Aristotle & Alexander von Humboldt Institute

Technology has enabled us to connect regardless of physical boundaries. Nonetheless, fake news, hate speech, low voter turnout, climate change are some of the urgent global problems, we, the Citizens of the Global Digital Society face. For global problems, global solutions are needed. Our democracy cannot be summarized in a periodical yes/no answer. The challenges we face are complicated. We need to discuss them. It’s high time we organized ourselves on a global level.

The Aristotle & Alexander von Humboldt Institute is a collaborative, inclusive and democratic decision-making platform. In our system, everybody will have a say. Our Grand Advisory Council will consist of elected politicians and activists, academicians and scientists, artists and athletes, corporations and entrepreneurs and, of course, the Citizens of the Digital Society drawn by lot. Our solution is innovative in the sense that if implemented today it may revive Democracy on a global scale. 

Our Digital Society faces urgent global challenges: Misinformation and political polarization, data protection violations, mass surveillance and cyber warfare. Digital divide is still a factor in the political and social marginalization of rural areas. E-voting systems alone do not add value to the democratic process. Kies explains this with regard to EU public consultations: “you only get stakeholders… that are well organised so you are not able to tackle the ‘lay citizens’.

Citizens fleeing their homes to escape war and poverty usually leave their analog identity documents behind. Nation states are only reluctantly working towards digital identities. While the concept of citizenship functions as a bond of citizens on national level, it may lead to the further exclusion of others on a global level.

National regulation fails to address challenges that exceed national borders. Evident is also the lack of consensus-building incentives in the current political system. In the meanwhile, the present model of global digital governance is dysfunctional. Its main flaw lies in the voluntary basis of civil participation. As a result, a highly educated elite takes part in the deliberation process, while the rest of the population feels unrepresented and neglected. This system suffers a major democratic deficit.

We serve the Digital Society. Those who may be European, American, African, Asian, Australian, but also feel that they are Citizens of the World. Those who daily commute to their workplace while reading international news. Those who communicate with their loved ones via the Internet. Those who live in a country and travel to another to meet their family. Those who are forced to flee their country due to war in order to save their children, while leaving their identity documents behind. Those who build a future in another country for themselves and their children. We serve all those who deserve to have a say in the process of deciding the rules of our Global Digital Society.

We serve the Global Citizens who believe that global solutions are the only way to solve global problems. Our solution won’t address citizens’ needs. It will rather enable them to address their needs, concerns and dreams themselves. Our inclusive and democratic principle-making process will allow for meaningful participation in shaping the rules governing our Digital Society. Other models of deliberation give voice to the Citizens. Our system ensures that their voice is heard in a multistakeholder-process of power balance and democratic accountability.

Equal participation, inclusion and education are essential to effective democratic governance. We propose a democratic, inclusive and collaborative decision-making platform regarding issues of the Digital Society. Our service falls under the industry of “organizational democracy”. Our solution will focus on bringing at the table all stakeholders, but first and foremost, the Citizens of the Digital Society. 

They will form the Grand Advisory Council of the Institute. 

This will consist of 5 Senates: the Political, the Academic, the Senate for Arts, Culture & Sports, the Corporate and the Public Senate. The latter consists of a random sample out of the pool of our subscribers. The Board of 7 Trustees will guard the principle-making process. The Academic and Political Senates may appoint 2. The position of the Director of the Board of Trustees will rotate on a biannual basis among the Senates and must be confirmed thereof. All Senates will have the right to initiate a discussion. The Board of Trustees will set the agenda of discussion.

• In the first phase, all Senates will separately deliberate on the issue forming position papers. This will guarantee independence. The Board of Trustees finds common ground between the position papers and identifies the possibilities for further alignment in its Draft proposal.
• In the second phase, each Senate receives the draft proposal and all position papers and amends its own, in order to find common ground with the other Ones according to the principle of comity. Their new position papers form their resolutions. The Board of Trustees overviews the resolutions and derives common principles in its Proposal.
• In the third phase, all Senates meet together and discuss the proposal. They may pass amendments on it with simple majority. In the end, all Senates vote on the proposal. The proposal passes with simple majority.
• In a further step, contingent on the security of the e-voting system we will implement, we contemplate the final vote on the proposal by the subscribers of the Institute. They may confirm the proposal with simple majority. If they successfully block it, the 3rd phase is repeated while the threshold to block it requires a qualified majority.

This system combines elements of direct and representative democracy harmonized in collaborative model of governance while guaranteeing bottom-up legitimacy. What could be more awesome than a democratically-organized think tank? In essence, we will be creating policies on global digital issues that have democratic legitimacy and allow for accountability, as well. 

Our institute is innovative in that it is a think-tank, which creates policies in a democratic way from all those parts of society that have an interest to see those policies materializing. The achievements can be immense: not only do we ensure that a wide social consensus can be reached (as all concrete groups of stakeholders are represented), but also that political institutions and the members of a society will have an interest to legally adopt the proposals that they have put further themselves. 

Politicians are the citizens we trust to represent us. A widespread phenomenon today is the decline of the interest in politics. However, people still watch sports and movies. Artists and athletes exert a huge influence globally; we aim to directly involve them in the democratic process. We also include scientists and academicians. Moreover, tech companies exert immense power lacking democratic legitimacy, while their technology shapes the way we think and act. We also include them in an accountability-providing system. Why bother lobbying when having a seat at the table? This process will guarantee that they act responsibly. Finally, selecting citizens by lot to directly participate in the decision-making process was a major feature of the Classical Athens and was also implemented in the Italian cities of the Renaissance. 

Our consensus-driven deliberation mechanism incentivizes the participants to find common ground. It allows for technology companies to voluntarily subject to a model of democratic accountability, while conducting their business privately. This system includes the Global Digital Society.

Our model relies on technology for registration, voting, information and communication. Our subscribers may sign up on Lote with a unique username and password or use their Facebook identity. They are then allowed to vote on a question. Via Lote, they may access our website. In our website, we provide entertaining, educational and informative content. We want Lote to become an online deliberative platform, which may supplement our offline deliberative model. 

The implementation of an e-voting system must be contingent on the verifiable level of security. We are interested in the Random Sample Voting system as proposed by David Chaum. Blockchain-based solutions may provide for this. Procivis AG and the University of Zurich are currently developing an e-voting system we are interested at applying in our solution. 

We propose an inclusive model of meaningful democratic consultations. Habermas requires supra- and international mechanisms as complementary to nation states. Castells observes that non-governmental actors are increasingly replacing national states as ‘advocates of the needs, interests, and values of people’. Peters asks for ‘compensatory constitutionalization on the international plane’. Fishkin et al propose a deliberative model for polling for the IGF. 

Cleisthenes reformed the Athenian democracy in 508/507 BC including all tribes. Plato imagines an ideal society governed by academics (Republic, Book III, 415e-416e). Aristotle advocates a flexible system of political pragmatics to rule his polity (Politics, Book IV, 1293b).  This is echoed by Montesquieu in ‘The Spirit of Laws’, while Rousseau's ‘Social Contract’ considered applying sortition for offices where ‘good sense, justice and integrity’ are sufficient whereas he favoured elections for positions that required a certain degree of competence such as the military. Kant in ‘Perpetual Peace’ envisions a global constitution. The Olympic Games promote according to the APA peace and cooperation. Cultural events such as Eurovision form global cultural bonds. Castells sees a ‘global civil society’. 

Our system is doomed to work: Public consultations worked in Classical Athens, in the Italian cities of the Renaissance, during the EU Public Consultations in 2007 and 2009, in the Citizens’ Committee on constitutional reform in Iceland in 2010, in the Citizens’ Assembly in Ireland in 2013 and were also advocated by President Macron in 2017.

The following diagram explains the process through which we aim to bring about change.

As of the submission deadline, we have served via our website 1.092 citizens from all over the World, from countries such as Greece, Germany, USA, UK, France, Ireland, Sweden, Rumania, Italy, the Netherlands, India, Turkey, Poland, Malaysia, Switzerland, Brazil, Australia and Austria. Since we launched our website on the 26th of May, we have served our viewers 2.632 times.

Sofar, it seems that many wanted to join little Alexander in his expedition in the Mysteries and Truths of the Ancient World. 

You may want to join him, too!

Via Instagram, we have served 553 citizens. Via Facebook, we have served since the 16th of July 649 citizens. Our YouTube video reached 188 citizens.

Since we provide our services for free digitally, the number of the people we serve does not depend on economic estimates, but rather on the outreach that our Institute will achieve. For this, we cannot foresee the exact number, but we are very optimistic.

 Follow us closely! #setsailwithus

The implementation of our solution is dependent on the participation of all stakeholders and first and foremost of the Citizens of the Digital Society. Within the next year, we will build and expand our network. Our first task will be to search for partners in the Academia. In collaboration with our partners, we will set a Task Force that will consist of stakeholders representing each Senate. This Task Force will guard and continuously evaluate our system. We will appoint ambassadors on social media to promote our system throughout the Digital World. We will focus on building a grassroots movement in the universities, through organizations/clubs that fight for digital governance issues. 

Moreover, we will hold TEDx-like events to raise awareness about the importance of democratic Global Internet Governance. In the meanwhile, we will develop Lote to a solid and usable infrastructure to facilitate our platform. Throughout this process, we will secure funding. Contingent on the degree of participation, time frames will be accelerated. Our system may work in 2 or 5 years. We will do our best to hold our first experimental globally scaled principle-making process within 2020 in Athens, where democracy was born.

Within the next five years, we aspire to establish our system as an inclusive, collaborative and democratic model of Global Internet Governance. We will study the feasibility of Public Senates in country-scale. During the whole process, we will save money for our charity foundation named after Captain Kyriakos and found our Institute as an independent academic institution.

For the next year, it is quite possible that we will face market barriers due to lack of a strong marketing and platform development. If the publicity of the institute and its objectives are not promoted enough among potential subscribers, we might not be able to break-even that could at least allow us to operate and produce our deliberation cycles and principles. Market access and break-even is a big risk that we face. We certainly need to achieve those, before getting into making profit. Anyways, the majority of the profit will be given out to our academic institution and our non-profit foundation Captain Kyriakos to help refugees and other economic immigrants, and guarantee their access to all levels of education.

In the horizon of 1-5 years, we might face the operational/cultural barrier of not getting a mass participation of citizens from a big number of -at least- European and American countries. Only if people participate (in the senates) in mass, our system will be successful.

Another barrier we might face during this period is getting access to sufficient revenue pools of subscribers/members of Public Senate, small donations/grassroot activism, big Donations of organizations fighting for social and digital justice, as well as Lote app downloads.

Market access shall come from strong publicity. Many people think that if you are not on social media you do not exist; especially for such a Digital Institute like ours. Our first goal is to build our Network via social media. This will give us the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the senate groups and plan their activities. The word of mouth will give us also the opportunity to grow. We have already created a group of ambassadors that communicate the Institute’s mission and we are starting creating alliances with other institutes and organizations in order to create a bigger social impact.

The Operational/cultural barrier-risk of low mass participation is very pragmatic. The way to approach it is by networking with all senate groups.  In terms of our public senate members and subscribers, we aim to target the younger generation (18-25 years old) in order to get into the forum of creating principles/policies that will mostly affect their own lives. A viable solution strategy for this is promotion of our cause to university students through university organizations/clubs related to the digital/social problems. 

The financial barrier-risk of not getting access to a sufficient pool of revenue will depend on the market-access strategy after the second year. However, for the first year what we are aiming for is winning the MIT Solve. Those funds will help us make a strong start into our non-profit business.

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Konstantinos Tsakiliotis is specialized in Law & Technology at the Humboldt University of Berlin, is an alumnus of Harvard CopyrightX and was a judge at the Price Media Law Moot Court in Oxford. He worked in Bundestag and interned in Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP. At the HIIG gGmbH, he researched on Global Constitutionalism and the Internet. He is now the President and CEO of the Aristotle & Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and the just Society.

Theodore Vanis studies at the Northeastern University majoring in BSc Economics and Business Administration, with a minor degree in Media and Film Production. His recent position as Organization Solutions analyst in McKinsey & Co. and as a research assistant to John Hancock’s chief economist has prepared him to lead the business strategy and economic development of the Institute as COO.

Dorilenia Liagouropoulou has studied Public Administration at Panteion University and Law at Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne. She interned at the Presidency of the Hellenic Republic and the Hellenic Parliament. She currently works as a journalist and consults the Media and Public Communication Office of a Member of the Hellenic Parliament. She is also a member of a non-profit organization for women empowerment in leadership called Woman Act. She handles all public relations and communications of the Institute as CCO.

Our team is willing to try and willing to take risks. But most importantly we are willing to pursue our mission. 

Our team is competent, competitive and badly wants to win.

We are currently working with Betterplace.lab on a contractual basis. Betterplace.lab provides for a secure and reliable infrastructure as a donations platform. They have long experience in social innovation as a successful non-profit organization and we’ll take them as an example. They’re Berliners, too.

Our key beneficiaries are people who care about their global citizenship and its place in the world. Our value proposition is that we offer to individuals the opportunity to become part of an organization through which they can change the future. They can see themselves formulating the principles that will guide global information management, as well as prove that all citizens can work collaboratively to eradicate informational inequality. Moreover, their membership allows them to contribute into the creation of a global citizen identity.

Social impact we be created by producing reports that argue in favor of more accountability in digital global governance, as well as solutions through concrete proposals for more global regulation of digital activity (esp. big tech) and access to tech for more citizens.

Our customers are the subscribers/followers of the Institute, who will constitute the pool from which the members of the Public senate are drawn. Moreover, customers also include users of our Lote app, along with the other groups’ senate members who will also pay to participate. Our customers are also small (individuals) and big donors (companies) that believe in our cause.

The channels through which we will reach our customers are the Lote app, which is a Google application. Another virtual channel is our website that includes our story, plans and ideas. Finally, we believe in a physical channel to attract the younger generation. That is promotion of our cause through organizations/clubs of universities related to the digital/social problems.

Our business will be non-profit. For now, we are organized on a donation level basis facilitated via the platform betterplace.lab.

After we start operating, we aim to start putting subscription fees on those who want to participate in the principle-making process, including all of the Senate members. Those will constitute 40% of our total revenue pool.  More specifically, the Public Senate shall consist of the randomly chosen members of the subscribers of the Institute. The subscribers who participate in the sortition shall annually subscribe with 50 EUR, or 20 EUR (for those less than 18 years old).Our goal is to adapt the subscription fees to the Big Mac Index for each country and reduce them gradually to zero.

Small donations from individuals that believe in our cause will be strongly encouraged as an equivalent of a ticket to enter TEDx-like events and the grassroots movement events. Those will constitute 10% of our total revenues. Big donations of organizations will be 40% of our total revenue.

Finally, we intend to gain a significant access to the public through our Lote app. It will be free to download, but each e-member will have to pay 2 EUR to participate in the final voting process of each cycle, and thus will be able to contribute into formulating principles. We plan to use Lote as the 10% revenue pool.

MITSolve will be the first station of our Expedition. MIT has a long tradition regarding the Internet and its Governance. We would be very honored and proud to be part of this legacy. MITSolve will provide us with a platform to present and promote our Institute, globally. We will take advantage of its network in academia, science, industry, government and of course of its students coming from all parts of the world. While Solve will enable access to funding opportunities, it will safeguard our expansion process and guarantee for independence. The more inclusive with regard to sponsors, partners and other stakeholders our platform is, the more independent we will be. 

This is very important to us.

First, we are looking for partners in Academia. We would like to cooperate with leading academic institutions, such as MIT, Harvard University, the University of Oxford and Stanford University. We are interested in partnerships with the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and OxTEC in Oxford, the Center for Deliberative Democracy and Department of Communication at Stanford, the MIT Gov/Lab and the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard. With our partners, we will study our model of governance and continuously evaluate and monitor the process.

We would like to establish a network with the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition, W3C, Libra Association and the Humanized Internet to exchange regarding internet governance. Regarding our e-voting system, we would like to closely cooperate with Procivis that provide for tested and reliable blockchain-based solutions. Our platform aspires to build on the user base of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. We will need them on board.

We would further like to cooperate with the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Disney, Netflix and ABBA. Yes, ABBA. These cooperation partners reach a global audience. Our model of governance aspires to directly involve artists in the democratic process. We cannot do it without them. Our model also aspires to involve athletes. We would like to explore cooperation opportunities with the IOC, FIBA and the Ethics Committee of FIFA.

Eric Schmidt wishes somebody came with a better proposal regarding our current polarized political system. We accept this challenge, submit our proposal and apply for the AI Innovations Prize. 

We currently use AI to translate our pages. Our model will rely on AI to bring people together with the people they trust according to their stated interests. This will allow for strong political participation and association. The degree thereof will determine the success of our project. We aspire to provide an inclusive and deliberative platform for the Digital Society. Our business model is as such innovative. The application of AI by talented engineers will make it a technological break-through. 

However, the independent formation of political will is of paramount importance to the democratic process. For this, we will make sure that AI functions auxiliary to the extent that Citizens are able to decide in tranquility of mind and conscience. For this, AI application must go hand in hand with Ethics. We will invest 70% of the prize in AI Engineering and 30% in AI Ethics.

The following is exclusively written by our CCO. We're very proud of her and lucky to have her.

As an Institute our main goal is the empowerment of each person no matter their religion, ethnicity, age, gender or sex. Nowadays more than ever we face the lack of equality and equal treatment, especially when it comes to issues concerning women. Sexual harassment at workplace, gender pay-gap, not enough women in leadership and too many roles for only 24h are some problems that women are facing in their daily routine.

• Our impact will be to effectively exert pressure on the global community via creating democratic principles based on gender equality. 
• We have already created important alliances with national organizations who share the same vision with us- women’s empowerment and encouragement to participate and become active members in the public sphere. 
• We have as a roadmap the UN goal of “Planet 50-50 by 2030” and we are optimistic that we can participate to accomplish this goal.
• Our ideas, plans and projects will enable more and more women to overcome their insecurities, their second thoughts for showing up in the public sphere. 

We will invest the prize in mentoring events, face-to-face workshops and part of it in non-discriminatory AI. 

In our Institute we don’t want women just to have a voice, but to celebrate it. We want our Institute to become the platform where women can take charge and lead the Global or their local Societies to prosperity.

Citizenship must function as a strong bond on a national level, but not as a basis for discrimination on a global level. Our model is based on the idea that if you are affected by global problems and you think of global solutions, then you're a Global Citizen. Refugees and immigrants are Global Citizens. 

Holding the first session of our Grand Advisory Council in Athens does not only serve symbolism, but rather pragmatism. In Greece, there are many refugee camps of internationally criticized conditions. We want to draw the attention of the international community to them. Our Institute will visit the refugee camps with stakeholders of the Global Digital Society. In our model, participation will not be prohibited on grounds of nationality. We will provide for a platform which gives refugees voice and make sure that their voice is heard.

Another pressing problem refugees now face that we asprire to solve is the lack of identity. While leaving their countries, they usually leave their official documents behind: destroyed or lost. Lote provides for registration via your own credentials or your Facebook account. If our model is successful enough, we may take the first steps towards a digital identity.

We will invest the prize in renewing our collaboration with the Humanized Internet, Procivis and to start one with the VETRI Foundation to exchange on the problems and the technology we will have to apply to effectively tackle them. Our team also maintains contacts to the Hellenic Deputy Ministry for Migration Affairs.

We don't know of anything more disruptive than a technologically enabled model of deliberation for the Global Digital Society that if globally scaled will make the Global Digital Society more inclusive, just and democratic.

Of course, we cannot disrupt anything alone. For this, we will invest the full amount of the prize to organize our grassroots movement in the universities. We will utilize the prize for communication, marketing and PR strategy.

In the USA, gun violence has reached unprecedented levels. Instead of solely offering condolescences to the victims, we have to effectively act to ensure that these incidents decrease. We want to bring all parties to the table. 

We don't think that there's anything bad about discussing. Human lives are lost, after all. We are sure that the sessions of our Grand Advisory Council will produce pragmatic results. The American tradition of bearing arms is legitimate. We are committed to hold the sessions in absolute respect of the wording and purpose of the 2nd Amendment.

We will invest the prize in creating partnerships with organizations from different spectrums and backgrounds. Our platform will provide for an independent system for meaningful deliberation on the matter.