Dynamic modal content

Collective intelligence, complex systems governance, and existential risks independent researcher and activist; environmentalist and co-founder of the Green Spirit Circle; multilingual poet, writer and translator.

I designed the novel participant selection methodology for the world's first Deliberative Global Citizens' Assembly (DGCA), the 2021 Global Assembly on the Climate and Ecological Crisis. This methodology - random selection of geographical location weighted by human population density, sometimes called geospatial sortition or global civic lottery - was fundamentally different to previous sortition strategies, based on random selection from postcode databases or electoral registers. Combined with stratification according to UN demographic data, it provided the necessary breakthrough for citizens' assemblies to take place at the global level. Dr. Owen Shaffer, computer scientist, and Dr. C.T. Lloyd, population database and GIS expert, have helped refine the concept. The Sortition Foundation, who were presented with the concept's written project proposal in July 2020, chose to programme it for the 2021 Global Assembly and claim sole authorship of it. This conflict has not been resolved, and was only mentioned briefly in a footnote in the evaluation report of the Global Assembly.

Despite this setback, however, I remain happy to connect with courageous people everywhere who are trying to save both our precious planet, and our own deranged species from itself. We can do it - by establishing truly collectively intelligent global governance instruments to tap into our collective wisdom. And that includes the wisdom of indigenous peoples, the expert stewards of our biosphere.

See also this Substack post on my bad experience with the Sortition Foundation. It's an early draft, originally written for publication in the Bolton School Old Girls' Association Magazine, which for some reason Substack has 'frozen', so I have subsequently been unable to edit/update it. Please therefore forgive any copyediting mistakes. And let me know if you have any idea how to unfreeze Substack. I will be reposting an update of this article on a different platform because as well as freezing, Substack has also not displayed some illustrations.

https://open.substack.com/pub/deborahwafoulkes/p/complexity-leadership-2-protecting?r=1f2ej0&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

My LinkedIn page:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-wa-foulkes?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app