Photo by: Guilherme Almeida
Instituto TIM took part at the 16th International Free Software Forum (FISL16), through the project Mapas Culturais. The event was hosted in the events center at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), in Porto Alegre-RS, from July 8th to 11th. It is considered the biggest meeting of free software communities in Latin America. Coordinators of the Mapas Culturais project were invited to join the panel on the topic of “How free software can assist democracy?”.
The panel also featured representatives of digital participation initiatives that employ free software, like Mapas Culturais (access the platform code here). Coordinator Lívia Ascava spoke about the project’s creation and presented its functionalities, using the example of the Mapas Culturais/SP Cultura platform and the Virada Cultural 2015 app, both developed in partnership with the São Paulo Municipal Department of Culture. They spoke of the importance of group collaboration in order to bring together as much information as possible and create opportunity for more strategic actions in public management.
The platform can be used autonomously. In this sense , Instituto TIM acts as a facilitator and maintains the software, building a governance project in line with the concepts of democracy and liberty. During the question session, Lívia mentioned a few strategies to increase user participation, which is still considered a challenge for the majority of initiatives. Besides the panel, Mapas Culturais coordinators all took part in conversations about digital culture, free software and social participation systems that took place during the event.
The panel was moderated by free software activist and researcher Fabricio Solagna and also included the participation of Ricardo Poppi, from the platform Participa.br (General Department of the Presidency of the Republic); Marco Konopacki, from the project Pensando o Direito (Ministry of Justice); Pedro Brandão, from the portal e-Democracia (Chamber of Deputies’ Hacker Laboratory); Rosane Maria Leite, from the service Login Cidadão (Data Processing Company of the State of Rio Grande do Sul – PROCERGS); and Henrique Parra, from the platform Cidade Democrática (Instituto Seva).
