Civic participation powered by Ethereum: A proposal

In the last decade, ICT infrastructures for smart cities have become a reality and the number of projects affecting citizens' lives is growing. In particular, the technology supporting civic participation is mature, although many systems do not reach the needed critical mass, as they are not able to capture the interest of their intended target. To overcome this difficulty, we describe a proposal for encouraging citizens' participation by a reward mechanism based on a civic currency, powered by blockchain tokens, used to recognize civic engagement. This paper briefly sketches the main features of the system and discusses the development of its proof-of-concept in the context of a university course following an agile process, highlighting the lessons so learned.