Peoples Budget Texas PBTX
No Specific Issue
We are the largest participatory democratic exercise in the American South, we are developing a Metaverse PB to service schools, town, city.
Problem
Participatory Budgeting (PB) is a democratic process in which community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget. PB gives ordinary people real decision-making power over real money. The process was first developed in Brazil in 1989, and there are now over 11,000 participatory budgets around the world, most at the municipal level. Most if not all digital productions focused on improving the participatory quality in participatory budgeting are designed by engineers and bureaucrats. This creates a need for digital productions which are simple and easily accessible, participatory budgeting starts at the age of 12 years old, the experience has to be playful and collaborative to engage all age groups and demographics.
Solution
Texas began doing participatory budgeting (PB) in 2013 and is the largest participatory democratic exercise in the American South. We are developing a Metaverse PB to service every school, town, district, county and even church and company in Texas. Peoples Budget Texas (PBTX) is a student-led 100% volunteer 501c3 nonprofit organization. We are developing the digital production between Texas, USA and Kerala, India, two very different populations, with the intent of providing a simple and playful product which serves both societies.
Action
We are exploring a variety of mapping products to provide AR, VR, and XR tools for everything from collaborative construction of physical designs and placing on proposal location and geotagging to incorporating public infrastructure locational intelligence and mapping so participants understand data and its meaning. We are currently gathering partners to join our 5 colleges, the city of San Antonio, and the state of Texas.
Roles Needed
User ResearcherPositions Available
Design: User Researcher
Qualitative research – Ethnographic field studies and interviews in Kerala, India with a focus on the participatory budgeting process as is used by women groups. The goal is to incorporate microfin...
In-kind Support
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