Aleco Christakis and Maria Kakoulaki
Alexander “Aleco” Christakis and Maria Kakoulaki shared their work from the Demoscopio project established with the mayor of the municipality Heraklion, Crete, which represents an emerging centre of civic innovation co-create and self-organized by citizen collaboration.
- How might the Demoscopio paradigm inspire strongly-centred democratic [r]evolutions for democratic societal evolution?
- How does the Demoscopio design and culture inspire, connect, empower and liberate citizens’ voices in designing their own social systems?
- What are the new narratives of cultural innovation we can all undertake to inspire flourishing, democratic communities?
Aleco has 40 years of experience developing and testing methods for engaging stakeholders in productive dialogue. In the 1960’s he consulted with Constantinos Doxiadis on the development of Ekistics, the science of settlements, and later conferred with Hasan Özbekhan to advance a methodology for social systems design, associated with the prospectus of the Club of Rome. This process became Interactive Management (as developed with John Warfield) and Structured Dialogic Design. He is the author of over 100 papers on dialogic design science, stakeholder participation, including How People Harness their Collective Wisdom and Power to Create the Future. He is the founder of the Institute for 21st Century Agoras and past President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (2002). He is a member of the Board of the Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO), an Advisor to the AIO and an advisor to the Ambassador’s leadership program for engaging tribal leaders from the USA and internationally. He travels across the globe to facilitate structured dialogues and promote the science of dialogic design.
