CitizenLab is a Belgian

civic tech Civic technology, or civic tech, enhances the relationship between the people and government with software for communications, decision-making, service delivery, and political process. It includes information and communications technology supportin ...

company that builds citizen engagement platforms for local governments. The company was founded in 2015 by Wietse Van Ransbeeck, Aline Muylaert, and Koen Gremmelprez. CitizenLab uses a cloud-based

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is co ...

(SaaS) model to provide local governments with readymade platforms and tools for collecting and managing citizen input.

History

CitizenLab was founded in September 2015 in

Brussels, Belgium Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

by entrepreneurs Wietse Van Ransbeeck, Aline Muylaert, and Koen Gremmelprez. At the time, all three were students at the

Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management The Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (abbreviated as SBS-EM and also known as simply Solvay) is a school of economics and management and a Faculty of the Université libre de Bruxelles, a French-speaking private research univ ...

. CitizenLab states that it has provided citizen engagement platforms for over 400 local governments in 18 countries. These countries include Belgium, Netherlands, France, Germany, Denmark, United Kingdom, Norway, Canada, the United States, and Chile.

Platform

The goal of the CitizenLab platform is to facilitate

civic engagement Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to ...

through a two-way digital platform. The platform uses a cloud-based

(SaaS).The front end of the CitizenLab platform has participation features such as

participatory budgeting Participatory budgeting (PB) is a type of citizen sourcing in which ordinary people decide how to allocate part of a municipal or public budget through a process of democratic deliberation and decision-making. Participatory budgeting allows cit ...

, survey and polling, idea collection and voting, and

citizen initiatives In political science, an initiative (also known as a popular initiative or citizens' initiative) is a means by which a petition signed by a certain number of registered voters can force a government to choose either to enact a law or hold a pu ...

. Features on the back end of the platform allows local governments to gather and manage citizen data and facilitate decision-making based on citizen feedback. In the spring of 2019, CitizenLab raised two million euros in order to aid the company's expansion into international markets. Investors include: Inventures and finance.brussels funds, the

ING Ing, ING or ing may refer to: Art and media * '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film * i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group * The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes'' * "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 199 ...

bank and the IT group Cipal-Schaubroeck. In May 2019, CitizenLab took part in a

Nesta Nesta (formerly NESTA, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) is an innovation foundation based in the UK. The organisation acts through a combination of programmes, investment, policy and research, and the formation of part ...

experiment where six cities were sponsored to use the CitizenLab platform in order to explore whether technology can increase government efficiency and transparency. In March of 2021, CitizenLab announced on its blog that it would be shifting to an open source model. Co-founder Wietse Van Ransbeeck attributed the decision to a desire to increase transparency and " ake theirplatform accessible to all civic organizations — from universities and NGOs, to political parties and sports teams."

Awards

* VivaTech Paris, "Digital Inclusion" (2019) * Wietse Van Ransbeeck & Aline Muylaert, listed as ‘50 Flemings of the Future' (2018) * Aline Muylaert and Wietse Van Ransbeeck placed on Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Law and Policy (2018) * Young Belgian Startup of the Year (2017) * One of the 10 Radical Changemakers, Radio 1, De Standaard and De Sociale Innovatiefabriek (2017) * One of the 5 Smart City Applications, Gartner (2017) * Aline Muylaert (Head of Sales), One of the 10 final nominees for the StartHer Award (2018) * Selected as one of the 5 Best Smart City startups worldwide, 4YFN at the Smart City Expo World Congress, Barcelona (2016)

References

{{reflist Companies of Belgium Belgian companies established in 2015