Charley Weber Portfolio

Direct democracy app, developed for students. Citizen to Citizen technology.

The power of numbers and flocking in nature is a fascinating phenomenon. My suspicion is that this kind of social model may be one of the few scalable tools available to citizens and communities to counter emerging, potentially destabilising threats from the new imbalance in wealth and power.

The Agent Starling App is a working Beta model. You can sign up, look around, join other people flocking around key issues of the day or create your own for others to interact with. If you request a change, I will try to add it. A new feature I’ve added is social media functionality, the ability to upload images as well as comment on the various flocks, so it’s more than just a reflection of the data or numbers associated with ‘flocking’ issues.

The basis for creating the app is the lack of direct democratic say in shaping public policy, reflected in the public’s growing mistrust of politics, which communities and the public have in organising and communicating their own grassroots agendas. Perhaps due to increasingly centralised political parties, the power of lobbies, corporate press, or the otherwise mainly profit-motivated corporations, like the disastrous privatisation costs and pricing effects of UK water and rail networks.

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I am really a film, writing and music creative, more than a programmer or app maker. However, since taking a Master’s of Research in Digital Arts & Tech, I have been developing my interactive and low/no-code skills. Although I have a game called Paparrazi Sharks, where the user gets to shoot up paparazzi with paintball guns on a night out, rather than traditional shoot ’em ups, my personal interest is in exploring reality in creation and nature, to use that as social and behavioural modelling, rather than gaming; things like interactive documentaries and apps.

The App, Agent Starling, is based on the democratic principles I admire, which have shaped me since attending Summerhill, the democratic school founded by A.S. Neill. So in that spirit, the app is about raising citizen-to-citizen concerns around issues. In the app I call these ‘flocking issues’, which when signed-up members can follow, add comments or research to and interact with.

Are you able to sign up, look around, join a flock and add comments or your own flocking issue?

You can login, signup and look around here: https://agent-starling-v2-9c027427.base44.app

There are a couple of other apps I’ve made, one an app model for a local young adults training centre, Eat That Frog and the other an app which was part my thesis project: Pathways to creating apps for non-fiction books. Which you can see here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r2axqAY_hlppEyD6E_6YYanfBNwhFvCx4QdrrpyHBJo/edit?usp=drivesdk

For now as a Beta model, you should be able to log on, join or create a flock, have a look around and post your impressions, thoughts or any initial feedback below the issues and flocks.

Thank you!

Contact: weberc65@gmail.com