Finnur Magnusson - CTO of the Crowdsourced Icelandic Constitution

Learning about Learning with Jim

This is possibly the famous example of evolved democracy and citizen participation the world has ever seen. Following the country's dramatic financial crisis, some Icelandic citizens started what is perhaps the most ambitious attempt in neo-democracy the world has seen to date: to crowdsource a new constitution for the country by allowing anybody to join the process and sharing results with 100% transparency. The result was a constitution accepted by almost 70% of the nation and deemed by many to be ‘enlightened’. Unfortunately the result was also an odd and obvious example of political gaming as the constitution was halted. But with new elections coming up, it seems the world’s first crowdsourced constitution could well be about to be made official. I was lucky enough to interview the ‘CTO’ of this project and unpicked the process, trying to extract the principles and elements which could provide us with some tips and tricks for what the future of governance could look like. **Our