1.
Crowdsourcing the Digital Parliament –
The Case of the Hellenic OCR Team
Fotios Fitsilis and George Mikros
15th Wroxton Workshop
30 July 2022
Parliaments & public
engagement panel

2.
Content – 5 W’s and an H
 What
 Why
 Who
 Where
 When
 How
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3.
What is the Hellenic OCR Team?
 Scientific initiative – volunteered research
 Based on crowdsourcing
 Expert network
 Project based work
 Personal and institutional members (currently ~60)
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4.
Why it matters
 Links parliaments with
society
 Involves interested
stakeholders
 Offers geographic,
disciplinary, & sectoral
diversity
 Has global outreach
 Tackles a broad range of
research objectives
Research objectives
 Holistic study of
parliamentary corpora
 Design &
implementation of
digital platforms
 Citizen’s engagement
with representative
institutions
 Challenges &
application of emerging
technologies
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5.
Who we are
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Gender Scientific background
N=50

6.
Who we are
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Working sector
N=50

7.
Where we are
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8.
Where and since when the Team exist
Timing
 Established – Fall 2017
 Transformation into
expert network –
January 2022
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Global initiative
 4 continents
 14 countries
Top representation
 Greece, 62%
 Italy, 8%
 UK, Germany, Qatar, 4%

9.
How we work
 Organised in working groups – regular & ad hoc
 Offer training and targeted capacity building
 Addressing contemporary trends & challenges
 Following the members’ abilities & requests
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Time investment
N=50

10.
Partners
National parliaments
Universities
Research centers
NGOs
Private entities
Current activities
 The Team currently undertakes 4
main research activities:
 Building of an ecosystem of apps and
services with the potential to advance
inter-institutional interoperability
 Integrated text analytics of
parliamentary corpora (e.g. motion of
no confidence)
 Study of application on emerging
technologies in the parliamentary
workspace
 Advancing parliamentary diplomacy via
development and use of digital
platforms
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11.
Out-of-the-box
approach
Inherent flexibility,
quick reflexes, & the
disruptive nature of
emergent technology
makes it difficult to
approximate the
evolutionary path of
the Hellenic OCR Team
The Team’s future
 Expansion (rate ~10 members/year)
 Interconnection with other
parliamentary projects, networks,
& initiatives
 IPU
 Inter Pares
 IPEN
 Hansard at Huddersfield
 IPIs
 Potential institutionalisation
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hellenicOCRteam.gr
info@hellenicOCRteam.gr
Disclaimer
The information and views set out in this presentation are
only those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the
official opinion of their institutions
Contact
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