Octree – Decidim WhatsApp Bridge
A grant-based initiative, supporting development of an open source WhatsApp bridge for Decidim, the world's most widely used participatory democracy platform.
Decidim is used by more than a hundred cities and governments to let people vote on budgets, join citizens' assemblies, and help write policy. In Brazil alone it has over 2 Million citizens participating. But Decidim was designed ten years ago for desktop computers. Most people, especially young people, live on their phones.
Octree, a Swiss tech co-op, has built a bridge that lets people join a Decidim-powered programme, submit and share proposals, and vote entirely inside WhatsApp, even if they don’t have access to an email address or desktop browser. WhatsApp has over 3.3 billion users globally and is used by people with wide ranges of digital literacy. The Octree bridge runs on Matrix, an open-source messaging network, so it doesn't depend on Meta's goodwill to keep working: The Octree team has already extended these chatbot features to Telegram and Signal, as well.
During the Tanzania pilot, people took more actions over WhatsApp than they had on the website version. Inspired by an Octree demo, Brasil Participativo — Brazil's national participation platform and the largest Decidim deployment in the world — built its own version, aiming to expand its existing base of 2 million registered users.
The Evens Foundation funded the development of two features: broadcast updates, which notify people of key moments in a decision-making process and keep people engaged over time, and voting, which lets people vote on proposals from inside WhatsApp. Because the code is open source, any of the more than a hundred Decidim programmes worldwide can adopt it.
The Foundation is now working with Octree to roll out this offering to their existing clients – cities all across Europe – and other key democratic institutions.
Explore more: voca.city/whatsapp-chatbot
A grant-based initiative, supporting development of an open source WhatsApp bridge for Decidim, the world's most widely used participatory democracy platform.
Decidim is used by more than a hundred cities and governments to let people vote on budgets, join citizens' assemblies, and help write policy. In Brazil alone it has over 2 Million citizens participating. But Decidim was designed ten years ago for desktop computers. Most people, especially young people, live on their phones.
Octree, a Swiss tech co-op, has built a bridge that lets people join a Decidim-powered programme, submit and share proposals, and vote entirely inside WhatsApp, even if they don’t have access to an email address or desktop browser. WhatsApp has over 3.3 billion users globally and is used by people with wide ranges of digital literacy. The Octree bridge runs on Matrix, an open-source messaging network, so it doesn't depend on Meta's goodwill to keep working: The Octree team has already extended these chatbot features to Telegram and Signal, as well.
During the Tanzania pilot, people took more actions over WhatsApp than they had on the website version. Inspired by an Octree demo, Brasil Participativo — Brazil's national participation platform and the largest Decidim deployment in the world — built its own version, aiming to expand its existing base of 2 million registered users.
The Evens Foundation funded the development of two features: broadcast updates, which notify people of key moments in a decision-making process and keep people engaged over time, and voting, which lets people vote on proposals from inside WhatsApp. Because the code is open source, any of the more than a hundred Decidim programmes worldwide can adopt it.
The Foundation is now working with Octree to roll out this offering to their existing clients – cities all across Europe – and other key democratic institutions.
Explore more: voca.city/whatsapp-chatbot