Democrata –– Big Talks. Simple Stats.
by YA-DK-3
The following blog post is a concept description of the team YA-DK-3 as part of
the Next Generation Digital Action course. In close collaboration with the Ghana
Statistical Service, Parliament of Ghana, Danish Embassy to Ghana and the two
Danish universities RUC, as well as DTU, we had the great opportunity to
analyze the current system. With all this support we developed a multilayered
concept, which unites data infrastructure, user experience and a future vision
of a digitalized, approachable democracy.
The Transparency Trap
The Parliament of Ghana is documenting all sessions held and creates detailed
records called Hansards. For now these documents are overwhelming PDF files
with limited searchability and a high accessibility barrier. The sheer endless
amount of text-heavy pages can be off-putting for people interested in debates
or democratic processes.
Moreover, Ghana has developed vision of the country as a hub for digitalization
and future technologies. The country is among the ones with the highest
mobile phone ownership rates *Q*, although the current statistical service
system is not focused on the use of mobile devices. In combination with a lack
of standardization it would be a missed opportunity to tap the full potential.
More descriptions of the systemic/infrastructure issues (Rago, Che)
Democracy, Designed Differently
In order to achieve a profound improvement for all citizen, the areas of
opportunity were divided into three sequential phases.
First, standardization and predefinitions for a resilient infrastructure are
imperative in developing a well-working, impactful solution. This part also
shapes the foundation for future extensions and further technological
implementations as well as innovations.
Second, for making statistical data more engaging for citizen, a well thought-
through interface in perfect symbiosis with low-barrier user experience is
crucial. Therefore, a deep-dive into best practices around the globe informed
the development of the perceptive system.
Third, in order to point out future opportunities an array of different concepts
hints the vast pool of possibilities and highlights the importance of diverseprospects of how to foster civic engagement in democratic processes.
Foundations of Functionality
More from Rago and Che
Designing for Everyone
Developing the frontend was driven by research into best practices and a clear
values. Considerations for universal design and continuous reflection as well as
interaction with direct stakeholders shaped every single iteration. The concept
of a mobile app/website includes an AI system that draws connections between
all documents in the parliamentary digital data bank all available metadata. A
user simply either browses the preset statistics published by GSS or chats with
an incorporated AI assistant which can precisely answer ones questions and
create exciting visuals or charts. (More from me)
Democracies Possibilia
„Don’t go where the path may lead, go instead where is no path and leave a
trail.“ This saying is the manifestation of the sheer endless realm of
opportunities ahead. The predefinitions of the the system fosters an effortless
implementation of innovative ideas in the future. Just imagine an AI system
which automatically follows debates and creates perfectly personalized insights
for whoever might need them. Or the prospect of an interactive device mounted
in the parliaments foyer, giving detailed information to a visiting school class.
Democrata Platform
Three Layer Architecture Overview
A Data Layer (Backend)
Components:
Data Ingestion pipline
Converts Harzards (PDFs) to structured data ( via NLP + OCR).
ETL process for integrating the Ghana statistical service ( GSS datasets).
Centralized Data warehouse (PostregSQL or BigQuery)
Stores cleaned and structured parliamentary data, statistics and metadata
Metadata layer and semantic indexing
Enables cross-referencing between documents using LLM-based vector search.
Technologies:
Apache Airflow for data pipeline orchestration.
Python/NLP libraries: spaCy, LangChain, Tesseract (OCR).
Weaviate or FAISS for vector based semantic search.
B. Application Layer (APIs and AI Engine)
Components:
Restful APIs (Nordejs or FastAPI)
Serve frontend queries for stats, search, documents, and charts.
AI assistant engine
Chatbots using LLMs (e.g, GPT or open source LLMs (with RAG pipeline)
Redis for Catching query results
Docker for containerization.
C. Presentation Layer (Frontend)
Components:
Mobile-first Progressive Web App (PWA)
Interfaces for browsing, querying data, and interacting with AI assistant
Accessibility features (voice interface, dark mode, low-data mode).
User Flows:
Browse GSS-published statistics
Ask AI assistant questions about parliamentary debates or legislation
Explore charts and visuals based on real-time data
Technologies:
React.js / Vue.js frontend
Tailwind CSS for design
Speech-to-text API for accessibility (e.g., Web Speech API)
Implementation Plan
Infrastructure and standardization (3 to 4 months)
Define metadata schemas for Hazards and statistical data.
Build ETL pipelines for:
Converting Hazards from PDF to structured format.
Ingesting GSS datasets
Setup secure cloud-based data warehouse.
Develop API end points for documents and metadata access.
Phase 2: AI assistant and front-end development (3 to 5 months)
Train of fine tune LLM with:
Parliamentary records
GSS documentation
develop front end with PWA (mobile first) with intuitive UX
Integrate AI assistant with chatbot interface
implements search, chart generation and accessibility features.
Phase 3: Future innovations and community tools (ongoing)
Ideas:
Real time debate summarization and alerts.
personalized digest of parliament activities.
School friendly educational interface (mobile)
public feedback channels on bills/debates.
Foster civic tech ecosystem via public APIs and open data initiatives.
Security and Compliance
Ensure data privacy by anonymizing sensitive information.
HTTPS and OAuth2 for secure data access.
Comply with data Ghana data protection Act and Global standards.