Brazil former president Dilma Rousseff wanted to improve the participation of society in the decisions of the federal government and ordered the creation of a Social Participation Secretary at the beginning of 2015. By that time I just returned to Brazil after my four years as a PhD student in the Netherlands. Ms. Rousseff officers asked my help to develop a laboratory for social participation in public policy.
![mapa_conceitual_lab_participacao](https://fredvanamstel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/mapa_conceitual_lab_participacao-700x525.jpg)
I helped them to organize a 10-day workshop to co-create the lab as well as an app for interacting with federal programs. We transformed a regular bureaucratic office into an inspiring design room, full of bright people from the government, university, social movements, and professionals.
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We tried and adapted for the first time, a range of innovative software development practices of the time, such as agile development, design thinking, prototyping, and design sprint.
![](https://fredvanamstel.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/palavras_chave_dialoga-1-768x1024.jpg)
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The Dialoga app created during the workshop became the social participation means with the largest reach of the government, receiving more than 20.000 proposals and 270.000 votes in 3 months. Unfortunately, the app (and the whole Social Participation Secretary) was shut down by the new president Michel Temer in 2016.
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