We conceptualize, design and build stratgies and products for civic engagement: tools and platforms to help citizens and organizations interact better with the world around us.
Populate is founded by Álvaro Ortiz and Fernando Blat. We have been working togehter for more than 15 years in different projects: offering business consultancy to big cos; creating online spaces for millions of users; defining and launching startups; organizing events and participating in communities. We got together again in 2015 to create Populate. We have great transparency and participation experts in Spain and Latin America as advisors.
Halfway between activism and consultancy, we are a proffesional services firm with numerous projects around civic engagement.
These are some of the things we created in past lifes
We created Actuable, the petitions portal which grew to +1 million members in less than a year since launch. We deployed the first version within 3 weeks and we evolved the project until it was acquired by Change.org, world leader.
We were part of the team that conceptualized and defined Irekia, a pioneer open government portal created by the Basque Country in Spain. We developed the interaction model that articulated citizen participation facilitating processes, information architecture, and tools.
We organized AbreDatos, the biggest open data hackathon in Spain. We started up the event with a team of volunteers from idea to execution. We engaged hundreds of participants, along with private companies and public administrations.
We created what was the biggest blogging community in Spain and Latin America when blogs thanks to a tool designed with the user in mind, and not as technical as what was the norm at the time (around 2005).
We created Populate to be able to work with a proffesional structure in issues that interest us: transparency, participation, data, civic engagement, media... There is a global issue that modulates many of the things we do: to foster a culture of critic use of data by citizens. Take a look at the projects we have done recently.
A potential client once asked how we worked. This was our reply. Ask anything more you need.
Do you have a project you think we might help with? Tell us: what you need, when, how we fit in, what is your budget range...
Write: [email protected]
Call: +34650552940 -- Álvaro Ortiz
Visit: C/ Meléndez Valdés, 47 · 28015 Madrid · Spain </div>
Would you like to work with us? Write us to [email protected] and tell us why ;) We'll post here open positions, although we are always on the look for Ruby On Rails devs, designers, data visualization geeks...
