Publication
Digital nations are embedded in a globally connected civilization largely supported by centralized technology mostly designed with an exported ideology. Our aim is to transform education to enable the conditions for regional innovation and sustainability. Engineering curriculums have a tendency to disassociate technology from politics, despite that responsible engineering requires an interdisciplinary perspective. The EPFL computer science bachelor course CS-234 has been offering a broad but hands-on introduction to technologies for human self-organization since 2019 once per year. Unique in its own, this course blends political and computer science while creating a coherent and interdisciplinary narrative for the younger generation, i.e., connecting the dots between the evolution of governance, historical roots of democracy and design choices in state-of-the-art technologies for organization. Whereas democracy is not a technology in the conventional sense of hardware and digital software, it can be thought of as a form of social technology that structures how societies operate and make decisions. We argue that education cannot disengage technology from politics. Educational programs that blend technology and politics may enable a path for responsible engineering the digital infrastructures that will take us from a less desirable to a preferred digital nation. We share our experience with the course CS-234 and suggest improvements based on teaching experiences and students' feedback. We believe that an interdisciplinary and evolving curriculum can help addressing some of the complex challenges that future engineers will have to face. Yet, many questions remain unanswered.