Defining Problems with the Public

All too often, governments set out to solve problems without fully understanding how citizens experience them. At the same time, they collect vast amounts of information through consultations, workshops and social media. As one leading politician put it, ‘We are rich in data but poor in insights.’

This workshop with Claudius Lieven from the City of Hamburg and the Digital Participation System (DIPAS) shows how digital participation platforms can be used to collect massive amounts of citizen feedback and transform it into a clear picture of the problems through artificial intelligence, helping communities solve problems.

By clustering, summarising and mapping thousands of citizen comments, the DIPAS_analytics software developed by the City of Hamburg over the past three years enables governments to identify patterns in citizen contributions, distinguish concrete suggestions from moods and emotions, and base policy-making on the actual concerns of residents. The DIPAS software and method, which has already been implemented in nine German cities, shows how AI can turn citizen participation into a tool for defining problems more precisely – and thus developing better solutions.