In partnership with Carles Campuzano, a member of the Spanish Parliament, and NuestraCausa, a Spanish non-profit organization, MixedInk is excited to launch Spanish and Catalan versions of its collaborative writing platform!

To coincide with an important debate around immigration in the Spanish Parliament, Campuzano is inviting the public to craft a collective text that represents its most popular ideas and opinions about immigration using MixedInk. Campuzano has pledged to fully consider the public recommendations and hopes this will lay the groundwork for future participatory projects.

NuestraCausa is promoting MixedInk’s platform in Spain to bring citizens closer to decision makers – their goal is to enable people to influence public policy decisions. Among its many projects, NuestraCausa is partnering with Personal Democracy Forum to plan a European version of its annual conference, which explores the intersection of technology and politics, in Barcelona this November.

In the United States, government officials and agencies have paved the way for such groundbreaking projects. For instance, Representative Anthony Weiner used MixedInk’s platform to collect opinions about health care, and the White House used the platform to crowdsource policy recommendations for achieving open government. Needless to say, we are excited to see the same energy around citizen participation in Spain.

NuestraCausa is at the forefront of promoting citizen participation – and extending some of the lessons from the Obama campaign – into Spain and throughout Europe. We look forward to a fruitful, collaborative relationship with Marc, Javier, Gemma, Maria, and the rest of the NuestraCausa team as more and more leaders around the world recognize the value of citizen input!

Check out the coverage this project has already attracted:
• Un diputado de CiU, primer político español que utiliza MixedInk
• CiU apoya la reforma del Gobierno si refuerza las competencias en inmigración
• Campuzano (ciu) abrirá un debate en la red sobre la reforma de la ley de extranjería
• El PSOE se asegura superar la primera votación en el Congreso de la Ley de Extranjería con los votos de CiU

To use MixedInk’s writing platform in Spanish or Catalan, just put “es.” or “ca.” at the start of the URL. For example, to see http://mixedink.com/CarlesCampuzano/Inmigracion/ in Spanish, use: http://es.mixedink.com/CarlesCampuzano/Inmigracion/. Soon, we’ll make it even easier to toggle languages automatically.

If you’re interested in using MixedInk in any other languages, let us know by sending an email to info-at-mixedink-dot-com. With help from folks like Carlos Campuzano and the Nuestra Causa team, we hope to eventually make MixedInk available the world over!

MixedInk is proud to serve, once again, as a One Web Day ambassador. Inspired by Earth Day, the goal is to raise awareness of, and advocate for, an open, interconnected, accessible internet – with a belief that it will play a vital role in how regular citizens will solve global problems.

One Web Day was founded in 2006 by Susan Crawford, who now advises President Obama on science, technology, and innovation policy, and has grown into a global event, with activities taking place in cities around the world on September 22nd. You can get involved by organizing or attending an event on One Web Day, editing a Wikipedia article, donating a computer, or joining the Electronic Frontier Foundation, just to name a few options.

This year, the focus is on a key internet value: online participation in democracy. This is something that really inspires our work, here at MixedInk. Looking back, here have been some highlights in public participation and engagement:

• The Netroots Platform: Even before our public launch, a group of online activists used MixedInk to write a progressive political platform – a piece of which was included in the actual Democratic platform. See the ABCNews and Wired articles covering the project.
• GovTrack, a non-partisan group that tracks legislation, invited its community to write a collective letter to Congress opposing a gun control bill. This letter was converted into a petition, signed by over 3,000 people, and delivered to several members of the House.
• Congressman Anthony Weiner invited citizens to help generate a set of health care principles to help inform his work on the subcommittee on health.
• The White House invited the public to help craft open government policy, including how to make the federal government more transparent, collaborative, and participatory as part of its groundbreaking Open Government Initiative. You can hear me talking about the project on Federal News Radio.

In each of these cases, we’ve been so inspired by the ordinary people who have taken time out of their busy schedules – who have spent their precious nights and weekends – to do the hard work of writing policy, expressing their priorities, and participating in democracy. It has been a lesson in true citizenship.

Carlos Campuzano, a member of the Spanish Parliament, just invited constituents to weigh in on immigration law. In the next few weeks, the City of San Francisco will invite residents to weigh in on local policy issues. At MixedInk, we look forward to watching these projects unfold and are thankful for the opportunity to play a small role in this movement.

Check out this video about One Web Day and then get involved!