Pedro is the founding president of the "Asociación Ciudades Kyosei" (www.ckyosei.org), a small civic organization whose aim is to foster Civic Engagement by means of ICT technologies. It was founded in 2006 and is the oldest Spanish NGO devoted to the promotion of (e)Participation.
In the last years we were researching on the field of Civic Engagement and ICT, with a special focus on Latin-America (Brazil and Guatemala) and Europe. Our research work combines a critical attitude with an applied, hands-on focus, and has analysed how you can at best promote innovation in the field, as well as the best design practices for (e)Participation systems. It has been widely recognized as refreshing and insightful.
Presently, Pedro leads the main project of the association: the creation of the Kyopol System (aka. “Symbiotic City”). It is a very innovative (e)Participation system, which we think will help to strengthen democratic participation at the local level, and could be used both in "developed" and "developing" countries. As part of this project, Pedro spent a year in Fortaleza (Brazil) investigating their "Participatory Budgeting" and many other experiences of citizen participation, and also spent several years experimenting with the use of Internet for municipal transparency and knowledge management in the mayan highlands of Guatemala, an environment characterized by extreme poverty and violence. Kyopol system is designed to spread virally, and puts a lot of attention on mechanisms that stimulate C2G and C2C collaboration. It is characterised by an autonomous and “inclusive” bottom-up approach toward collaboration.
Before devoting himself to the field of (e)Participation, Pedro worked for six years as a Technical Lead at Hewlett-Packard (Germany) as part of a "virtual development team" scattered across three continents, developing its global e-Commerce (B2B) solutions. Pedro has been member of DEMO-net (www.demo-net.org) and PEP-Net (www.pep-net.eu), the two most important European Networks on e-Participation. Pedro holds advanced degrees on Software Engineering (UCM) and Business Administration (UAH) and a first diploma on Philosophy (UAM). He also holds a master on Political Sociology (UOC) and is currently pursuing his PhD on (e)Participation at the Universidad de Alcalá.
