Tag: Puerta del Sol

Once, he faced down major music industry giants over the file-sharing software he created. Now, as Madrid's head of open government, Mr Soto has launched a platform where citizens dictate policies to city hall and choose what to spend taxes on. "I don't think of myself as a politician," the councillor says. "We challenged a whole system of representation in which a few people have 100% power of decision for years, without having to explain or allow citizens to participate." From street protest to digital democracy Mr Soto turned to technology to open up the decision-making process. The politicians cannot block it," Mr Soto says. In Madrid's process, citizens can vote online or in person to decide how to allocate €100 million in spending - a significant part of the council's total investments every year. But Mr Soto believes people can be trusted with political decisions. "The idea is as old as democracy itself," he says. Mr Soto does not plan to stop at Madrid, and notes that his platform could now be used to connect people across the globe in joint decision-making.