If AI is to serve humanity broadly, not just a handful of centralized players, its capabilities need to grow in directions that strengthen security, protect privacy, and allow peaceful cooperation to emerge among a rising plurality of AI systems and humans. Today, AI development is outpacing our defenses. Traditional security frameworks can’t keep up with the speed, scale, and complexity of AI-driven threats. Privacy-preserving technologies remain fragmented and hard to scale. And as AI systems proliferate into an ecology of coordinating agents, we lack robust mechanisms that favor cooperation over zero-sum competition. This workshop convenes leading researchers, engineers, and funders to explore how to make AI an engine of defense in a multipolar human-AI world.

Over 1,000 citizens’ assemblies (CAs) have been held worldwide since 2004. But what happens after the recommendations are delivered — to policy, to communities, and to the people who participated? Join People Powered for a webinar that brings together researchers and practitioners to share the latest findings and lessons learned from cases where assemblies have driven real policy change, as well as those where results have proved more elusive, including what we've learned about effective advocacy and assembly design.

The Civics of Technology (CoT) project aims to empower students and educators to critically inquire into the effects of technologies on their individual and collective lives. Join them for their 5th Annual Civics of Technology conference with keynote speakers Dr. Meredith Broussard and Ms. Natasha Singer.

Over three days, participants will dive into issues at the intersection of digital democracy, open-source technology and democratic empowerment. The programme features demo runs of the CONSUL platform, workshops on devising citizen participation processes, panel exchanges with case studies from cities and regions across Europe, Latin America and Africa, tech talks on open-source ecosystems and AI for participation platforms, and keynotes on the democratic potential of civic technology. Confirmed keynote speakers include Roman Huber (Executive Federal Director, Mehr Demokratie and co-initiator of Germany's first national citizens' assemblies), Sophie Bloemen (Co-founder and Director, Commons Network) and Joe Mathews (Founder-publisher, Democracy Local and democracy fellow, Berggruen Institute).

The conference brings together trust and safety researchers and practitioners from academia, industry, civil society, and government to advance research in trust and safety while fostering the exchange of ideas across various disciplines, including computer science, communication, policy, law, and political science.

For the first time, IAP2 Canada brings its North American Conference and Gala to British Columbia. Practitioners, leaders, and changemakers from across Canada and beyond will come together for a powerful moment of connection, learning, and celebration. This is a shared space shaped by participation. A place where engagement is explored through practice, where perspectives meet, and where the work continues to evolve through those who carry it forward. The conference takes place on the traditional territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw, grounding this experience in relationship, respect, and ways of knowing that continue to shape how engagement is understood.

The forum focuses on how tools such as referendums, citizens’ initiatives, deliberative processes, and digital participation can strengthen democratic legitimacy, inclusion, and trust. Through a mix of panels, workshops, and case studies, participants will examine how these approaches work in practice — and how they can be adapted to different political, social, and cultural contexts.

Over three days, participants will take stock of European democracies, project themselves into possible futures based on forward-looking scenarios, and commit to implementing concrete actions at all levels of governance. Discussions will draw on work carried out by specialists in policy planning and strategic analysis, exploring not only future threats but also the choices still available to democracies to strengthen themselves. The discussions will address both immediate threats and long-term resilience: how can democracies withstand upheaval while renewing themselves?