In today’s digital world, access to information is one of the most important pillars of a democratic society. When citizens do not have access to transparent and relevant data, their ability to participate in public life and control their elected representatives is severely limited. With this in mind, we decided to create a mobile application with the working title Open Politics, which brings a new way to inform citizens about events in regional and national politics.
Game-changing features: Transparency and utility in one
Open Politics is not just a simple database of political information. Our ambition was to create an application that would be intuitive, fun and at the same time deeply informative for citizens. In addition to basic functions, such as displaying the incomes and property declarations of members of parliament, the application also provides detailed information on the incomes and expenses of individual district towns in Slovakia. It allows users to track the largest incomes and expenses by individual items, creating an overview of how cities manage public finances.
One of the most innovative features of the application is the display of voting history in city council meetings and in the national parliament. The user can easily find out how a particular member of parliament voted on individual points of the agenda, and even compare his votes with the votes of other members of parliament from the same political party. This approach allows citizens to gain a deeper understanding of political events and assess whether their representatives really represent their interests.
Another interesting function that we have implemented in the application is the possibility to search for members of parliament according to their affiliation to a political party. This allows citizens to quickly find their representatives and track their activities and votes. At the same time, users can compare MPs from different parties and thus gain an overview of the support of individual topics in different political camps.
Our goal was also to enrich the application with a data aggregation function, which would make it possible to find out the support of certain topics according to political parties. This means users can see which topics are gaining the most support among specific parties and track how their attitudes change over time. This function has the potential to become an important tool for political analysts, journalists and citizens who want to better understand the political dynamics in Slovakia.
News and game elements: Politics accessible to all
In order to ensure that Open Politics will be attractive to the widest possible audience, we have decided to integrate into it a section with current news from regional and national politics. This feature allows users to stay informed and follow the latest events and decisions that affect their daily lives. However, unlike traditional news portals, Open Politics offers this information in the context of wider political events, which means that users can more easily understand how individual events fit into the overall political picture.
Another important aspect that we emphasized is a playful approach to the presentation of information. We realize that politics can be a dry and difficult topic for many citizens. Therefore, we decided to introduce various interactive elements and visualizations that would help make the policy more understandable and interesting. Users can thus discover political information not only through texts and numbers, but also through interactive graphs, maps and other visual elements.
At the same time, these playful elements serve to motivate citizens to become more involved in political life. We believe that if people have access to fun and easy ways to learn more about politics, they will be more interested in what is happening around them and will be more active participants in the democratic process.
Challenge for the future: Together for more transparent politics
Open policy is currently still in development, but we already see its huge potential. We believe that the application can fundamentally change the way citizens interact with the political environment in Slovakia. It is a tool that not only increases transparency, but also supports citizens’ awareness and involvement in political processes.
However, our vision goes beyond creating a one-off application. We want the Open Policy to become a long-term project that will constantly grow and develop in accordance with the needs of citizens and technological innovations. Therefore, we would like to invite experts, developers, journalists and everyone who cares about transparency and accountability in politics to join us and help us develop the application further.
Together we can ensure that the Open Policy will continue to serve as an important tool for supporting democracy in Slovakia. Every citizen deserves to have access to information that will enable them to make informed decisions and control the work of their elected representatives. We believe that with the help of the community and everyone who shares our vision, we can achieve this goal and create a society where transparency and accountability are not just empty words, but a real reality.
Open politics is a project that has the potential to change the face of Slovak politics. Join us and together we can ensure that politics is open, accountable and accessible to all.