Speakers Speakers (Decidim Fest 2025)

Amandine is COO and co-founder of Element (https://element.io), an open source, secure and sovereign communication platform built on Matrix (https://matrix.org), the open standard for secure and open communications. Element brings sovereign communications to heterogeneous organisations who can’t rely on commercial cloud offerings, let alone non end-to-end encrypted ones. 

Matrix, which Amandine also co-founded, is a unique initiative aiming to democratise secure online communication and solve the problem of fragmentation in current Chat, VoIP, VR and IoT technologies. Matrix aims to create an ecosystem that makes open real-time-communication as universal and interoperable as email, and brings the power back to the user on choosing who they trust with their data and how they want to communicate. Element delivers Matrix solutions to millions of users, including NATO, the UN, the German Armed Forces, the US Navy and private companies like Mozilla. 

Amandine is also a founding member of the European Open Source Academy and the lead of the Business and Impact unit within the Academy.

Graduate in Business Management and Administration from the University of Barcelona, with a Master's Degree in Public Management from ESADE, and an Executive Programme in Digital Transformation from La Salle – Ramon Llull University.

He has been Managing Director of Consorci Localret since October 2019. Previously, he was Mayor of Alella between 2003 and June 2019. During that period, among other responsibilities, he was president of the Maresme University School attached to Pompeu Fabra University, and later, first president of the Council for University Studies and Research, and later vice-president of the Tecnocampus Foundation, which manages a university study centre and a technology park, and vice-president of the Localret Consortium.

Andy is an experienced technology professional, Open Source advocate, hardware tinkerer, and social bridge-builder, based in the UK. Andy has an extensive background at IBM, VMware, and Twitter, as well as freelance with multiple Open Source projects and communities.

Andy has spoken on community, education, and technology topics on stages and at events around the globe (as well as virtually) - with a passion to explain and unpack new technologies, and to inspire others to try new things.

Follow Andy in the Fediverse on Mastodon @andypiper@macaw.social

Arnau Monterde is Director of Democratic Innovation at the Barcelona City Council. He is responsible for the decidim.barcelona platform and co-founder of the Decidim platform. He has also promoted the Canòdrom - Center for Digital and Democratic Innovation in Barcelona, a public centre for innovation and research at the intersection between technology and democracy. He was coordinator of the Tecnopoliítica project at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3-UOC). He is part of various programmes and projects on digital rights, free software, technological sovereignty and democratic innovation in the digital age. He holds a PhD in the Information and Knowledge Society from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

Artur has worked with institutions such as the European Space Agency (ESA), CERN, and various local governments, supporting them in implementing digital solutions that improve transparency, collaboration, and access to public services. He brings together technological insight with a deep understanding of the operational needs of public institutions and social organizations.

At Eversis, he focuses on developing projects based on Decidim showcasing its potential, engaging with partners, and helping tailor the platform to local needs. For Artur, Decidim is more than a participatory budgeting tool - it’s a foundation for rethinking how institutions connect with citizens.

In collaboration with the City of Warsaw, he has co-created a solution that enables municipalities, NGOs, and volunteers to work together more effectively - from registering organizations to managing offers and coordinating community projects.

Product Manager at LabLivre, the FLOSS Innovation Lab at the University of Brasília, working in partnership with the Presidency of Brazil on Brasil Participativo, the national social participation platform based on Decidim. Bachelor's and pursuing a Master’s in Software Engineering at the University of Brasília, with professional experience as a Software Engineer at companies such as Nubank and Collabora, and actively contributes to open-source projects. 

Carol Romero is a technologist with over 20 years of experience in digital innovation, open government, and citizen participation. Cofounder of Decidim, she is currently the project’s Product Director.

Diego Arredondo Ortiz is a specialist in data visualization, civic technology and interactive media, with over 12 years of experience in civil organizations, academia, and interdisciplinary research. He was as research tech lead at Signa_Lab at ITESO in Guadalajara, Mexico, and an associate professor at the same university, teaching courses related to data journalism, data visualization and digital methods from a sociocultural perspective. He was a founding member of the national Wikipolítica México network and co-head of the Political Pedagogy Organ of the political party Futuro Jalisco. Currently, through doia.studio, he works as a consultant on the critical and creative use of data and artificial intelligence, and is pursuing a Master's in Digital Culture and Emerging Media at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

Dr. Olga Slobodova is a post-doctoral researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) specializing in metropolitan citizen participation. Her PhD research at the University of Toulouse examined how digital platforms, open data, and participatory budgets transform citizens' agency in metropolitan governance. Her current work within the NEO project (PEPR-VDBI) focuses on developing a mobile HybridLab that aims to facilitate citizen participation by anchoring democratic dialogue directly in inhabitants' lived space using participatory action-research methods.

Transdisciplinary scholar, writer and educator, currently Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Founding Director of the Ida B. Wells JUST Data Lab, and author of four books, Imagination: A Manifesto (2024), Viral Justice (2022), Race After Technology (2019), and People’s Science (2013), and editor of Captivating Technology (2019).

She writes, teaches, and speaks widely about the relationship between innovation and inequity, knowledge and power, race and citizenship, health and justice.

Emma Ghariani is the Director of the Open Source and Digital Commons division at the French Interministerial Delegation for Digital Affairs (DINUM). She is focused on developing and supporting meaningful public-commons cooperations in France and Europe. Emma is passionate about social and digital innovations, and she holds degrees from Sciences Po and the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations.

Ferran Reyes is a communications expert with a background in cooperativism, the solidarity-based economy, and crowdfunding. He is a co-founder of Vocdoni, where he has served as head of communications and now works as a product manager. The project leverages decentralized technologies and advanced cryptography to deliver digital voting that is more secure, verifiable, anonymous, and affordable—bringing it to the masses and surpassing traditional centralized models. 

Francesca is an innovation economist and digital policy expert working at the intersection of technology, geopolitics, economics, and society. She is an Honorary Professor at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at UCL in London and a member of the High-Level Roundtable for the New European Bauhaus, established by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. She's currently a Senior Fellow at Stiftung Mercator in Berlin, where she leads the EuroStack report on Europe’s Digital Sovereignty (www.euro-stack.info).

Previously, Francesca served as President of the Italian National Innovation Fund and was a board member of RAI, Italy’s public broadcasting company. She has advised the United Nations on digital cities and digital rights and was the Chief Technology and Digital Innovation Officer for the City of Barcelona. Throughout her career, she has led major European research and innovation projects focused on digital sovereignty, digital democracy, and decentralized platforms.

Giulia Bertone and Michele Silva are experts in participation and digital citizenship. They have worked for over 15 years in the fields of public participation, participatory democracy, and open government designing innovative initiatives to engage citizens in both digital and traditional contexts.

They are partners at Pares (www.pares.it), where they design, manage, and facilitate participatory processes that integrate digital platforms and traditional methodologies. They have extensive experience in configuring and managing online environments for public participation, with a particular focus on the Decidim platform. They have led the design and management of several Decidim platforms for municipalities and regional institutions. Since 2023, they have also supported the Emilia-Romagna Region in managing its participatory platform PartecipAzioni and training local authorities in its use. At the national level, they collaborate with Formez PA on the Opengov project, supporting participatory processes on ParteciPa, the Italian government’s official platform for public consultation, and providing training on Decidim and digital tools for open government.

Founder of the Decidim Association and Pokecode. With over 20 years of programming experience, he has spent the last 7 years as a technical lead and senior developer at Decidim (2017-2022 at Platoniq and since 2022 at Pokecode). He is currently Pokecode's CTO, responsible for programming and server management for Decidim services. He is one of the most significant contributors to the Decidim core, as well as the creator of the first installation guide (https://platoniq.github.io/decidim-install). He manages over 15 Decidim installations and is currently the core developer handling some of the most critical refactors. 

Project Manager of Decidim in Japan, leading its adoption in Kakogawa City and other municipalities.
Born in 1978, he graduated from the Faculty of Law, University of Tokyo. Kenjiro specializes in public administration management and data science.

Lars Kaiser is an urbanist from Zürich, Switzerland and part of the association Urban Equipe. His work focuses on strengthening the voices in civil society and advancing participatory formats in political and urban processes. His projects aim on combining the strengths of the physical and digital sphere, while maintaining a critical view on all hypes and megatrends.

Political scientist and Master in Strategic Foresight from the Monterrey Institute of Technology.

Her professional career has focused on public policy, citizen participation, urban planning, and community projects.

She currently works as a consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), where she collaborates on safe school mobility projects in Latin America. She has also worked as a consultant for the implementation of participatory budgeting in the municipality of Saltillo, using the Decidim platform.

During the municipal administration of Monterrey (2021–2024), she was Director of Citizen Participation in the Secretariat of Innovation and Open Government, where she designed and implemented the Participatory Budget for the first time, managing to execute more than 90 citizen projects with an investment of over 200 million pesos.

Leonardo Michalski Miranda is a DevOps Technical Lead at the University of Brasília's Lab Livre, where he focuses on empowering engineering teams with scalable, automated infrastructure to solve complex challenges. His path to infrastructure began with a deep dive into AI and robotics. In that field, he led the software team for a competitive aerial robotics team, delivered projects for government clients through university labs, and contributed to consulting work for companies ranging from startups to the world's largest tech firms.

Luiza Jardim is a PhD Candidate in Public Administration and Government at Fundação Getulio Vargas, in São Paulo (Brazil), where she is studying digital participation, inclusion and representativeness. She holds a masters in Political Science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, where she studied digital participation in moments of catastrophes, focusing on local governments during the pandemic. Luiza is also a Program Coordinator at People Powered, a global hub for participatory democracy.

Macklin is a researcher and advocate of digital rights, civic spaces, and responsible tech. Based in Vienna, he has had roles in NGOs and international organizations, where he has contributed to and produced research on topics including connective action, political empowerment, and social innovations. His work aims to advance discourse on digital politics and protect civic institutions through innovative policy design. He's driven by a belief in a healthier digital ecosystem better suited to address the civic and political challenges of our time.

I graduated in Sociology from the University of Barcelona (2000) and obtained a PhD in Public Policy from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (2010).

I specialise in the analysis of local policies, particularly in the field of urban planning and participation, and in the study of urban governance. See publications: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/marc_marti-costa

I currently teach on the Master's Degree in Urban Planning and Cities at the UOC and the Master's Degree in Metropolis at the IERMB. I have been a lecturer at Flacso Ecuador on the Master's Degree in Urban Studies.

In 2017, I began working as a researcher in the Social Cohesion Area at the IERMB, and since 2018 I have been responsible for the Governance and Public Innovation Area at the same institute.

Marc Serra Solé, Deputy Chairman of the Climate Action and Energy Transition Division of the Diputació de Barcelona. Jurist and sociologist. He worked during the 2015-2019 mandate as advisor of the third tenure of mayor in the Area of Citizenship Rights, Participation and Transparency from where, among other things, was one of the promoters of the new Office for Non-Discrimination and one of those responsible for active registration policies and the Neighbourhood Document to prevent the expulsion and detention of immigrants in an irregular situation. In addition, he has been coordinator of the strategy of the popular accusation in the case for the police charges of 1 October in which the City Council of Barcelona is personified. Previously he was part of the platform "Tanquem els CIE" and collaborated with several entities of defense of the human rights of the city. He co-directed the documentary "Tarajal: desmuntant la impunitat a la frontera sud".

Marta G. Franco is part of Laintersección, a collective that collaborates with organisations and social movements to design digital strategies and research and nurture new narratives. She has published the book “Las redes son nuestras. Una historia popular de internet y un mapa para volver a habitarla” (Consonni, 2024). She has been an internet user since 1999. She has been involved in Indymedia, hackmeetings and hacklabs, and the 15M movement. She coordinated the networks and technology section of the newspaper Diagonal and was a mediator at the Medialab-Prado digital culture centre. She has also worked in political communication and was responsible for the Madrid City Council's social media strategy for four years. She continues to strive to make the internet a habitable place and is therefore part of Algorights, a community of people interested in artificial intelligence from a human rights perspective, and the ‘Vámonos juntas’ campaign, which promotes collective migration to Mastodon and the fediverse.

Matt Stempeck curates the Civic Tech Field Guide, the world's biggest collection of democracy tech projects. He's also Faculty at the London College of Political Technology at Newspeak House, and a Corporate Overlord at Bad Idea Factory. Matt was most recently the Technologist in Residence at Cornell Tech, where he helped launch the Siegel PiTech Impact Fellowship, which embeds highly technical PhD students to contribute their skills within public interest organizations. In 2016, he led the Digital Mobilization team at Hillary for America. Matt also served as Director of Civic Technology at Microsoft in New York City.

Matt earned his Master's of Science at the MIT Media Lab’s Center for Civic Media, where he created an award-winning app to fight digital misinformation, one of the first. Matt also holds a Bachelor of Arts with high honors from the University of Maryland College Park, where he wrote his undergraduate thesis on the disruption participatory media brought to political journalism.

Originally from Boston in the US, Matt's now based in Lisbon, Portugal.

Political scientist specializing in public policy, democratic participation, and technological sovereignty. He is currently the Director of the Technical Office at the Decidim Association and a member of Decidim's Product Team.

Núria is a Bachelor of Fine Arts reconverted to a computer technician. Passionate about GNU/Linux and everything that carries open licenses, where you can always learn more and more. For years she has been collaborating in projects that think about how to incorporate technology to improve our society. She is a member of Colectic, a non-profit cooperative that promotes technological projects that include social responsibility values. She works for open, free, feminist, and recyclable technology.

Pamela Krosta-Hartl has been committed to strengthening Germany's digital sovereignty for more than a decade and is co-author of several publications that have been produced since 2015 as part of the Digital Sovereignty Focus Group at the BMWi and the Digital Sovereignty Think Tank. In 2021, after more than 20 years in the private sector, she moved to the federal administration and helped build up the Federal Government's DigitalService as part of the leadership team. Since April 2024, she has been head of Corporate Strategy & Communications at ZenDiS. 

Pauline Bessoles is an active member of the Decidim Association, where she contributes to the democratic governance of the project and the sustainability of the platform as a digital common. With a background in deploying Decidim in public institutions, she brings both hands-on experience and a strong commitment to participatory democracy.

She currently works at XWiki SAS, a long-standing free software company, editor of XWiki and Cryptpad, where she continues to support open and collaborative digital infrastructures.

Founder of the Decidim Association and Pokecode. He has worked as a consultant in participatory processes on the Decidim platform at Coditramuntana, Platoniq, and Pokecode, with 7 years of experience across more than 40 projects. Since 2022, he has been responsible for functional consulting, configuration, and the design of participatory spaces, as well as project coordination at Pokecode. He is one of the most active community participants, with 56 accepted proposals out of 84 submitted and participation in more than 23 official meetings: meta.decidim.org/profiles/paarals/badges.

A political scientist by profession and vocation, he defines himself as an ethnic and social activist. He obtained a degree in Political Science and Administration from the UAB, and subsequently completed several postgraduate courses: one in Mediation Applied to the Social Context at the University of Girona Foundation and another in NGO Management at ESADE. This training, combined with his dedication and hard work, led to his appointment as Commissioner for Citizen Participation and his current membership of the Council of Europe's Marc Convention for the Protection of Ethnic and National Minorities.

With extensive experience in project management and administration in NGOs and private foundations, he has also combined this work with teaching at the Public University of Navarra.

Currently focused on public policy, citizen participation and community projects, Pedro Aguilera brings all his knowledge to the service of Barcelona City Council with the absolute determination to promote real social transformation in the city's neighbourhoods. This transformation is being achieved by making technological tools available to Barcelona's ethnic diversity through the Decidimos platform, with a firm commitment to effective, fair and participatory inclusion for everyone.

Petter is a co-founder of Digidem Lab, a development lab and consultancy for citizen participation that has provided  training and digital platforms for the EU Commission, New York City, Chicago and various Swedish cities.

Digidem Lab introduced Decidim in Sweden in 2019 and has since then implemented the platform for a range of cities, districts and public housing companies.

Renata Avila Pinto is an international lawyer specialising in technology, data governance, intellectual property, digital trade, and privacy. As CEO of the Open Knowledge Foundation, she advocates for open data policies and technologies that promote equitable access to knowledge, accountability and digital sovereignty. She advises governments and international organisations on digital policies and digital infrastructure strategies. A former Stanford HAI fellow and an affiliate of the Centre for Internet and Society at CNRS, her research focuses on commons-based governance models for digital public infrastructure and AI. She has led legal and advocacy initiatives defending freedom of expression, privacy, and access to information, as well as the defence of whistleblowers, including Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum. Avila serves as an expert member of the UN working group on data governance at all levels and is a board member of Open Future and the Whistleblower Network in Germany. 

Robin Berjon is a technologist specialising in the governance of digital tech. He is deputy director of the IPFS Foundation. Previously he was VP of Data Governance at The New York Times, where he worked on privacy and safeguarding media independence, and Vice-Chair of the board of the World Wide Web Consortium. His work focuses on building durable democratic governance of technology so that our digital sphere starts operating in the public interest at the planetary scale.

Research Engineer at the SOM Research Lab at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. His work focuses on empirical and statistical analysis of digital ecosystems, with a particular interest in the intersection between civic technologies and open-source software development. He has contributed to projects involving bots for OSS communities, ethical classifiers, and participation pattern analysis. In this work, he presents a comparative study between social coding platforms and citizen participation platforms, using the Decidim ecosystem as a case study. 

As Technology Strategist on the Digital Equity Team of New York City’s Civic Engagement Commission (CEC), Sonia is tasked with creating the CEC’s online participatory spaces and other digital tools for civic engagement. She works hard to ensure the equitability of the CEC’s digital programs re: accessibility, algorithm and process fairness, and an understanding of the equity effects of emerging technologies. Sonia manages participate.nyc.gov, New York City’s implementation of Decidim. Prior to working at the CEC, Sonia was a web engineer and volunteered as a technologist for voter protection and ballot rescue programs in the United States, where trust in civic processes is very low and disenfranchisement of minority groups has historically been built into our electoral systems.