How a City Platform Became a Global Community

Picture this: an open source digital democracy platform, launched by a city government, that quickly outgrows its municipal roots and becomes a global movement. Decidim started in 2016 as a tool for participatory processes in Barcelona, but its community expanded worldwide, with users in diverse cultural and political contexts. How do you scale such a project while preserving its democratic integrity?

In this session, we’ll dive into Decidim’s evolution, focusing on the governance challenges and triumphs of managing a rapidly growing, decentralized community. We’ll explore how Metadecidim—our "eat your own dog food" instance—facilitated this transition, enabling collaborative decision-making through open assemblies and processes. We’ll also discuss how Decidim’s unique social contract ensures transparency and accountability in everything from feature development to project governance.

This session is for you if you’re interested in the nuts and bolts of scaling participatory governance of free software projects.