Baratunde learns more about experiments in digital democracy. He speaks with Pia Mancini, cofounder of Open Collective, a platform empowering collectives and mutual aid groups with new transparent, decentralized financial tools that make local grassroots efforts more feasible than ever. It is a powerful example of how the use of technology can change the power dynamics and help people citizen together where they live and across the globe.

Guest: Pia Mancini

Bio: Democracy activist, open source sustainer, co-founder & CEO at Open Collective and Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation.

Online: Open Collective website; Pia’s website; on Twitter @piamancini and @opencollect

Show Notes + Links

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We are grateful to Pia for joining us! Follow her @piamancini on Twitter, or find more of her work at Opencollective.org.

ACTIONS

PERSONALLY REFLECT

Cultivate Optimism

Take a moment to reflect on when you feel most positive, most optimistic in your week? What are you doing, who are you around, what media/info sources are you consuming? Work on adding more of these elements to your weekly routines. The world needs more clear-eyed optimists for us to reach our collective potential. It’s hard to citizen when you’re only cynical.

BECOME INFORMED

Who in your life needs Open Collective

Take a moment to wrap your mind around this NEW community infrastructure that is truly revolutionizing the way local initiatives and groups work together around the world. We bet you know of a local project or informal group that could benefit from it! Take the time to learn more https://opencollective.com/. Also check out Pia’s TED talk, How To Upgrade Democracy for the Internet Era, for more about her beliefs and journey.

PUBLICLY PARTICIPATE

Join in with other locals

Support open-source and move away from private mega-malls like Facebook by adopting the Signal app, an open source, end-to-end encrypted, not-for-profit messaging platform. And if you use open source to build the product that is making you money, give back to open source, because open source is not free. It was paid for by someone else's time. So make sure you give back to the developers.

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