Mr. Simon Delakorda
Director of the Institute for Electronic Participation, Slovenia

Short Biography

Simon Delakorda, M.Sc., (1978) is a full time eDemocracy / eParticipation practitioner & researcher and founding director of the Institute for Electronic Participation in Ljubljana (www.inepa.eu).

Starting in 2000, he participated in an early internet democracy projects within university and NGO's sector in Slovenia. He is an author and co-author of articles and case studies and conference speaker on democracy, political participation, active citizenship, non-governmental organizations and governments on-line.

He received political science B.Sc. degree on e-democracy in 2002 and M.Sc. degree on e-participation in 2009. Currently, he is Ph.D. student of Social Informatics at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana.

He worked as an e-democracy course associate and researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana, as co-founder and head of the Centre of Electronic Democracy at the Institute of Ecology and as an e-democracy associate at the Arctur IT Company Ltd. During 2006-2007 he coordinated and managed the E-participacija web portal and facilitated the first successful e-democracy project in Slovenia - the Citizen's Forum. In 2007 he founded the Institute for Electronic Participation (INePA).

His current projects and research focus include political informatics, democratic challenges of digital society, e-participation at the EU level and civil society e-democracy. His memberships include the Slovenian Political Science Association, Demonet: the eParticipation network of Excellence, CEE CN eParticipation experts group and Association of the Slovene NGO's managers. He received awards and experts recognitions as an e-democracy student, expert and facilitator.