MIT Student Assembly

Tech-enhanced & Student-Focused Deliberative Assemblies

Pilots & Programs

Inspired by the proven model of Citizens’ Assemblies worldwide, CCC and DemocracyNext conceptualized, designed, and implemented the first of its kind tech-enhanced and student-focused version of a deliberative assembly in January 2024 and January 2025. The assembly harnessed powerful technologies to create positive, constructive, human-led systems.

Generative AI, Conversation Design, Conversation Facilitation, Youth Engagement, Youth Dialogue, Participatory Research, Deliberative Assembly, Deliberation
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Delegates interact with the data bar, which allowed for an immersive experience where they were able to see how and why researchers wished to use their audio data. Delegates were encouraged to engage with each prototype and ask questions about the purpose of each research project. Photo by Artemisia Luk.

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Collaborators

Professor Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou

Principal Research Scientist

Marina Rakhilin

Program Lead

Cassandra Lee

Research Designer

Maggie Hughes

PhD candidate

Daniel Kessler

PhD candidate

Cassandra Overney

PhD candidate

Michael Wong

Masters candidate

Shrestha Mohanty

Masters candidate

Professor Deb Roy

Director & Principal Investigator

Claudia Chwalisz

DemocracyNext Founder

‍Ieva Česnulaitytė

Project Advisor, DemocracyNext

2024 Student Assembly: AI & Education

In January 24, a dozen students gathered for a three-day Student Assembly to deliberate on ethical guidelines and regulations needed to govern the use of generative AI for faculty and students at MIT.

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2025 Student Assembly: Sustainability

In January 2025, nineteen undergraduate delegates came together for a three-day Student Assembly on Sustainability to learn, deliberate, and vote on a set of recommendations for the MIT Office of Sustainability.

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More Pilots & Programs

All Pilots & Programs

Anthology

An AI interface that turns raw conversation audio into interactive maps

Research

Communication, Conversation Visualization, Sensemaking, Data Visualization, Civic Engagement

Dialogue to Decision

An LLM-Powered Framework for Analyzing Collective Idea Evolution and Voting Dynamics in Deliberative Assemblies

Research

Large Language Model, Generative AI, Civic Engagement, Deliberative Assembly, Deliberation

Voice to Vision

Supporting decision makers in effective and efficient constituency-informed, AI-supported decision-making. Communicating how constituen...

Research

Communication, Sensemaking, Civic Engagement, Participatory Research, Deliberation

DisCourse

A curated social experience that transforms dinner between strangers into an opportunity to reimagine how we listen, speak, and share

Research

Conversation Facilitation, Civic Engagement, Listening, Design, Art

FRONTLINE Social Dialogue Network

Archived

Over 40 young people participated in a social listening experiment exploring how personal experiences build bridges to better understanding current events and creating mo

Pilots & Programs

Conversation Facilitation, Civic Engagement, Media Literacy, Journalism, Artificial Intelligence, Youth Engagement, Youth Dialogue, FRONTLINE PBS, Cortico

realtalk@Boston

A new civic infrastructure in Boston grounded in dialogue as a way to building “civic muscle” of democracy

Pilots & Programs

Research, Sensemaking, Conversation Facilitation, Participatory Research, Listening