Sessions & agenda

Citizen 2026 | Full event info and sign-up

Session 1: Who owns the communication?

The strategic case for independence

For years, the question of whether municipalities should rely on Meta and X felt theoretical. That is changing. Across the Nordics and beyond, public institutions are quietly - and sometimes not so quietly - asking whether platforms they don't control are the right foundation for citizen communication.

Astrid Haug has been making this argument in Scandinavia longer than most. She will set the strategic and democratic stakes.
Anette Dey has led it in practice, driving a fundamental shift in how Bydel Frogner in Oslo communicates with its residents.
Ola Gäverth brings a rare double lens - years in public service media, now inside a municipality - on what it means to be the one responsible for the channel.

Session 2: From broadcasting to dialogue

Co-creating communication with the community

Public sector communication is shifting, from broadcasting to facilitating direct engagement with citizens. But creating dialogue through these channels is not as straightforward as launching new platforms or channels. Research on digital citizen participation shows that digital platforms rarely generate engagement on their own. Instead, they often become isolated or used in ways that reproduce existing bureaucratic routines; prioritising control, predictability, and internal processes over openness and interaction.

When municipalities invite citizens into their digital channels, communication has the potential to become something fundamentally different, but also more complex. Dialogue requires not only new tools, but new ways of working: the ability to listen without predefined answers, to integrate citizen input into decision-making, and to handle uncertainty and loss of control. This session explores why this shift is difficult in practice, and what it takes to move from digital channels as distribution platforms to digital spaces for genuine, co-created dialogue .

With Pascal Tshibanda - Head of Communications at Norrköping Municipality, and Petra Sintorn - Head of Unit at Botkyrka Municipality and doctoral researcher in public sector digital transformation.

Moving from one-way information to genuine two-way communication. What does it take in practice, and what changes when residents become part of the process?

Session 3: When it really matters

Communication in crisis

Anna Teljfors, Edvard Unsgaard and Varg Gyllander come to this session from different angles, but they are circling the same question: why do some organisations communicate clearly when it counts, and others don't?

Anna works at the Swedish Civil Defence and Resilience Agency (MCF) and co-authored If the Crisis or War Comes — the guide that has become a reference point for how Nordic municipalities approach crisis communication. She brings a decade of building Sweden's preparedness infrastructure from the inside.

Edvard and Varg are the founders of Unsgaard & Gyllander. Between them, they have spent years on both sides of the crisis: covering it as journalists, navigating it as press advisors, and preparing organisations for it as practitioners. In this session, they will share two concrete frameworks - the Pixel Method and SOS - that give communicators something practical to bring back to their organisation.

Session 4: Agile innovation and the new technology landscape

Doing more with what you have - without losing control of what matters

The pace of change in digital tools has left a lot of municipalities in an uncomfortable position: the technology moves faster than procurement cycles, AI is reshaping what's possible overnight, and the gap between what residents expect and what organisations dare to implement keeps growing.

This session is not about moving fast. It is about moving with confidence — knowing when to act, what to protect, and how to launch something real without waiting for conditions that may never be perfect.

Kjell-Vidar Åhman Teig and Morten Holst from Innocode bring the practitioner perspective: what it actually takes to build and launch in the public sector today — under real constraints on stability, GDPR, and accessibility.
Lars Petter Kjær leads communication and digitalisation at Sandefjord Municipality — and brings the view from the other side of the table.

A practical session on innovation that doesn't ask you to ignore the things that matter.

Workshop Morning, 10:00–13:00

The second day is an optional bonus, for those who have the time - and would like to get into operative details - learning from each other.

Hands-on and practitioner-led. You choose your track across two rounds of workshops, depending on where your municipality is in its journey.
For those just getting started, there's a guided session on the key decisions you need to make, how to structure your content, and how to get the first residents on board. For those further along, peer learning sessions with municipalities who have been running a citizen app for a while — what content gets opened, what gets ignored, and how to build a rhythm that lasts.
There's also a rapid innovation workshop led by Morten Holst and Kjell-Vidar Åhman Teig — you bring a real problem from your municipality and work through a prototyping process together. The goal is a testable concept by lunchtime. No technical background needed.

More speakers and session details to be announced!

CITIZEN 2026

Speakers and panelists

We are gathering the strongest voices in Nordic and European public sector-communication. Names and descriptions are updated continously, as we agree with new speakers!

All contributors here

When & where

Thursday September 17, 2026 at 9:00 - 16:00
Where: Sveasalen, c/o United Spaces, Sveavägen 34, Stockholm - ten minutes walk from Stockholm Central Station
Or, remote attendance, by stream/video - link distributed on sign-up
Afternoon program: Networking + drinks for a couple of hours from 16:00

Registration open now

Our goal is to make this accessible - we're focused on covering costs for the event, not making profit.

What does it cost

Full-day experience in Stockholm - including networking, lunch, and optional evening program: 1500 SEK for Innocode clients & 2000 SEK for non-clients
Digital participation - including all speakers and recording: 1000 SEK.
Practical workshop program, Friday morning - included for all visitors in Stockholm who wish to attend.
Overview, all sessions and the full agenda here.

For payments/invoicing - we will be in touch.