I was invited by ECAS - European Citizen Action Service to take part in a short hackathon in Leuven.

Over the weekend, 27 of us gathered, we were randomly assigned to teams of three, and began developing ideas that could strengthen democracy through design and technology.

Working with Sebnem Yardimci-Geyikci , who brought deep insights about political parties, and Pavel Ruzyak, who grounded the reality of democratic inclusion for impaired people, expanded my perspective on how much work still needs to be done — and where the high-leverage points for change might be.

For most of my life, I saw political parties as the definition of what’s wrong with politics — closed-access clubs, murky rules, hardcore populism, etc.

But this weekend made me see something else:
Parties still hold real power, and that makes them the most underused institutions of democracy. They could become bridges that empower citizens, educate communities, and meet people where they are.

That’s how OpenParty was born.

OpenParty connects impaired youth who want to organize events — like a 19-year-old visually impaired student hosting a small meetup about accessibility — with political parties whose values align.

For Adam, it’s an inclusive tool to create, be visible, and bring others together.
For parties, it’s an opportunity to listen, support, and reconnect — not through campaigns, but through participation in community life.

Designing for visually, hearing, and mentally impaired people challenged me to think differently.

How can someone organize if they can’t see, hear, or process complex interfaces easily?

It meant creating audio-first interactions using ElevenLabs agentic voice SDKs, text-first flows for hearing-impaired users, and step-by-step logic for mental accessibility — avoiding overwhelm, and ensuring confidence at every stage.

OpenParty is about building a tool that empowers those who are often forgotten — to participate in democracy their way.

I wouldn’t have been able to design and code this live demo without Cursor and Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5, and Figma.
These technologies helped me turn this idea into functional prototypes within hours!

Will this idea work? Who knows.

Ultimately, I’m in love with the problem - How do we make BETTER decisions together?
This is just one of the ways it could happen.