Mobile application that simulates the Assembly of the Republic was rewarded
08th July 2019
The idea, which was developed by Nuno Moniz and Arian Pasquali, researchers of the Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science (INESC TEC) and of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP), and by Tomás Amaro, software engineer at Hostelworld, arose from the challenge launched by Arquivo.pt , aiming at stimulating the use of the information preserved in this collection.
The technology was awarded with EUR 10 000 and the prize was given today in Lisbon, at the "Ciência 2019" national meeting by the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa, the Minister for Science, Technology and Higher Education, Manuel Heitor and the President of FCT, Helena Pereira.
Being motivated by the increasing gap between politics and citizens, which is often amplified by a media era characterised by fake news and parallel facts, the researchers developed this idea aiming at bringing citizens closer to the decisions that are made in our Parliament while presenting all the information required to contextualise these data.
“The application works in a very simple way. It only takes a minute and three gestures so that the users are invited to state their opinion on how they would vote for 10 legislative proposals that were under parliamentary consideration since 2011 and that were randomly chosen. In order to vote in favour, users must scroll to the right, while to vote against, users must scroll to the left. In order to abstain from voting, users must scroll up and down,”, explains Nuno Moniz, the researcher of INESC TEC.
At the end of 10 questions, users find out which parties voted in the most similar way as they did while also presenting detailed information on each proposal. This information allows the user to know in detail the context in which the proposals were voted.
The text of the proposals, information about their authors and the website of the party at hand on the day of voting, or even the news produced at the time of the proposals that were debated by the parliamentarians, are some of the resources that can be explored, thus contributing to a considerable approximation between political institutions and citizens.
In a year that will be marked by parliamentary elections, meuparlamento.pt aims to revolutionise the relationship between politics and citizens, aiming to contribute to reduce the absenteeism that has been registering election after election. It is important to remember that today, in terms of abstention in national elections, about 4 out of 10 Portuguese people decide not to participate in the elections.
For more information:
Joana Coelho
Communication Service
INESC TEC
FEUP’s Campus
Rua Dr Roberto Frias
4200-465 Porto
Portugal
Tel.: +351 22 209 4297
Mob.: +351 924 444 321