In this edition of REWIRE Democracy, we’re spotlighting Hope Box: a creative, citizen-led campaign from Hungary that uses AI-generated imagery to bring hopeful visions of the future to life.
Hope Box is one of three civil-society-led projects that were developed, tested, and supported through the Rewire your mind, Rewire your county hope-based mindset shift incubator (REWIRE Incubator) for rising civil society leaders.
Through neuroscience, creativity, and collaboration, the REWIRE Incubator provides training and support in neuroscience, entrepreneurship, and creativity to help activists come up with and test innovative solutions to the most pressing issues and challenges affecting democracy.
At its core, REWIRE is about shifting mindsets. Instead of reacting to crisis after crisis, what happens when we focus on what we want to build?
The Hope Box prototype shows what the future can look like, literally.
Hope Box: Reimagining democracy, one image at a time
‘If you had a magic wand, what would you change in the world around you?’
This question was posed to participants at a REWIRE Incubator workshop in 2024, and inspired one participant to think bigger: “What if we could actually design the future we want to live in?”
Co-led by two Hungarian participants of the REWIRE Incubator, Dr. Fanni Mátyók (lawyer and founder of children’s rights organisation WellBee), and Ágnes Bardócz (community organiser with Civil College Foundation (CKA)), Hope Box is a participatory visual storytelling campaign that invites citizens to imagine their ideal future—and see the vision come to life.
Using an online form or by submitting photos and drawings, participants from across Hungary were invited to describe what they hope for the future. Fanni and Ágnes then turned those visions into AI-generated images, creating a powerful gallery of imagined tomorrows.
“We see people frozen in apathy,” says Fanni. “But when you visualize something hopeful—and see that others share your vision—you realise you’re not alone. That’s powerful.”
Hear more from Fanni Matyok, one of the creators of Hope Box:
☀️ Why hope, not fear?
In Hungary, and across much of Europe and beyond, civil society spaces are shrinking and political polarization is on the rise. That’s why Hope Box is deliberately framed as an invitation to imagine, not as a warning about what might go wrong.
“Hate can activate nothing but hate,” Ágnes says. “We already know how these hateful messages work here in Hungary, this is the second decade of this kind of communication going on right now. We’ve experienced it, and now I see that we must avoid it, and do something totally else.”
(Learn more about the power of hope in civil society)
We have seen this play out time and again in many countries in recent years, not just Hungary. Driven by a stream of negative news—some real, some imagined and pushed for political ends—people feel the political and economic system is not working for them.
This has created a sense of helplessness which in turn draws people to easy answers from the extremes. The solution to this is not to ape the populist rhetoric but present a parallel positive vision of what society can be.
🧠 The science behind imagination
It is easy, as activists and engaged citizens, to concentrate on protesting against what populist leaders are saying rather than demonstrating what we actually want instead. However, it’s been proven that fighting against populist narratives ends up only reinforcing them.
(Learn more about the power of narrative change here)
Indeed, so much of civil society’s time is spent saying what we don’t want, that it’s sometimes hard to imagine what we do want. And it is much harder to work toward your goals when you don’t know what they are.
That is why we need to create new images—based on our collective vision for the future—to enforce, which then can unite and motivate us.
💡 Innovative ideas for democratic participation
The co-creators of Hope Box explain that their concept is based on these neuroscientific principles: that when we picture only negative futures, we trigger fear-based thinking. But hopeful visions engage parts of the brain responsible for conscious reflection and action—the foundation of civic engagement.
“Without a vision, you don’t do things, you just live,” says Fanni. “But if you have a vision, then you are more likely to take steps toward that vision.”
The hypothesis of Hope Box, which Fanni and Ágnes have tested across Hungary, is that a creative and participatory process of envisioning a hopeful future can activate and strengthen individuals’ ability to imagine positive change in their communities. And when we are able to imagine these futures, it makes it more likely that we’ll be able to act on them.
“The brain responds more strongly to images. If you can actually see a hopeful future, you’re more likely to believe in it, and act on it.”
“We learned through the REWIRE Incubator that the brain responds more strongly to images. If you can actually see a hopeful future, you’re more likely to believe in it, and act on it,” says Ágnes.
She adds: “Democracy isn’t just a word, it’s a verb. It only exists when we do it. And if people stay frozen in hopelessness, democracy doesn’t happen. It has to be built.”
🇭🇺 What Hungarians want for their future
From the visions submitted to the project, Fanni and Ágnes developed 31 AI-generated images to present during a community event that marked the end of the testing phase.
And from these images, the project leads were able to see five main themes surface—a snapshot of what people really want for their communities:
Child-centered education & inclusive decision-making
Accessible, high-quality healthcare focused on prevention
Green, human-centered cities and villages
Solidarity, equity, and inclusion
Everyday heroes and active citizenship
Some of the most powerful images which fell under the theme of solidarity, equity, and inclusion, were submitted around the time the Budapest Pride March was banned, lending an even deeper urgency and meaning. The images reflect real tensions and real acts of resistance.
“Maybe we sometimes feel that this nation is divided, but at the end of the day we want very similar things.”
This was one of the most powerful results from the project. Fanni says that it was a good reminder for them, that “maybe we sometimes feel that this nation is divided, but at the end of the day we want very similar things.”
👀 What’s next for Hope Box?
The idea behind Hope Box—based in neuroscience, creativity, and innovation—ended up becoming a powerful tool, a mirror, reflecting the shared desires of the participants.
Fanni and Ágnes hope to grow the project in several directions. Because they found that Hope Box has the power to build community and bring people together, and works very well in group settings, the leaders are interested in bringing the tool to workshops where participants can co-create visual prompts and see the results in real time.
The concept could also be applied internally at an organisational level, as a tool to help pro-democracy NGOs think positively and strengthen their ‘hope muscles’ in the face of mounting challenges from hostile state actors.
The leaders are interested in collecting even more submissions from across Hungary and developing a manifesto which showcases what individuals around the country truly want for their future. That clarity into peoples’ hopes has the potential to fuel future civic engagement, including mobilizing voters ahead of Hungary’s 2026 elections.
What began as a question in a workshop is now a true model for hope-based action. And the team has hopes to continue sharing this hope and action far beyond Hungary, as well.
Share this newsletter with your network to spread the hope.
✊ Lessons for civil society
Hope Box is more than a campaign, it’s proof of concept. If there are two main lessons that civil society can learn from this project, it would be:
Have the freedom to fail: Because innovation, experimentation, and creativity are at the heart of the REWIRE Incubator, the three different prototype teams were given space, time, and funding to test out their idea. Perhaps most crucially, they had the freedom to fail: an option too often lacking in the resource-starved civil society sector.
And use new, creative tools: Hope Box’s use of AI makes the case for its use in civil society work. At a time when we’re wary and afraid of it, they have figured out a way to embrace it for good. Curiosity and creativity are part of civil society too, and it serves as a low-cost, accessible, and visually compelling tool.
Hope Box isn’t just a beautiful idea, it’s a reminder that civil society needs innovation and imagination more than ever.
Ágnes leaves us with these powerful words: “We invite people to live in democracy, not just survive in autocracy.”
Want to bring more hope to your community?
💡 Get in touch with the creators of Hope Box and follow along their journey here.
💌 Share this post with anyone working in civil society who could use a bit more hope.
📌 Subscribe to the REWIRE Democracy newsletter to learn more about the two other prototypes in the coming weeks:
Impossible Conversations, a guidebook for tackling polarization
CrossCover, a youth-led magazine for reimagining narratives
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