It has been a pleasure for me to preside over the tribunal that has assessed the thesis “A model of governance for eDemocracy processes based on a blockchain neural network” presented by Dr. Francisco Luis Benítez Martínez and directed by Drs. María Visitación Hurtado Torres and Esteban Romero Frías, at the University of Granada.

This study has been inspired by the need to establish a new technological framework for electronic democracy spaces (eDemocracy), in order to develop new governance processes and new empowerment tools for the citizen. To this end, the potential of blockchain technology has been used to design new processes and tools of eParticipation.

A bottom-up model is proposed, to be driven by local administrations. It is a SaaS (Software as a System) model relying on the construction of public clouds to facilitate its scalability and deployment.

The objective of the presented research work is the creation of an eParticipation tool based on a BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) solution, called VoteKeeper designed as a tokenized reputation and citizen reward model, to be used by the local administration. The solution allows for full transparency in processes, guarantees the privacy of the choices made and enables new spaces for citizen empowerment.

A very interesting and innovative project that will undoubtedly have a great impact. It is a reference in this field.