The digital age, featuring the virtual dimension of the world, significantly impacts democracy, dealing with electoral systems, political representations and citizens’; participation. The digital network revolution has scaled up and speeded up the pace of transformation in political organization, participation, information and engagement, weakening the role of the structures which traditionally served as intermediaries.

In this digital age, democracy represents the tension between individuals and society, institutions and organizations, and between rights and duties, especially in critical situations like a health emergency. Digital evolution is supposed to support the Sustainable Development Goal 16 objectives not diverging, as it might seem, from a realistic and sustainable development of human rights.

This effort involves gaining a better understanding and favouring a shared view of how to address the challenges posed by digital technologies, to broaden and strengthen citizens’ participation and to build effective, accountable and transparent democratic institutions.

The two-day conference aims to be a meeting place between politics and academics and a moment of confrontation, promoting international collaboration through the exchange of information, ideas and best practices. Gathering contributions of high-level experts and government representatives from around the world, the International Forum on Digital and Democracy will address the following issues:

• How is it possible to deal with both speed and scale of digital besides the policymaking process, also considering the current analogic “ecosystem” of institutions?
• What should an analysis of guarantees, limitations, obligations, privacy, transparency look like, in the current changing scenario?
• What are the main features of recent experimentations, and which lessons should we learn from them?
• In this fast-paced digital society, how we can build sound hypotheses for the future of democracy?

Home of the Forum is the magnificent island of San Giorgio in Venice, site of the Giorgio Cini Foundation. Venice was chosen for its historical importance in electoral processes. The term “ballot” comes from the “balote” used to cast votes in the election of the Doge during the Republic of Venice. The electoral system of the Doge was probably the longest lasting of humanity, having been in force without change for more than five centuries from 1268 to 1797 and being a milestone of “voting theory”.