The Planetary Agora
for Self-Determination and
Why do we need echo?
The world is changing. Today humanity is facing some
serious environmental, economic and humanitarian
challenges never seen before. However, satisfactory
solutions are not in sight. The lack of transparency in
political decision making provokes a growing sense of
powerlessness and political resignation in the popu-
What is echo?
echo is a Web 2.0 start-up of the special kind. We seek
nothing less than to establish the internet platform for a
new kind of participatory democracy on the very local, as
well as on the regional and global level. Our innovative
social software overcomes the communicative and spatial
limits of the ancient agora1 and makes it accessible for all
people on the planet. Being the planetary agora, echo
What is unique about echo?
Discuss
echo unites technical innovation and scientific knowledge
into a unique concept. It lets, for the first time, collective
intelligence emerge in a democratic public discourse even
with a nearly unlimited number of participants. Compared
to current Web 2.0 applications2, the discussion area of
echo offers several unique advantages.
Opinion formation: profound statements, each represen-
ting a different view about a discussed topic, can be
collectively developed in a fully democratic process
without any administrators with special rights. Thus, all
users can contribute to the dynamic development of such
statements with equal chance and a minimal effort.
Semantics and multilinguality: with only one search
entry and a few clicks (without any complicated forms)
echo´s multilingual search mechanism finds the most
supported views concerning a specific topic of interest.
Transparency: all these views are permanently presented
in contrast to the most relevant alternative opinions. This
helps the reader to easily develop a critical attitude and a
differentiated view on the discussed topic.
Democratic Engagement
lation and weakens people´s faith in democracy. Calls for
transparency and more participation are getting louder.
New ways have to be found, empowering people to
develop adequate solutions to effectively tackle our
common challenges.
empowers all people to jointly determine their very local
living space as well as the future of our common world.
Accordingly, everybody on echo can take part in discus-
sions, contribute and support proposals and find allies to
turn them into reality. To provide a platform for such result-
oriented social collaboration, echo combines three main
functional areas: Discuss – Connect – Act!
Measurability: if shared, views and their arguments can
be supported by the users. If not, an alternative proposal
can easily be created and made displayed right next to the
original one. This allows people to easily comprehend the
exact support of such alternative views by different groups
of the society.
For example: How many people in the world are for and
against nuclear power? What do the Europeans think?
What do physicists say and what about affected people
living near Chernobyl or a nuclear waste repository? And
finally, what is the position of a certain organisation?
Glocal overview: echo helps people to easily comprehend
thematic interrelations of local, regional and global topics.
For example: Prices at the supermarket in the neighbour-
hood => factory farming in the EU => deforestation for
soy-plantation => world climate change.
This “glocal” overview enables users to see local issues in
their global context and to understand global problems as
a result of local circumstances. People, who visit echo
because of a very local topic of personal interest (prices in
the supermarket), get quickly confronted with its glocal
implications (world climate).
Connect
As most of the existing Web 2.0 platforms, echo also comes
with social networking functionality. However, in contrast
to current social networks, echo offers a highly specific
search mechanism to find allies with different com-
petences relevant to a certain topic.
Accordingly, echo sorts all users into different groups to
mirror the most important segments of society. These
groups are citizens and affected people (with competence
of need), experts and scientists (with professional
competence) and finally representatives of non-
governmental and political organizations (with decision
making competence). echo actively motivates dialogue
and collaboration between these groups. This enables
people to identify topics of common interest and to
develop the best possible solutions for them by
incorporating the needs and interests of all these groups of
society.
What makes echo successful?
echo follows an open source, non-profit philosophy
combined with a powerful business model. "Powerful“
does not merely mean working cost neutral. It also means
helping users to provide their actions with the necessary
funds. This enables people to accomplish their goals and
lets their virtual engagement influence our real world in a
Who is behind echo?
echo is implemented by an interdisciplinary team of
young and experienced professionals. A growing network
of supporters and consultants gives the project an
additional impulse. Several experts from different fields
(human- and natural science, marketing, economy,
software rights, investor & public relations, etc.) support
end of powerlessness!
echo means and
beginning of self-determination!
Form our future society!
Voice your view!
Make an echo!
1. The agora was the central place in ancient Athens – the cradle of democracy. It was the hub of the social and political life of the polis: a society
self-governed by its free citizens.
2. Forums allow for an open discussion but do not provide any structured, measurable results. Group blogs cannot be written by hundreds and
thousands of participants. Wikipedia can only maintain its quality through giving the control over the content into the hands of a few
administrators – which is completely undemocratic.
Act
To achieve noticeable results in everyday life of the
people, echo motivates all like-minded participants of a
discussion to create appropriate actions to turn their
proposals into reality.
For example: 20 000 Bavarian citizens voted against
nuclear power – many enough to initiate a referendum. In
a moment, all voters receive a message encouraging them
to organize the referendum. Following the link included in
the message, the users find themselves in a perfectly
equipped virtual action space, providing all tools and
information to collectively plan and organise the action.
echo as a whole
echo, as a combination of all these technical and social
innovations, achieves to establish a totally new kind of
virtual space for a fully democratic and result-oriented
social collaboration.
positive way. This in turn is the key to motivate ever more
people to participate on echo. It can be thus concluded
that the complete concept of echo has true potential to
free people from their powerlessness, offer them a way of
successful self-determination and help them restore
their faith in democracy.
the project with their know-how and engagement. Fur-
thermore, echo enjoys the backing of some renowned
politicians such as Ruth Paulig (Green Party), former
member of the Bavarian Parliament and Axel Berg (SPD),
member of the German Parliament.