TECH4DEMOCRACY GLOBAL FINAL WASHINGTON DC

Tech4Democracy’s Global Final, an event part of President Biden’s Summit for Democracy, took place at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. on March 28, 2023 to select the world’s top democracy-affirming tech startup.

This event was part of Tech4Democracy, a global IE University initiative in partnership with the U.S. Department of State and with the strategic support of Microsoft that aims to find and foster the most promising tech startups around the world developing projects that reinforce and advance democratic values.

As part of Tech4Democracy, IE University hosted tech startups competitions in five continents: Europe (at IE University in Madrid, with Jacinda Ardern), South America (at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, with Vitalik Buterin), North America (at Stanford University in Silicon Valley, with Samantha Power), Asia-Pacific (in conjunction with the Raisina Dialogue during the G20 in New Delhi) and Africa (at the University of Cape Town). The five continental winners competed for a monetary prize in the Global Final in Washington, D.C.

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Agenda

5:15 – 5:30 pm: Institutional welcome:

• Dan Baer, Senior Vice President for Policy Research, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Irene Blázquez, Director, Center for the Governance of Change at IE University

5:30 – 5:40 pm: Keynote speech by Acting National Cyber Director Kemba Walden

5:40 – 6:40 pm: Competition of democracy-affirming startups

• Africa: Trustur (Ghana) – provides users with a verifiable and secure digital identity and promotes inclusion by simplifying access to government and other services.
• Asia-Pacific: Right2Vote (India) – a mobile-based voting platform that allows organizations to create and manage elections using biometric authentication.
• Europe: Citibeats (Spain) – uses artificial intelligence to transform citizens’ real-time feedback into data-driven knowledge for policymakers.
• North America: Atlos (United States) – platform for visual investigations, used by open-source conflict researchers at Bellingcat to collaboratively catalog and verify human rights violations in Ukraine.
• South America: EVoting (Chile) – provides electronic voting systems that use cryptography to provide secure platforms in small and large elections.

6:40 – 6:45 pm: Closing remarks and competition winner announcement

• Ginny Badanes, Senior Director, Democracy Forward at Microsoft

6:45 – 7:30 pm: Celebratory reception