Pulsante seeks to protect and expand civic space to ensure that all citizens can participate in the decisions that impact their lives, and to improve democracy in Latin America.
Promote collective and inclusive participation.
Escalate and experiment with innovative democratic practices (online and offline).
Strengthen the capacity of groups, organizations and movements.
This initiative is the result of an alliance between Luminate, Open Society Foundations (OSF) and Avina Foundation, and the pooling of their complementary experience working on citizen empowerment and the expansion of the civic space in Latin America.
Luminate and Avina Foundation hold shared experience through the Alliance for Civic Technology (ALTEC), which, since 2012, has supported over 50 projects in 14 countries in Latin America aimed at improving mobilization and collective action with the capacity to build more equal, open and inclusive societies.
Meanwhile, OSF and Avina Foundation have also developed common expertise. Between 2017 and 2019, they worked in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia on more than 10 projects related to civic and political empowerment, citizen inclusion in decision-making spaces and public policy design and implementation.
OUR WORK
We work in accordance with the mission to accompany, expand and consolidate groups, organizations and social movements that develop innovative practices involving online and offline collective action. This action, in turn, contributes to the formation of conditions that expand civic space and influence power relations, thus strengthening democracy in Latin America.
Axis 1)
An active citizenry
We encourage the organized participation of people as a means to intervene, change and influence their shared political and social environment. This participation makes it possible to transform power relations, expand spaces for collective work and construct public agendas that truly reflect the needs and interests of a diverse citizenry.
Through an active citizenry, we seek to exercise and guarantee
a) Civil liberties, including access to information, freedom of association and protection for activists, journalists and information filters.
b) Innovative technology, for social mobilizations and campaigns for the protection of human rights.
c) Citizen engagement through institutionalized participation mechanisms, citizen-led initiatives and the inclusion of marginalized groups.
Axis 2)
Upscaling digital and democratic innovations
We facilitate the construction of mechanisms and actions that allow citizens to become involved in collective decisions that affect the protection of their rights, as well as the quality of the public services they need, and that foster the accountability of their governments.
We bet on comprehensive strategies that combine digital innovations with offline mobilizations, that create a powerful environment to improve structures and processes that allow more active and direct participation of citizens in public affairs.
ADVISORY BOARD
is a political scientist with a Master of International Relations from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo - PUC-SP) and a Master of Public Management from the Fundação Getulio Vargas de São Paulo (Getulio Vargas Foundation of São Paulo - FGV-SP). She was a visiting researcher at SciencesPo in Paris (France). Currently, she is a doctoral student at the Centro de Investigación y Documentación de Historia Contemporánea de Brasil (Center for the Research and Documentation of Contemporary Brazilian History - CPDOC) at Fundação Getulio Vargas and is the executive director of ISER - Instituto de Estudios de Religión [Institute of Religious Studies] in Río de Janeiro (Brazil), where she is also a researcher in the field of religion and public space. She is dedicated to research on democratic innovation in Latin America, the Brazilian political system, elections and the role of religious groups in politics.
is a Spanish-Brazilian journalist, writer and researcher. Having earned his Master of Fine Arts with research focusing on aesthetics of protest and collective action, Bernardo is the author of the largest technopolitical research project on Latin America (OXFAM). His published works include the books Calle Amazonas (Barcelona: Altaïr, 2010), #24H (Barcelona: Dpr-Barcelona, 2012), Pasado Mañana (Barcelona: Arpa Editores, 2017) and Saudades de junho (Porto Alegre: Liquid Books, 2020) and he has contributed to over twenty compilations. Bernardo has also edited books including Junho: potência das redes e das ruas (São Paulo: Friedrich Foundation Brasil, 2015), Democracias Futuras (Madrid: Medialab Prado, 2019) and StoryCracia (Madrid: Medialab Prado, 2019). Bernardo was head of communications for the citizen innovation laboratories of Medialab Prado in Madrid from 2016 to 2019. During his career, he has developed urban participation projects, such as Wikipraça (São Paulo City Hall) and Ciudad.Decide (Madrid City Hall). Bernardo has been a consultant for institutions such as United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), Instituto de Altos Estudios de Ecuador (Institute of Higher Studies of Ecuador - IAEN), Transnational Institute (Amsterdam) and Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (Sociological Research Center - CIS) of Bolivia.
He is the coordinator of the Grupo de Estudios Críticos (Critical Studies Group - GEC) which was developed in association with the Centro de Estudios del Museo Reina Sofía [Museo Reina Sofía Study Center] in Madrid and is a founding member of the Red de Innovación Política de América Latina [Latin American Political Innovation Network].
is an academic and strategic coordinator with over 15 years of experience in innovation and digital economy. She is a regular consultant for governments, international organizations and start-ups on issues pertaining to government and open data, digital entrepreneurship and sustainable development specializing in Latin America. Her work has been published in books edited by the MIT Press, indexed journals such as Information Systems Journal and Government Information Quarterly, and she is the author of reports from the World Bank and the OECD. Carla is a Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Surrey Business School, co-founder of the Surrey Centre of Digital Economy, and Principal Researcher at the Iniciativa Latinoamericana por los Datos Abiertos (Latin American Open Data Initiative - ILDA). She holds a Doctorate in Management from the London School of Economics (LSE) in the United Kingdom.
is a political scientist from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia [National University of Colombia], holds a Master of Philosophy from the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana [Pontifical Bolivarian University] and a doctorate from the same institution. He is the director of Caribe Afirmativo, a civil society organization promoting respect and recognition of the rights of the LGBT community in the Caribbean region of Colombia and the impact of the Colombian armed conflict against LGBT people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. As an expert, he supported the sub-commission on peace talks between the government of Colombia and the FARC EP [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - People's Army] and participated in prior consultations of talks between the government and the ELN [National Liberation Army]. He has written articles and conducted research related to the parts of the LGBT movement focused on peace building. He is a lecturer at Universidad de Antioquia [University of Antioquia], Universidad Nacional [National University] and Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano [Jorge Tadeo Lozano University]. Consultant of the United Nationals Development Programme (UNDP).
Caribe Afirmativo has community workspaces in the post-conflict environment, called: Casas de Paz, at four locations highly impacted by the armed conflict—Maicao, Guajira; Ciénaga, Magdalena; Soledad, Atlántico; and El Carmen, Bolívar—to prepare LGBT individuals and the community for situations of reconciliation. It is an organization with consultative status before the Organization of American States (OAS), and has participated in four thematic hearings of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and in United Nations civil society consultations.
