It is possible to update concepts, create languages, calls to action and environments that more people can fill, that can facilitate more exchanges, incentivize political participation and consciousness. The internet explores and reveals what is behind institutional politics and transforms everyone in receptors and generators of content, stimulating a deepening and creating bridges among institutions and civil society.

Going beyond facilitating communication and democratic participation, the internet becomes a human right, as important as water and land. And because of this, it should be monitored and regulated to ensure its neutrality and free access for everyone.

– An idea that can be reduced to a site, application or platform

– A substitute for face to face encounters

Technology plays a fundamental role in political innovation. It connects people, gives access to information, generates transparency and systematizes information. But it is not the main motivation for innovation. The internet is the means, an instrument.

Like any tool, its use depends on the intention of who uses and develops it. It can be an asset or a problem for political innovation. If access is not democratized, the internet increases inequality and exclusion.

Privacy is also a risk. Without the correct protection of data, the internet can facilitate political persecution by the State or another agent. Nevertheless, if used strategically, it can magnify citizen participation.

The internet is necessary to cross geographic borders and for us to have contact with other projects that inspire us to do ours. Just as we were inspired by other women, we can inspire others [through the internet].
Karen, México

We can mobilize thousands of people demanding that women no longer be assassinated, and we could not do that without the internet, social networks. We are also a part of international movements that cannot exist without technology.
Mirta, Paraguai

(…) I believe that the internet has the capacity to create a collective consciousness.
Silvia, Uruguai

However, within more of a ‘hacker’ than an activist spirit, yes, we should see the internet as a space for autonomy, where we can create our own discussions in networks and construct them.
Juan, México

AGESIC | Uruguai

An institution connected to the Office of the President of the Republic of Uruguay responsible for developing strategies for Digital Government, Society of Information and of Knowledge. Its objective is to digitalize all of the country’s processes by 2020. Since 2011, 100% of the children aged up to 10 have computers connected to the internet through a system integrated into the device itself.

Beyond this, they have the Internet Program that makes 1GB available to all of the homes in the country, for free. Any citizen can activate this basic plan without cost. They teach the elderly to use tablets to access public services and can call for emergency medical care using the device. In 2016, 100,000 tablets were distributed. It is important to remind readers that Uruguay has only 2 million inhabitants and that all of the basic service companies (water, electricity, phone/communication, infrastructure) are public.

The production of independent content creates conditions for the initiatives to have visibility, constructing possible narratives that open the way for political innovations to be established, become known and gain recognition.

The reach of the free media foments collaborations and movements, breaking through the monopoly of the traditional media.

The information, denouncement and diffusion of different points of view also contributes for the evolution and maturation of democracy and its inclusive character.

– Platform to promote uninformative, manipulative or polarizing narratives or fake news

We believe in the discourse that journalism is done to improve what is wrong, we opt for leaving the traditional media because you cannot do journalism freely. And we believe that rigor is important since we work a lot with violence and corruption, we take care not to publish sensationalist news that was not factchecked.
Daniel, Mexico 

To make visible some of the things going on in society that are made invisible by the traditional vehicles.
Laércio, Recife 

The role of alternative media: to identify the voices that not being heard and, in this way, be able to position other perspectives.
Federico, Paraguai

Diverse initiatives use creativity in pilot projects, where the most important goal is to test a hypothesis, fail and correct a specific idea. This places value on the process, on doing, on experimentation, on the imaginative repertory as elements that drive political innovation.

Using methodologies and references to accelerate the process of understanding the content and prototyping the ideas. Expanding the horizons of possibilities to break with old paradigms for formatting, content and methods.

– Improvisation without methodology

– Creativity without purpose, without inclusion and without pre-established metrics

The most important learning: we fell into illegalities because innovation is not written down, so all the time you have to experiment with how this can happen.
Clorinda, Mexico 

Protest is also a poem, a song, colors, representations. We started to be more engaging, more didactic and the people identify with the content much more. In the end, change comes from the feelings of each person, evolving consciousness so that there will be a social revolution.
Carlos, Guatemala