Team Mirai and Civic Tech in Japan

​Join us for a short presentation and discussion about Team Mirai, a new political party in Japan focused on digital democracy and civic tech. In July, Team Mirai won their first seat in parliament, less than three months after being formed as a party.

​We will be joined by Leo Nelki, a filmmaker who is developing a documentary about Team Mirai, who will give a brief overview of the history of the party, the political context and the tools that they have created. These tools include:

​• The "Idobata System": This is an AI-powered platform designed to facilitate "broad listening" and create an "interactive manifesto." The system allows citizens to directly ask an AI questions about policy content and engage in discussions. It can even generate proposals for policy changes based on user input, which are then automatically sent to Team Mirai's policy team for review. This creates a direct, scalable feedback loop between the public and the party.

​• AI Avatars for Voter Engagement: During founder Takahiro Anno's run for Tokyo governor, his campaign launched "AI Anno," an AI-powered avatar of the candidate. The avatar fielded questions from the public 24/7 on a YouTube livestream, answering questions on policy constantly.

​• PoliMoney: A platform to make political funding transparent. It turns complex financial reports from politicians into easy-to-search, visual dashboards so the public can see where money comes from and how it's spent.

​• Kouchou AI: Meaning "Public Hearing AI," this system is for "broad listening." It analyzes thousands of public comments on policy issues, identifying key themes and opinions to make large-scale citizen feedback understandable and actionable