacting with one another is just giving back and forth statements. It doesn't allow for empathy, for depth, for really creating understanding. So why is this important? Where did it come from? And we need that, because otherwise we cannot empathize, we cannot understand, and we can never find something that we can actually both align with.

Alessandro: And with the experiments that you have done with Dembrane - like, with Echo - which kind of dialogue sessions, which kind of assembly dialogue? Do you have some use cases about that?

Evelien: So the one I am personally most excited about is the one that we did earlier this year in Northern Ireland. We went to Derry-Londonderry, where also for the first time they brought both the Protestants and Catholics into the same citizen panel to discuss about their shared future. And of course, there are cultural nuances that I might not have picked up as somebody also being on the outside, but this is exactly what you saw. And also the organization that did this - Co-operation Ireland - helped people prepare by doing a training on how to express emotions, how to deal when you get triggered, which was, I think, really important as well, because it's not a given that everybody knows how to handle these emotions.

And also in the session, what was really beautiful to see is that introducing the technology, most people were kind of like, "Okay, interesting" - nobody was against it. And because there was also this element of like, "At least the tech writes it down. Nobody's filtering it." So it's a lot more difficult to put and take out what you want to hear, because like, "A Protestant or a Catholic - will they filter my views?" If they write it down, that was much more contentious than just having AI, which was already interesting.

But also seeing that because we would get some feedback so quickly and showed them, "Okay, these are the ideas that you came up with, these are the values that you share. Is this correct? Are you missing anything?" It made people realize that also their stories are really shaping the outcomes really directly - they're influencing the direction of the summaries. And it also makes those moments of vulnerable sharing a lot easier because you know word for word you're being heard, and it's actually having an impact on the outcome. And so people were more willing to share knowing that it was being heard - first by AI, but then also, of course, by the rest of the people around the table. And it created a very open and vulnerable space for people to share, which was, I think, partially the training, also partially actually using AI in a way that allowed them to see what they were co-creating and how important it is to have a voice in that. And the more you share, the more you can help build something.

So that was really powerful to witness. I was running the data analysis and, like, alongside with tears in my eyes - just so much emotion, especially with everything that's happening in the world right now, to see this, to know that that's possible for people to find each other. And then, you know, after three days, for them to feel like, "We have some really solid recommendations that we as a group support." Suddenly it's "we" - like, that's really powerful.

Alessandro: The kind of experiments like this one - I mean, this one is the most interesting one because it had this political tension. I think a lot of the other ones are here in the Netherlands, which are, for example, around mobility. And you also see that it's just really important for people to see really quickly like, "We've been talking about this together" - to have that transparency. Also, in that sense, allow it to not be perfect because nobody is to blame and nobody is necessarily manipulating it. So you get also your first version, and that's kind of how we also ultimately pitch it: don't expect the outcomes to be the perfect outcomes. See them as a good first draft that is up to the people to edit to make sure that you get that perfect outcome that is actually verified by the group and isn't something that just... that is really powerful in the citizen assemblies.

But also by having so much data so that the projects in Antwerp and then both in Venice - there was a whole trajectory, and we've supported throughout. And because you're iteratively learning from this data and bringing it together and having it influence the next session, the next topics, you always see this building up. And people actually get the sense of like, "Hey, this is going somewhere. I recognize these things are insights that are really formulated in our words."

Because basically what Dembrane is also doing is helping you structure unstructured data sets that are very energized or dynamic but really hard to grasp. And AI is actually really good at just showing like, "Here are some of the ideas that are there," also without losing the small ideas that are appearing on the edge, keeping the nuances. And then it comes also to... but it's also the quality of the people doing the analysis with the tool. And what I really love about that is that it also brings back this realization of the importance of asking the right questions.

I think in the age of AI, you can get an answer to anything. Whatever you come up with, even if it's three words that aren't really a question, somehow you get an answer. But to get a good answer and to get an answer that is nuanced and that makes you aware of what gaps are there and what are the minority voices that are represented, which ones are not represented - AI can help you determine that as well. And that just takes being aware and learning how to ask these questions, which is also something we do alongside developing software - also training people to use the software in the way that we actually believe makes the most impact.

Alessandro: It was something I'm very excited about is AI identifying problems. Because sometimes people think that they are stressed because of their colleagues at work, but in reality, maybe it's because of what they're working on, and maybe it's very alienating, very frustrating. Or also other things - collectivization of problems. So like, I don't know, maybe I fight with my brother one day, and I think that it's because my brother is stupid, whatever. If I discovered that all the other people are fighting with their own brothers or sisters, then that problem is not an individual problem anymore - it's a social problem and has to be addressed as such a problem.

Evelien: I think that it can really provide perspective, you know? Like, what is the right answer? It's something different, and that's really depending on what's actually happening. And AI doesn't know everything, so it always needs to be verified by the people that are in the community. And then it comes back to how can you ask these questions like, "Hey, maybe this is a new angle. Can I ask for... have you considered asking this question to this particular group?" You know, ask all these brothers and sisters like, "What is happening? How come you're in a fight with your younger siblings all the time?" Maybe there's a pattern that is happening. Maybe it has to do with the current work culture. It could be so many different things. But staying curious, staying critical - these are also skills that as people working with AI, we need to be even more sharp on.

Alessandro: Absolutely. Yeah, what I was curious about is patterns that can emerge as you are analyzing different process sessions on topics. Maybe at a certain time you see that... I mean, I think that's part of empathy - like seeing that the other person is like us. I mean, there are some commonalities. I mean, we suffer, we enjoy, and all this kind of things.

Evelien: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And ultimately, we all want our kids to live good lives. I think that's also a really big one - realizing what are we leaving for them behind, and what did we do to help in that? And this is something that can be answered in many different ways, of course, but in that room, I think once you allow people to also do that... yeah, it suddenly puts things into perspective again.

And sometimes when things are really hard and things are really rough, it gets really difficult to dream. You feel misunderstood, and everything from the day to day clouds your vision until the point that some people might really lose hope, lose the ability to dream. And that's also why these moments can be really important - to actually help people to get space to do that again. On the one hand, they also shared why they couldn't - they shared the struggles and hardship and the pain that they have experienced. But from there, you can build. And that is also the cycle, I think, that you need to go through. There needs to be a place where you can air pain and experience, but in a way that you can build with it, in a way that it connects to something that has hope.

Alessandro: I was wondering, are you in contact with Feminist Cyberjunk Collective?

Evelien: No, actually, I'm not. Now, why did you bring that up? That could be interesting.

Alessandro: Yeah, I think people would be quite interested, yeah. Discussing about this... because these tools like Dembrane or other kinds of tools - I mean, that for this to talk about problems, about life, to think about how to change society, and how to find new ways to take decisions, maybe in less violent ways.

Evelien: That'd be nice. That'll be really... yeah, great. But yes, and like, jokes aside, I do think it's about realizing that you can build together and that there are things, if you share, that can really get traction. And finding a connection like, "Hey, okay, we actually both care about this." And especially on a small scale, on the community level, it can really help self-organization as well - like understanding what are the things we care about as a group? Oh, these things that we make an agenda after that we're going to apply for subsidies or whatever it is that you do afterwards. But it can really help people come together and make them take responsibility for the things that they know their community cares about and build together towards that future that they agree on.

Alessandro: Yeah, coming together for me, this is something... I think about these things when two or more people come together to do something, and I think it's a sort of intersection of space and time. Because people can sometimes be in the same space but they're not in the same time. Like, if I ask you, "Do you want to open a restaurant?" You say no because I'm working on Dembrane. But it could be that, I don't know, in ten years you want to open a restaurant. You meet someone that wanted to open a restaurant, and in that case you're in the same space and in the same time. And this could be also that you want to open a restaurant and there is someone else in another town that wants to open a restaurant, but you'll never meet. So same time but different space. And then when the space and time are connected, that creates a center of power so people can actually act, and that certain magic happens, right?

Evelien: Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. These are really special moments. I agree. I think when I was younger, I would also feel this - and it wasn't even about doing things yet, but it was, for example, going to the theater. Suddenly you're in a space with one hundred people, and they come from all kinds of places, they live all kinds of lives, and they go back to it after the show is over. But in that moment, you're watching it together. And when I was younger, I found this like a very overwhelming but very emotional experience to be like, "I am experiencing this together with hundreds of other people, and we're all in this moment together, and I don't even know them, but this is our experience." And I was maybe like eight. But there is energy that happens when people come together to share something, to do something, whether it's watching a play or to dream of futures for our society. They're slightly different, obviously, in intensity maybe, even. It already starts with the small things. And just coming together and just sharing something can do so much for people, because in the end, we also need each other.

Alessandro: And what kind of use cases would you like to do with this? For like, I mean, which kind of assembly or topics you think would be important to discuss?

Evelien: That's a tough question. I think that the topics that... this might be a very politically correct answer, but as a community, if you want to have difficult discussions, to actually have the discussion rather than trying to figure it out behind closed doors, these are the most interesting. The hard-to-have talks are so important, and to have that together, to also actually work through it together. These are really special.

And whether that is on AI policies - like something that's happening right now, I think in Europe we really need to figure out how we're going to do this. We're talking about EU sovereignty, we want to be more independent and not just reliant on the big tech giants across the ocean. Okay, great that we want this - we're talking about it a bunch. But what are the aligned actions that come from it? And this is also something where Dembrane can really help figure out: where are we aligned? Where are we not aligned? What are concrete actions we can take?

Because also, the political space is at least behind doors very much shaped by talking, talking, talking, talking, talking with lots of people. And some questions are urgent. So the urgent topics that need action tomorrow that can't wait another two months - we need to do that. Any topic right now that has "crisis" in it that is not actually a crisis because we saw it coming - so right now it's just a problem, but we don't call it the housing problem, we call it the housing crisis. Even though crises are something that happens to you - like COVID happened, that was a crisis. Housing is... it's not a crisis, it's a consequence of the decisions we've been making. So we need now to take different actions. Okay, let's talk about it. This is really where I feel very passionate about - okay, what are the things we actually need to take action on where we can't afford to talk another half year, whole year, two years? Let's make sure to reduce things as well and get aligned on that.

Alessandro: Absolutely. Also talking about that, I think would be very interesting maybe is to talk about how people in the civic tech space could collaborate. Because I saw that sometimes there are awesome projects, but people are struggling because maybe there is just one founder or maybe two founders, and they cannot do everything by themselves. So maybe a project dies, but it's really a pity because the innovation was great - like a tool that can help other people. And absolutely, the problem is there are not enough fundings often.

Evelien: No, definitely, it's a struggle. I mean, I think for a lot of civic tech companies right now, also because of what is happening geopolitically, it's just really hard. We see budgets being cut everywhere, and this is hard for the small players like we are, as well as for the people that have been in this space for ten, fifteen years.

And so I think this is also an element of interoperability where, if at least within Europe - that maybe in the civic space worldwide - if our mission is to actually do this, can we let go of the pure market domination aspect and figure out a way for us as a group to actually stand the test of time, help each other out, and build that future? Because the mission comes first. And that means not going bankrupt, but there's a lot of space between not going bankrupt and being a market leader. We should be able to get creative in that, I think. And maybe also, a little bit speaking as vice president of ATESE, this is a conversation I would love to have for this domain.

Alessandro: Absolutely. Also because... I actually forgot what I wanted to say, but it was important and related to these things.

Evelien: Oh, you always do a deep dive in the podcast.

Alessandro: Yeah, but that if you have another method for the people in the civic tech space that are exploring...

Evelien: I think: practice what you preach. Live the mission, don't just sell it. And that also means help each other where we're community as well. Find one another and really make this happen as a team. And I really hope that that is something that we can bring to the front and to be bold in that and to be courageous with that as well, because I understand this is not a traditional practice of going about building your business.

And yet, we've also seen how the economic dynamics have worked in the past. I don't think the best one ends up on top - the one with the most money does. And in this field, there are so many good solutions. So let's find a way to work together and help each other out on all the levels of the interoperability spectrum.

Alessandro: Yeah, I totally agree. And you made me think about what I forgot before. I have the impression that nowadays, also, thanks to the way AI software is not as important as it was before. I mean, now coding is easier, you can also buy components and so on. And the most important thing is not just interoperability between software, but as you said, also interoperability between people. So I think that the ideas and collaboration is what will make the difference right now.

Evelien: I think so too, I think so too. And we need people that have the expertise, that have studied it, that have lifted that. Because this is also like with AI - sure, anybody coding becomes easier. But what I know from our lead, our tech lead, he works with AI when he codes, definitely. But the way it works is that he has the knowledge, he has the expertise, so he knows what will and won't work, and he knows how to ask the right questions. And this brings me back to: keep asking the right questions, stay critical, stay curious, and people, let's do this together.

Alessandro: So I think we're about to wrap up. Thanks so much for all these thoughts.

Evelien: Yeah, a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me and letting me do my energized outreach thing and share the story - and just not just about Dembrane, but I think for the whole civic tech space. So thank you again.