21st century approach to citizen engagement inspired by a World Bank MOOC on citizen engagement.

1. Virtual Engagement
Through Videoconferencing
Ted Ritzer
V3 June 25, 2015

2. Introduction
• Educational Videoconferencing: For a decade
I have had direct experience with the use of
videoconferencing as a medium for
educational programming.

3. What is different about
videoconferencing?
• Visually live and interactive
• You see people’s emotions in their faces
• You see visuals that presenters offer their
audiences
• More sophisticated approaches use green
screen technology just like in the movies to
put speakers into virtual environments for
storytelling effect

4. Citizen Engagement???
• Till I took a World Bank MOOC course on the
topic of citizen engagement I have had no
direct experience with citizen engagement of
any kind.
• I don’t know citizen engagement
• But what do I know that is relevant to this
topic

5. What do I know or can do that is
relevant?
• I know technology
• I am a good technicial strategist

6. The New Reality
• For example despite the fact that Blue Ray
DVD players deliver a much higher resolution
TV experience of movies, Apple iTunes &
Netflix are becoming dominant
• Sometime in 2016 Netflix will eclipse
traditional TV networks for viewers

7. Face to Face for an Ideal World
• Face to Face two-way communication is the
ideal
• But can we afford it?
• Does it have the reach mobile approaches
do?
• To reach citizens we have to adopt the
communication platforms our citizens use.

8. Mobile Citizen Engagement
• Most people have smartphones and tablets
• Now to connect with people you have to go
where they are at any moment in time, forget
about travelling for hours for face to face
discussions.
• That means, you use a medium compatible
with mobile devices!

9. World Bank MOOC
on Citizen Engagement-16,000 people world wide participated
• Link to
course:https://www.coursera.org/course/enga
gecitizen

10. Course Project
Inspired by America Speaks
• AmericaSpeaks:https://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=rJBgTFm8ZPQ

11. What else Can I do that is relevant
• I know how to do cold calls
• Those calls get people excited about
volunteering their expertise to make the world
better through the use of their technology,
knowledge and skills.

12. Brightest Technologist’s Input
• I asked two of the brightest technologists I
know Dr Peter Parns of Sweden and Calgary
based tech venture capitalist Shawn Abbott
• what is the next big thing in technology?

13. WebRTC
• They both responded with WebRTC
• Why WebRTC?
• Because it represents the easiest way on the
planet to communicate with people via both
audio and video via your mobile device!
• No installation required
• No worries re firewalls

14. Who knows WebRTC?
• To which Shawn responded you have to talk to
world leader Calgary based Hookflash CEO
Trent Johnsen:

15. Trent’s Response
• To build the next WebRTC compatible mobile
citizen engagement platform you have to talk
to Emil Ivov who has developed the world’s
only free WebRTC compatible open source
multiparty server called Jitsi:

16. World Speaks Mobile
Citizen Engagement Project
• Ted tested the Jitsi server with Emil Ivov for
use in the World Bank MOOC project:

17. WebRTC Leaders lend support
• Ted approached and received support for the
World Speaks concept from two Canadians
who just happen to be responsible for
WebRTC development at Google & Cisco

18. Dr Cullen Jennings-Cisco Fellow
• Leads international Internet working group on
WebRTC, spends winters in Calgary

19. Dr Serge Lachapelle-Google
• Product Manager in Stockholm where he leads
Google's WebRTC platform. Real Time
Communication (RTC)

20. Google’s Top 3 Priorities
• In a recent interview Dr Serge Lachapelle was
asked what his top 3 priorities were:
• To which Serge replied
1. Mobile
2. Mobile
3. Mobile

21. The World Speaks Concept
• The World Speaks was inspired by America
Speaks & Uses WebRTC mobile browsers for
people to speak out from where they are. And
uses the free open source Jitsi server to host
multi-party conversations and capture that
input for later use.

22. Why
• Time, money & convenience trumps absolute
best approaches
• People want/demand services where they are
and through their mobile devices
• The World Speaks concept was defined for the
above new mobile reality

23. The World Speaks-We listen!
• Create a medium that is easy for people to
express themselves by simply talking.
• The chosen medium captures their talk and
archives it for future analysis, no typing, just
press record, and let them talk!
• You analyze their input later from the archived
input file.

24. Post Script
• Erik Langley of Hookflash to Co-Chair W3C
WebRTC Working Group