Elections won’t save our democracy. But ‘crowdlaw’ could.

Originally published on October 2, 2018 via The Washington Post. To read the full article, visit https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/10/02/participatory-democracy/?utm_term=.dad7a97ee4cf.

A man pushes his motorcycle through a flooded street in Jakarta, Indonesia. January 17, 2013. (Tatan Syuflana/AP)

In October 2017, as Hurricane Irma battered the U.S. East Coast, M.I.T.’s Urban Risk Lab worked with Florida’s Broward County to pilot a free, open-source platform that enabled flood-affected residents to use popular social media channels to add information to a publicly-available map. Known as RiskMap, the data allowed officials to assess damage, reroute traffic and implement disaster-control measures. RiskMap has also been successfully deployed in Jakarta, Indonesia, where up to 1,000 residents contributed information during a severe flood event, enabling 250,000 people to view the public map to navigate the city.

To read the rest of the article, visit https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/10/02/participatory-democracy/?utm_term=.dad7a97ee4cf.