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tags: Polis
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# 2020-08-10 Polis for Lebanon

:date: When? Mon, Aug 10 @ 5-6pm ET
:family: Who's here? Divya Siddarth, Patrick Abi Salloum, patcon, Sari Louis.
:raising_hand: Join: meet.google.com/fqo-hgff-nwr

## Notes

- intros
- patcon. civic tech. community member.
- Team Polis = colin megill. chris small aka metasoarous.
- sari. living in DC. friends and fam in lebanon. history of corruption. whatsapp was straw that broke. came across vtaiwan last year. big problem in lebabnon is consensus.
- oct rev. leaderless by necessity. but hard to have unified message. looked into polis at the time. reached out to andrew. slow reply. took a few months.
- propose name for alt gov that people are behind. choosing names as a first pilot?
- sari feels polis could be good for eventual constitution rewrite
- interested in getting things out as fast as possible
- FB. RTL language.
- how to get people to participate? everyone in lebanon uses whatsapp. but maybe FB messenger is the best bet.
- patrick abi.
- on the ground in lebanon.
- software dev. known sari for 25 years
- worked with audrey on XXX in past decade
- take back parliament campaign in 2012. start of activism. active since.
- last election was that first time ppl from outside parties participated. activism goal = trying to get people aware of who is running from outside corrupt political structure.
- not huge success, but got to know the process, and what's going wrong. e.g., people feel that politicians are ruining country, but have no choice but to elect
- 2018 = garbage crisis. protest stopped when garbage cleanup started again.
- last year, econ situation deteriorated
- problem = no unified opposition against gov.
- first few months, very busy on the ground, so no time for online. but covid hit, so was online anyhow. why not tech now?
- idea to use polis to hone name. trial for bigger later things
- thought had more time. government resigned last night.
- there's a window to use this on-the-ground.
- starting to pitch to various groups
- yes, trying to reach consensus n ground and failing. so opportunity
- ... missed some context
- lots of people only speak arabic, so really important
- people don't use email or even web for organizing. mostly whatsapp or facebook
- need to funnel through these thing
- sari: barrier to entry is the biggest.
- re: pilot. at first could have gotten away without arabic. but now, it's crucial.
- feeling bullish on FB messenger
- divya. volunteering with polis for police reform convo in MPL. eager to see how polis can be adapted to various contexts. not big on tech pieces. want to offer support.
- patrick: initiatilly resistence to using online tools. old fashioned people wanting to use in-person ways.
- sari: anonymous? if anon, how do we create trust?
- divya: still in-process of deciding this for MPL (minneapolis)
- patcon:
- pilot. mailing list conversation. or some other place.
- ORID => (objective) facts. (reflective) feelings. (interpretive) idea. (decisional) decisions.
- possible pilots
- name of new coalition
- how do people feel about the party lines
- different ppl feel problem lies elsewhere
- more informing decisions than being decision-making tool
- stakeholders. legitimacy. digital ad targetting.
- depends on whether government will to be player.
- patrick = start with internal small thing.
- being careful not to exhaust social capital on the tests
- language is RTL, so not totally straightfwd.
- institutional partners? news media is the sort that Team Polis seems to recommend.