VoiceS

VoiceS updated and complemented the VoicE Internet platforms with the objective to promote the dialogue between citizens from European regions and “their” regional policy makers from the European parliament or the Assembly of Regions – hence creating a direct link between citizens and the representatives from their region. In terms of contents, the project continued to focus on the policy field of consumer protection in the EU (a field of high relevance to each citizen) and built on the community and contacts already well-established.

VoiceS was targeted at the following legislative processes:

• the legislation proposal formation stage
• the debate on draft legislation

With VoiceS, by incorporating results of other eParticipation projects1, a whole array of new features was added to the platform, this way enhancing its functionalities for both citizens and EU decisionmakers dramatically:

• by incorporating semantic applications and ontologies, platform users (citizens, MEPs, platform management) will gain access to a multitude of advanced tools: Automatic translation, automatic text summaries, improved search engines, improved tagging (cloud tagging).
• by including a Serious Game as a learning component, VoiceS platform will make the complex EU codecision procedure accessible to a large audience (especially among younger citizens), thus providing necessary understanding and enabling them to contribute actively to the platform.
• including Social networking tools into the strategy for platform marketing and promotion will increase platform outreach drastically, providing access to new user groups and stakeholders.

Apart from new functions, via its Toolkit for Regional eParticipation initiatives, VoiceS also deliver services to help other regions setting up similar initiatives of their own, beyond the limited framework of this initiative.