Wietse Van Ransbeeck combines innovative technology and entrepreneurial skills to help more people take active roles in their governments. He has helped to develop and implement a digital platform that energizes the democratic process by helping people more actively participate in policy-making. As a participant in the 2018 Young Transatlantic InnovationLeaders Initiative (YTILI) Fellowship through theU.S. Embassy in Belgium, Wietse travelled to the U.S. to gather new information and ideas that have supported the success of this project.
Wietse believes the key to success in business – and in leading a satisfying life – is never losing sight of what inspires you. He enjoys filling his free time with reading, painting, and hiking mountains while approaching his work as a social entrepreneur with equal enthusiasm and curiosity: “For me entrepreneurship is an important tool to start up projects about things that I deeply care about.” Doing meaningful work provides “an intrinsic motivation and satisfaction,” he says.
Wietse cares deeply about harnessing the power of many people to make a difference in their communities. “The fact that you can rally an entire community around the same cause so everyone is unified towards the same goal is something I’m really passionate about,” Wietse says. Making the democratic process accessible to more people has been his goal as co-founder and CEO of CitizenLab. This “digital democracy platform” allows citizens to more fully participate in their government to “give a voice to citizens in the local policy making process,” explains Wietze.
Even as a university student, Wietse noticed a problem that demanded a solution. “I wanted to change some things in my neighborhood, and so did my co-founder Aline, but we couldn’t really find how to easily do that.” Wietse discovered that voicing an opinion – even in a democracy – can be challenging. “We could go to an open town hall meeting in our commune every Tuesday night, and then you get 30 seconds to share your idea,” he explained. “But that’s not the most transparent and collaborative way to actually make your voice heard as a citizen.”And so he set out to support the value of individual voices within a democratic government.
“We see that the way decisions are made is totally shifting.”
CitizenLab’s results make Wietse optimistic about the future of democracies. The platform is used by more than 275 governments in more than 18countries, as of 2021. He is delighted to see “a paradigm shift going on” in modern-day governments.“It used to be a very non-transparent process – a couple of people making most of the decisions and communicating them as a done deal,”
Wietse says. “The decision-making is slowly shifting to a more participatory process, and that’s something we absolutely want to contribute to.”Ultimately, Wietse believes CitizenLab is a tool that allows not only more voices to shape government policy, but more diverse voices to do so. He is reminded of this mission while walking around his hometown of Brussels which contains such diversity the city feels “like a mini cosmos in itself.” Through his ongoing work withCitizenLab, Wietse plans to continue“fostering more trust and facilitating dialogue so people from different backgrounds better understand each other.”
CitizenLab’s results make Wietse optimistic about the future of democracies. The platform is used by more than 275 governments in more than 18 countries, as of 2021. He is delighted to see “a paradigm shift going on” in modern-day governments. “It used to be a very non-transparent process – a couple of people making most of the decisions and communicating them as a done deal. The decision-making is slowly shifting to a more participatory process, and that’s something we absolutely want to contribute to.”
Ultimately, Wietse believes CitizenLab is a tool that allows not only more voices to shape government policy, but more diverse voices to do so. He is reminded of this mission while walking around his hometown of Brussels which contains such diversity the city feels “ like a mini cosmos in itself.” Through his ongoing work with CitizenLab, Wietse plans to continue “fostering more trust and facilitating dialogue so people from different backgrounds better understand each other.”
“My motto in life is actually very simple: “Just get started!"”