Hello, Ted!

Yes, the Pribram Conference 1998 was a big succes, mainly thanks to you. It was on your recommendation that 31 prominent DD people coming from all continents except Africa, gathered in a small Czech town near Prague. Without the happy coincidence that brought my tentative proposal to your attention, the conference would have been a failure. That conference has already become historical owing to the mention in your book The Future of Teledemocracy.

We had one more conference of this type in 2000 (Greece). Since then, several DD conferences were organized by the NDDIE, IRI-Europe and Mehr Demokratie, but their scope was limited to Europe and I&R. I agree with you that deliberation must be included in the democratic process to transform the existing systems into true democracies. The coming Prague conference (September 2005) will do that, as evident from the program proposed by Lee. Even if, for economic reasons, we shall probably not be so many this time, I am confident that we shall take a new step on our way toward DD. Letīs stay in touch!

Sincerely,
Jiri