Upcoming gathering, 19 Nov – Defending democracy defenders: Cybersecurity for civic tech projects
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Come along to this TICTeC gathering to hear the latest techniques to help civic and pro-democracy tech projects protect their services, data and users.
We’ll cover specific internet freedom tools, how they’re being tested and integrated amongst pro-democracy actors globally, as well as the challenges of sustaining protection.
Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/defending-democracy-defenders-cybersecurity-for-civic-tech-projects-tickets-1934591628639?aff=coppage
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From Digital Public Infrastructure to Democratic Public Infrastructure
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At this TICTeC community gathering, we discussed if DPI can, and should, go beyond better service delivery, to provide opportunities for citizens to fully participate in their democracies.
Speakers: Richard Gevers (Head of Service Design and Delivery at the Digital Services Unit of The Presidency South Africa) and Sanna-Kaisa Saloranta (Specialist in the Democratic Innovations programme at Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund).
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Leveraging content creators for mobilizing voters
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Slides from Ana Arevadze (ForSet, Georgia)’s talk about their work with social media influencers to inform and educate Georgian youth on voting and democratic information.
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Beyond websites: How pro-democracy projects reach their audiences
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At this TICTeC gathering, we heard directly from practitioners running civic and pro-democracy tech initiatives from across the world.
They shared the strategies they’re using to reach people where they are, ensure their services remain accessible and relevant, and find new ways to track impact in this changing digital landscape.
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Putting transparency to the test: evaluating FOI in practice
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An ATI Community of Practice meeting to learn how we can effectively evaluate the implementation of Access to Information legislation.
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Keynote address: Reclaiming democratic technology governance for our society
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As a global society, we are navigating a delicate line between the good that tech can do for democracy, and the dangers of letting self-interested tech giants dominate the field. It serves us to examine how authoritarian regimes are using tech, and to ask, can democracies reclaim sovereignty and stand up for the interests of citizens?
Watch Marietje Schaake (Stanford Cyber Policy Center, Institute for Human-Centered AI, Financial Times)’s TICTeC 2025 keynote address.
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Empowering civic engagement: leveraging Ushahidi for transparent and inclusive electoral monitoring and governance
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Hear Rhoda Omenya (Ushahidi) explain how Uchaguzi empowers citizens to report incidents during elections, enabling the monitoring of election-related events in near real-time.
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The future of tech, the future of TICTeC: Navigating AI in Pro-Democracy Tech
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As the rapid development of AI reshapes how societies function, how should the civic and pro-democracy tech communities respond? Join mySociety’s CEO, Programme Leads, and special guests for a lively and interactive discussion on striking the right balance between automation and human agency in pro-democracy tech—and how TICTeC initiatives might help shape this critical frontier going forwards.
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The current state of open government and digital transparency in the Netherlands
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In this TICTeC 2025 presentation, discover three of Open State Foundation’s most impactful pro-democracy projects in the Netherlands, including a search tool to make documents of all levels of government more findable; research on late responses to Access to Information requests; and open calendars of ministerial meetings that anyone can subscribe to.
MyMzansi: building South Africa’s democratic digital public infrastructure
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In his TICTeC 2025 presentation, Richard Gevers (Open Cities Lab) gives practical insights from South Africa’s groundbreaking Digital Mzansi initiative — a comprehensive programme to transform government service delivery through democratic Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI). Hear of the concrete progress that has been made, and plans for building open, inclusive digital systems that reach millions of citizens.
Directions for ‘civic social media’: designing and managing trusted online community spaces
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Recent developments at Facebook and X have shown the need for ‘civic social media’ platforms — thriving and trusted digital meeting spaces that allow communities to safely meet, without economic exploitation or the fear of harassment. What does it take to design and manage such sites?
In this TICTeC 2025 presentation by Eva Oosterlaken (Futurall / Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences), hear an overview of civic social media use cases, the implications for public organisations, a series of design principles to actualise them, and a peek into the future by means of a road map.
How do you know if your work is making an impact?
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mySociety and OpenUp worked closely with SPOON and the Átlátszónet Foundation, both organisations focus on improving access to government information, to explore a critical but often overlooked question: How do you know if your projects are actually making a difference?
In this insightful TICTeC session, SPOON and the Átlátszónet Foundation share their hands-on experiences, practical methodologies, and key findings from their efforts to —for the first time— track and measure the impact of their projects.
Using civic tech to supercharge lobbying transparency
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Discover Open Access, the tool from Transparency International which makes lobbying data in the UK more accessible to all. Within the area of climate, analysis shows patterns of lobbying by fossil fuel companies.
Learn how the tool uncovered this — and how to conduct a similar analysis around your own interests, in this TICTeC 2025 presentation by Rose Whiffen from Transparency International UK.
Civic tech for investigative impact: how data-driven journalism strengthens transparency and democracy
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Discover the measurable impact of civic tech to enhance transparency, accountability, and environmental protection, and how investigative journalism can utilise data tools to drive democratic outcomes.
As shared by Reinaldo Chaves from the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism in his TICTeC 2025 presentation, case studies involving Brazilian journalists show how by connecting disparate datasets, patterns of corruption, environmental violations, and misuse of public resources can be uncovered.
Q&A for ‘Democratic transparency and parliamentary monitoring’ TICTeC 2025 session
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Question and answer session for the presenters of the following TICTeC 2025 presentations:
– The impact of the Promise Tracker tool – Gitungo Wamere and Caroline Gaita (Mzalendo Trust, Kenya)
– Impacts of parliamentary monitoring in Spain – Celia Zafra and Pablo Martín (Political Watch, Spain)
– Tainan City Council Watchbot: empowering informed citizens through AI – Billy Zhe-Wei Lin (Tainan Sprout, Taiwan)
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Tainan City Council Watchbot: empowering informed citizens through AI
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The Tainan City Council WatchBot uses the proceedings released by Tainan City Council to train its AI-powered system to analyse and respond to questions about the council’s proceedings. It provides a user-friendly interface that guides citizens to quickly find answers, accompanied by relevant meeting sources to support traceability — and is all open source.
Billy Zhe-Wei Lin from Tainan Sprout explains more in this TICTeC 2025 presentation.
What MPs really do: turning data into democratic power in Spain
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‘Qué Hacen Los Diputados’ (What MPs Do) addresses gaps in parliamentary transparency and accountability, addressing a persistent reality: public institutions often lag in transparency and accountability without citizen pressure. The project organises parliamentary data in an accessible, user-friendly format — invaluable for citizens, journalists, researchers, and civil society, and fostering informed participation.
Hear more in this TICTeC 2025 presentation by Celia Zafra and
Pablo Martín from Political Watch, Spain.
The impact of the Promise Tracker tool
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The Promise Tracker from Mzalendo Trust, launched in 2023, tracks government and opposition promises to enhance accountability and foster participatory democracy.
Hear more about its impact in this TICTeC 2025 presentation by Mzalendo Trust’s Gitungo Wamere and Caroline Gaita.
Q&A for ‘Tech for deliberation and participation’ TICTeC 2025 session
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Question and answer session for the presenters of the following TICTeC 2025 presentations:
– Waves: trialling a new AI-powered digital deliberation process to strengthen trust in local government – Miriam Levin (Demos, UK)
– Why consultation matters: the impact of 10 million voices – Louise Cato and Jessie Ashmore (Delib, UK)
– Polis: Updates and impacts – Colin Megill (Polis / The Computational Democracy Project, US)
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Pol.is 2.0 sneak preview
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Polis is a real-time system for gathering, analyzing and understanding what large groups of people think in their own words, enabled by advanced statistics and machine learning. Polis has been used all over the world by governments, academics, independent media and citizens.
Co-founder Colin Megill chose TICTeC 2025 to launch Polis 2.0 – find out more in this presentation.
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Why consultation matters: the impact of 10 million voices
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Public consultation is often seen as a bureaucratic exercise: a checkbox for government departments and public sector organisations to tick — but the reality is far more profound. Through Delib’s decades of experience of powering some of the biggest national conversations, they’ve seen how meaningful consultation fundamentally changes policy outcomes and strengthens democratic decision-making.
Hear more in this TICTeC 2025 presentation from Louise Cato and
Jessie Ashmore (Delib, UK).
Waves: trialling a new AI-powered digital deliberation process to strengthen trust in local government
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Demos is leading the largest trial of digital democracy in the UK. Waves is a €1 million project trialling new technology in local democracy to bring people together to tackle contentious local issues and strengthen trust in local government.
Hear more in this TICTeC 2025 presentation by Miriam Levin.
Growing the Open Society: Tech and democratic innovation
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Can tech strengthen democracy by making new approaches possible? This TICTeC 2025 panel explores the constructive possibilities of tech and democracy, to build the capacity of the engine of democratic progress, increase democratic trust and resilience, and strengthen the heartbeat of civic and democratic life.
Panellists:
– Louise Crow (mySociety)
– Colin Megill (Polis / The Computational Democracy Project)
– Fernanda Campagnucci (InternetLab & University of Muenster)
– Lula Chen (MIT GOV/LAB)
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Keynote TICTeC 2025: A stronger democracy – through data, information and technology
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What is made possible by new forms of technology — especially in the civic participation space — and what needs to happen to make those possibilities a reality? Tech innovations are making political participation easier and more accessible across the globe, while open data and access to information continue to play a vital part in strengthening our democracies. In her TICTeC 2025 keynote address, Fernanda Campagnucci (InternetLab & University of Muenster) will draw on her latest research as lead of the State Capacity in Smart Cities for Online Participation (SCOPE) project.
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Welcome to TICTeC day two
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mySociety’s Chief Executive Louise Crow opens day two of TICTeC 2025 by asking, “what is the work we are called upon to engage in now?”
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Localised agenda alerts create engaged, informed citizens
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Public meetings are an important part of democracy, but they are not always well-attended. Creating localised and real-time agenda alerts allows people to be engaged, informed citizens.
In this TICTeC 2025 presentation by Julia McKenna (Northwestern University, US) and Alex Cabral (Georgia Tech, US), learn how one Indigenous nation is employing natural language processing to uphold sovereignty and rights in the 21st century.
Making Pakistan’s constitution accessible through AI
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What if anyone could understand their constitutional rights by simply asking questions in their own language? Numainda, Code for Pakistan’s AI-powered legislative bot, turns this possibility into reality by breaking down the country’s constitution and legislation into clear, actionable information in both Urdu and English.
Find out more in Ali Raza’s TICTeC 2025 presentation.
Q&A for ‘Fostering usage of pro-democracy technology’ TICTeC 2025 session
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Question and answer session for the presenters of the following TICTeC 2025 presentations:
– Changing the argument for using civic technology – Rodney Schwartz (Delib, UK)
– Solving climate data deserts on the municipal level: Climate Diaries– Giulio Carvalho (Diários do Clima, Brazil)
– Dream Con: how civic tech puts citizens at the centre of constitutional reform – Thanisara Ruangdej (GG) (WeVis, Thailand)
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Dream Con: how civic tech puts citizens at the centre of constitutional reform
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Thailand has experienced 13 coups in 90 years, leading to 20 versions of constitutions, each tailored to the power-holders of the time. In response, the WeVis team — directly affected by the latest constitution — aimed to shift the dynamic by empowering citizens to actively participate in redesigning the constitution.
Find out more in Thanisara Ruangdej’s TICTeC 2025 presentation.
Solving climate data deserts on the municipal level: Climate Diaries
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Accessing, understanding, and utilising municipal-level data related to climate governance in Brazil presents significant challenges.
In Giulio Carvalho (Diários do Clima)’s TICTeC 2025 presentation, hear how six organisations with expertise in climate journalism, transparency, and open data made a coalition to build an open source platform that collects, processes, and shares local climate-related official acts from 504 cities (and counting!), making them easily accessible and allowing for customised monitoring.
Changing the argument for using civic technology
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The moral and ethical case for Pro-Democracy Technology has been made for many years. Despite decades of effort, little has changed. The argument that politicians must “do this because it’s the right thing to do” has not been successful. The rise of far-right populist parties across the world implores us to consider a different approach.
In this TICTeC 2025 presentation by Rodney Schwartz, discover the outcomes of his research and interviews with 80 European P/PPs and PDT suppliers — the first time such a large group had been surveyed.
Q&A for ‘Access to Information for the public good’ TICTeC 2025 session
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Question and answer session for the presenters of the following TICTeC 2025 presentations:
– Infrastructure for democracy: how Abrimos.info is transforming governance in Latin America– Martin Szyszlican (Abrimos.info, Mexico)
– Unveiling the power of transparency: how Access to Information exposed systemic failures in Poland’s 2020 elections – Marzena Błaszczyk 25 (Citizens Network Watchdog, Poland)
– Data to advance equity, inclusion, and sustainability – Silvana Fumega (Global Data Barometer, Argentina)
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Data to advance equity, inclusion, and sustainability
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The Global Data Barometer provides fresh insights into how data is being governed, shared and used to advance the public good, with a special focus on the Global South.
In Silvana Fumega’s TICTeC 2025 presentation, learn about key recommendations for strengthening data ecosystems, including fostering collaborations between civic tech actors, governments, and researchers to promote evidence-based decision-making and policy innovation.
Unveiling the power of transparency: how Access to Information exposed systemic failures in Poland’s 2020 elections
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The 2020 Polish presidential elections demonstrated how Access to Information can play a pivotal role in uncovering abuses of power.
In this TICTeC 2025 presentation from Marzena Błaszczyk, discover how Citizens Network Watchdog Poland used FOI to file criminal complaints against mayors for illegal data transfers, holding authorities accountable, exposing institutional failures, and challenging unlawful actions.
Infrastructure for democracy: how Abrimos.info is transforming governance in Latin America
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Abrimos.info is a newly established organisation with a mission to strengthen democracy across Latin America by building and scaling digital infrastructures that promote transparency, accountability, and public participation. Discover how they are driving measurable impact in transparency around public officials’ disclosures, contracting information and Access to Information, in Martín Szyszlican’s TICTeC 2025 presentation.
Q&A for ‘Defending democracy, internet freedom and digital security’ TICTeC 2025 session
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Question and answer session for the presenters of the following TICTeC 2025presentations:
– What digital security solutions [don’t] work for civil society organisations – Mykola Kostynyan (RESIDENT.ngo, Lithuania)
– Six months of African pro-democracy innovating: what have we learned? – Carl Jacobs (OpenUp, South Africa)
– New Belarus: showcasing digital innovation to strengthen democracy, transparency, and civic participation – Pavel Liber (Nation – Digital Society Platform, Lithuania)
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New Belarus: showcasing digital innovation to strengthen democracy, transparency, and civic participation
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In response to the 2020 Belarusian election crisis, New Belarus emerged as a digital ecosystem (mobile app + web platform), uniting Belarusians worldwide. Its mission transcends technology by building a resilient global Belarusian community committed to freedom and democracy, through an array of digital and civic tech initiatives.
Find out more in Pavel Liber’s presentation at TICTeC 2025.
Anti-Corruption, Collaboration, and Capacity: How African Civil Society is advancing Pro-Democracy Innovation
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There is a growing global democratic crisis, whilst civic actors in Africa have decreased access to funding and resources, and suffer significantly from massive digital inequalities. What does it take to build sustainable civic tech capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa and how can past innovations inform scalable support for digital democracy?
Hear from Carl Jacobs from OpenUp in this TICTeC 2025 presentation.
What digital security solutions [don’t] work for civil society organisations
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Civil society organisations combat dictatorships, corruption, election falsifications, etc — and so are natural enemies to actors with huge amount of resources and motivation to fight back.
In this TICTeC 2025 presentation, hear RESIDENT.ngo’s experience with recent sophisticated attacks in Eastern Europe, and learn what measures actually work for small to medium civil society organisations.
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Empowering young voters through Voting Aid Applications
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In times of increasing misinformation and declining voter turnout, particularly among younger generations, well-designed Voting Aid Applications (VAAs) can play a pivotal role in revitalising democratic engagement.
In this TICTeC 2025 presentation by Sofie Marien (Tree Company), gain insights into best practices for creating high-quality VAAs that increase (informed) voting and strengthen the electoral process and institutions, plus the latest research on the impact of such tools.
Countering information disorder in Nigerian elections
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Tasked to identify trends and actors fuelling information disorder ahead of the elections, the CDD West Africa team launched a social media chatbot, allowing users to directly report claims from their own social media channels. The submitted claims enabled the team to upload verified fact-checks, granting users real-time access to accurate information.
Hear more about this project in Aluko Ahmad (CDD West Africa)’s TICTeC 2025 presentation.
Defending democracy with/from tech
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What is the role of tech in a global pro democracy movement? This TICTeC 2025 panel discusses the challenges posed by tech, and the potential to repurpose technology in democratic defence.
Panellists:
-Alex Parsons (mySociety)
-Mike Bracken (Public Digital)
-Silvana Fumega (Global Data Barometer)
-Ya-wei Chou (Global Innovation Hub, Friedrich Naumann Foundation)
– Felix Sieker (Bertelsmann Stiftung)
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Welcome to TICTeC 2025
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mySociety’s CEO Louise Crow’s opening address on Day 1 of TICTeC 2025.
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Q&A for ‘AI and governance’ TICTeC session
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Question and answer session for the presenters of the following TICTeC 2025 presentations:
– Breaking AI monopolies: building public AI as an alternative infrastructure – Felix Sieker (Bertelsmann Stiftung, Germany)
– Putting the humans back in: Manchester People’s Panel for AI – Sherelle Fairweather and Becky McMillan (Manchester City Council, UK)
– Community-led AI audits: why they matter and how to start one – Matt Stempeck, Eloise Gabadou, Yung-Shuan Wu (Civic Tech Field Guide)
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Community-led AI audits: why they matter and how to start one
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Audits of AI systems looked at predictive algorithms in the criminal justice system; discrimination by ride-hailing platforms; and city-level social services — and had real impact. You too can lead audits of AI systems affecting your own communities. Together we can hold these systems accountable for equitable outcomes in the real world.
This TICTeC 2025 presentation by the team at the Civic Tech Field Guide, provides details of these audits of real-world AI systems.
Putting the humans back in: Manchester People’s Panel for AI
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The Manchester People’s Panel for AI (PPfAI), a collaborative project led by Manchester’s Digital Strategy team in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan University, aims to enable citizens to influence the development of new AI initiatives.
Through educational roadshows, training sessions, and panels with local service leads, the PPfAI provides opportunities for residents to learn about the ethical and technical aspects of AI and shape its use in frontline service delivery.
Find out mroe in this TICTeC 2025 presentation by
Becky McMillan and Sherelle Fairweather (Manchester City Council).
Breaking AI monopolies: building public AI as an alternative infrastructure
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As AI systems become fundamental to civic participation, their concentration in the hands of a few tech giants poses critical challenges to digital sovereignty and civic empowerment. Public AI could serve as a democratic counterweight to commercial AI systems, enabling civic tech organisations to maintain independence while harnessing AI’s potential.
In this TICTeC 2025 presentation by Felix Sieker (Bertelsmann Stiftung), find out about strategies for developing Public AI alternatives that prioritise democratic values over commercial interests.
Q&A for ‘Democratic literacy and participation’ TICTeC 2025 session
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Question and answer session for the presenters of the following TICTeC 2025 presentations:
– Making Pakistan’s constitution accessible through AI – Ali Raza (Code for Pakistan, Pakistan)
– Localised agenda alerts create engaged, informed citizens – Julia McKenna (Northwestern University, US) and Alex Cabral (Georgia Tech, US)
TICTeC 2024 Funders Roundtable
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Common civic tech needs across global contexts
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In a year-long series of pro bono clinics, the Civic Tech Field Guide team met with democracy activists working in countries whose democracies are under active threat.
The surprising finding from the consultations was the shared overlap in what these groups reported they needed.
From cybersecurity resources, to self-hosted messaging tech, to warm relationships at big tech platforms, their needs are as specific as they are shared.
Learn about the identified commonalities and resources that begin to address these needs, and what more we, as a field, might be able to do to help.
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Common civic tech needs across global contexts
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In a year-long series of pro bono clinics, the Civic Tech Field Guide team met with democracy activists working in countries whose democracies are under active threat.
The surprising finding from the consultations was the shared overlap in what these groups reported they needed.
From cybersecurity resources, to self-hosted messaging tech, to warm relationships at big tech platforms, their needs are as specific as they are shared.
Learn about the identified commonalities and resources that begin to address these needs, and what more we, as a field, might be able to do to help.
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From data to democracy: the role of DCinbox in shaping informed citizenship and government accountability
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Lindsey Cormack (Stevens Institute of Technology) presents DCinbox, an archive of every official e-newsletter sent from members of the United States Congress, with nearly 200,000 missives spanning more than 15 years. This data allows findings on political representation, public health information dissemination, propensities for legislators to emulate the style of the President, gendered communication, and more.
Redefined civic tech: community-centric impact stories from Georgia
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AskGov in Georgia, based on mySociety’s Alaveteli platform, hosts 1,118 datasets. What sets it apart is that the data does not remain confined to the platform: through contests, fellowship programmes and datathons, storytelling and data visualisation projects are distributed to a mass audience, with topics such as the environment, corruption, transparency, gender and occupation.
This TICTeC 2024 presentation by Vero Melua from ForSet shares more.
How to use AI in analysing mass responses to FOI requests
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Authorities hold information that could clarify societal discussions — but the formats it is held in can make it challenging to interpret digitally. Fedrowanie streamlines the gathering of information from public institutions through mass FOI requests. A recent evolution from manual volunteer work to AI integration represents a leap in enhancing public discourse and governance.
In this TICTeC 2024 presentation, Marzena Blaszczyk (Citizens Network Watchdog Poland) shares their work with AI to analyse mass responses to FOI requests.
Communities of practice for government: crowdsourcing knowledge and ideas for digital government services
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In the civic technology ecosystem, creating spaces and pathways for government practitioners and teams to connect and learn from one another is critical as we seek to address ongoing challenges in the design and delivery of government services, attract talent to public service, and retain people with the knowledge, skills, and abilities in government roles.
In this TICTeC 2024 presentation, Kelly Henderson and Michaela Caudill (Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation at Georgetown University) share real-world lessons about cultivating communities of practice and building out programing and structures that facilitate the sharing of knowledge, artefacts, and ideas. These communities provide spaces that meaningfully inform government practitioners and teams in designing and delivering government services.
Can robots lobby? AI, democracy and political persuasion
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Lobbying is a negative influence often connected to corruption, secrecy and poor behaviour. But can AI change things for the better, improving the abilities of those who monitor lobbying, or helping raise awareness of problems? Conversely, will AI bring increased powers for political persuaders, perhaps even introducing the robot lobbyist?
At TICTeC 2024, Ben Worthy from Birkbeck College presented a paper asking how AI can change lobbying for better or worse. It looks in turn at how AI can allow different groups to do the same things but better; and do new things. It draws on examples from the UK and US, as well as wider academic studies, to predict what may happen, and offer a framework.
Q&A for ‘Citizen science for climate action’ TICTeC 2024 session
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Question and answer session for the following TICTeC 2024 presentations:
– Empowering community action through open mapping in disaster response and climate action – Petya Kangalova (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, UK)
– From data to action: FloodLight’s impact on disaster response in Pakistan – Ibraheem Saleem (Code for Pakistan, Pakistan)
– Civic tech and journalism: impact through collaboration – Christoph Raetzsch (Aarhus University, Denmark)
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Civic tech and journalism: impact through collaboration
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Impact beyond a project’s runtime depends on embedding stakeholder interests from the start, to ensure uptake after a project is finished. Through European and Japanese examples of citizen-sensed data and journalistic storytelling as well as audience engagement, this TICTeC 2024 presentation by Christoph Raetzsch (Aarhus University) underlines the need for collaborations between civic tech activists and journalists.
From data to action: FloodLight’s impact on disaster response in Pakistan
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In this TICTeC 2024 presentation from Code for Pakistan, hear about FloodLight, a volunteer-led disaster response platform, addresses the challenges of flooding in Pakistan. Launched in response to devastating floods which left one-third of the nation submerged, two million acres of agricultural land destroyed, and resulted in thousands of casualties, the platform emerged as a crucial tool in disaster management.
Empowering community action through open mapping in disaster response and climate action
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When disaster strikes anywhere in the world, the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team can mobilise thousands of volunteers, online and on the ground, to create open data that enables disaster responders to reach those in need. Open mapping is mobilising mass community action in disaster response, and open source technologies are enabling the collective mapping efforts.
In this TICTeC 2024 presentation by Petya Kangalova from the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Hear stories on the impact open mapping has had, including mapping in response to the earthquakes in Turkey/Syria and Morocco, and floods in Libya.
Reflections on the challenges of practising digital democratic innovation
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Critical discussion of digital innovation in democracy typically points to gaps between aspirations and realities. Despite initial optimism about the potential of new technologies, research has tended to be much more pessimistic. At TICTeC 2024, Matt Ryan from the University of Southampton presented research exploring the space between naïve optimism and cynical pessimism by asking us to reflect on digital tools’ ability to enhance democracy in practice.
Routing algorithms, 20-minute neighbourhoods and hills in Scottish towns
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The Scottish government committed to support 20 minute neighbourhoods — but not all algorithms are equal, even the simplest ones. Scotland’s particularly hilly towns present a challenge. How does the 20 minute neighbourhood profile change, in different Scottish towns, when the routing algorithm takes up/down hill walking into consideration?
In her TICTeC 2024 presentation, Gala presents analysis on the accessibility (or lack thereof) to transportation and services in a number of Scottish towns, taking into consideration slower paces when walking uphill, downhill, and both uphill and downhill.
Q&A for ‘Civic tech for transparency’ session at TICTeC 2024
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Question and answer session for the following TICTeC 2024 presentations:
– How civic tech is unveiling corruption and championing democracy and environmental protection in Brazil – Maria Vitória Ramos (Fiquem Sabendo, Brazil)
– Empowering communities: Budeshi’s impact on transparency and accountability in Nigerian government projects – Nnenna Eze (Public and Private Development Centre, Nigeria)
– Have you empirically improved transparency and accountability? – Shaun Russell (OpenUp, South Africa)
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Have you empirically improved transparency and accountability?
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How can you say empirically that the work you are doing has made things more transparent in your field? If your work is nebulous and difficult to measure in real world impact, this is a challenge — and one faced by a collaboratively-made data visualisation tool aimed to make the South African parliament more transparent and accountable. For tips on how to measure the impact and effectiveness of your civic tech tools, check out this TICTeC 2024 presentation from Shaun Russell from OpenUp in South Africa.
Empowering communities: Budeshi’s impact on transparency and accountability in Nigerian government projects
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Hear from Nnenna Eze (Public and Private Development Centre, Nigeria)’s TICTeC 2024 presentation on Budeshi, the open-contracting tool, which has emerged as a pivotal platform facilitating transparency and accountability in public procurement. Data from Freedom of Information requests is published on the platform to allow thorough monitoring exercises across various Nigerian states. Journalists have been trained and communities empowered to independently investigate and report on discrepancies.
How civic tech is unveiling corruption and championing democracy and environmental protection in Brazil
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Hear from Maria Vitória Ramos (Fiquem Sabendo, Brazil) about two award-winning initiatives that address the power imbalance between society and the state, using Freedom of Information and a multidisciplinary approach integrating journalism, advocacy, training, and civic technology to monitor governmental spending and provide oversight of lobbying. The results? Pivotal public reports and significant legislative reforms.
Q&A for ‘mySociety and partners – working on climate’ TICTeC 2024 session
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Question and answer session at TICTeC 2024 for the following presentations:
– Data, prototyping and partnerships: mySociety’s approach to the climate/democracy problem – Zarino Zappia (mySociety, UK)
Scoring councils on their climate action
– Don von Rohland (Climate Emergency UK)
Fragmented climate data in the UK – Julia Cushion (mySociety, UK)
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Fragmented climate data in the UK
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Fragmented data is frustrating for everyone – it reduces the economic value of data, wastes taxpayers’ money, and prevents innovative, collaborative solutions to the climate crisis. In this short TICTeC 2024 talk, mySociety’s Julia Cushion shares some findings from mySociety’s product and policy work on improving data sharing between civil society, local/national government, and citizens.
Scoring councils on their climate action
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What difference can a small organisation make? With the right data — a lot. Climate Emergency UK first assessed every local council’s Climate Action Plan, and then moved onto marking actual climate action, publishing the results as a set of in-depth Scorecards. The real-life impacts of these scores have been notable. Find out more from this TICTeC 2024 presentation from Don von Rohland.
Data, prototyping and partnerships: mySociety’s approach to the climate/democracy problem
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Find out what works and what doesn’t, from three years of mySociety experience at the intersection of democracy and the climate crisis. Zarino, mySociety’s Climate Programme Lead, shares how we explored the challenges that communities are facing around climate, identified solutions we could test with data and technology, and then partnered with the right organisations to make those solutions effective.
What is the role of civic tech in enabling the effective and democratic change needed to meet the challenge of climate change?
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At this TICTeC 2024 panel discussion, Genevieve Maitland Hudson (Social Investment Business / mySociety)
Maddy Carroll (Director, UK Programme, European Climate Foundation), Dr. Michal Nachmany (Founder and CEO, Climate Policy Radar) and Aleks Berditchevskaia (Principal Researcher, Nesta Centre for Collective Intelligence Design) discuss the opportunities and challenges that civic technology presents, when it comes to democratic climate action.
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TICTeC 2024 keynote address: Putting Democracy back into Climate Action
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Nick Mabey from E3G (Third Generation Environmentalism)’s TICTeC 2024 keynote speech. Nick emphasised the need to put democratic values, institutional strengthening, and governance innovation back at the heart of climate action if we are serious about protecting everyone from catastrophic climate damage.
Welcome to TICTeC 2024 Day 2
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mySociety’s CEO Louise Crow’s opening address during the second day of TICTeC 2024.
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Empowering civic engagement: leveraging Ushahidi for transparent and inclusive electoral monitoring and governance
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Hear Rhoda Omenya (Ushahidi) explain how Uchaguzi empowers citizens to report incidents during elections, enabling the monitoring of election-related events in near real-time.
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Moving from digital tools to digital public spaces: building infrastructures for digital citizen participation
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When thinking about digital technologies for participation as public spaces, the narrative can shift to promote a stronger role for public authorities in developing, deploying and monitoring such technologies. The Getting Civic Tech Right for Democracy work from the OECD helps suggest first recommendations towards a more holistic perspective for digital participation. Mauricio Mejia Galvan (OECD) presents these recommendations.
Combining online mass-consultation with a citizens’ assembly for effective participation
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Learn from Dr. Dominik Hierlemann and Stefan Roch from Bertelsmann Stiftung about the “Forum against Fakes”, a nationwide debate on the topic, run by Bertelsmann Stiftung with the German Ministry of the Interior. A multistep process combined online consultation with a citizens’ assembly, with the deliberate aim of combining the strengths of both.
The critical role of civic technology and cybersecurity in sustaining Russian anti-war civil society in exile
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Learn from Denis Yagodin (Teplitsa) about the strategies and cybersecurity practices of Russian anti-war civil society in exile, including the use of social media, chatbots, and encrypted communication to safely mobilise, share information, and support democratic values. There is a crucial role for cybersecurity in protecting these activities from state surveillance and interference — and upholding democracy.
Q&A for ‘Citizen engagement and parliamentary monitoring’ TICTeC 2024 session
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Q&A session for these TICTeC 2024 presentations:
– From data to democracy: the role of DCinbox in shaping informed citizenship and government accountability – Lindsey Cormack (Stevens Institute of Technology, US)
– Thailand’s first parliamentary monitoring tool – Thanisara Ruangdej (GG) (Punch Up & WeVis, Thailand)
– Empowering citizens: how Querido Diário is making Brazilian city policies accessible – Giulio Carvalho (Open Knowledge Brasil, Brazil) and Renne Rocha (Querido Diário, Brazil)
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TICTeC 2024 keynote address: Joining the dots on civic tech and anti-corruption
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At TICTeC 2024 María Baron from Directorio Legislativo shared insights drawn from a rich career working from different angles to support and defend democracy across Latin America and globally. She shared insights into Directorio Legislativo’s digital anti-corruption solution, and approach to consensus building across polarised stakeholders, the latest milestone in their work to strengthen democracies across Latin America and beyond.
Empowering citizens: how Querido Diário is making Brazilian city policies accessible
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Querido Diário, a project by Open Knowledge Brasil, meticulously maps, scrapes and publishes the official gazettes of 350 cities, rendering them accessible through a user-friendly web interface and API. The project is implemented collaboratively by a community of more than a hundred people. Discover how Querido Diário is breaking down barriers and empowering citizens to engage with their cities’ policies.
Thailand’s first parliamentary monitoring tool
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Discover WeVis’ path to launching Parliament Watch, an open-source comprehensive platform that serves as a one-stop solution for monitoring Thailand’s parliament — and the challenges they faced along the way. Inspired by platforms like TheyWorkForYou and GovTrack, but adapting them to Thailand’s own political landscape, the initiative aims to increase political transparency.
Fostering inclusive approaches to technological innovations for climate action
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Hear Pyrou Chung present a set of recommendations for policymakers investing in technological innovations for nature-based solutions (NbS), advocating for a cautious approach in investing in these solutions, informed by rights, responsibility and reciprocity.
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Challenges of implementing civic tech projects in adverse environments
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Hear from Courteney Mukoyi (Justice Code Foundation) on the challenges of implementing civic technology in Zimbabwe. Difficulties include poor internet infrastructure, competing platforms for users’ attention — and a hostile dictatorship that will clamp down on anything perceived as anti-government.
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Democracy under threat – how does civic tech have to shift to adapt to the problems of the current era?
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Louise Crow (mySociety),
Enrique Bravo-Escobar (National Endowment for Democracy NED), Helena Puig Larrauri (Build Up), Vakau J.S. (Access Now), Claire Foulquier-Gazagnes (Google) and
María Baron (Directorio Legislativo)
discuss the urgency of the democratic crisis, and how civic technology might need to evolve to enable true democratic governance.
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Public-private collaborations – how can civic tech work effectively with public and private institutions?
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A global panel mulls over the challenges of working on private-public civic tech projects, as well as their solutions and ideas to tackle these.
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Ensuring civic tech is accessible – how can we lead and popularise best practice?
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Civic tech tools must be accessible and inclusive if they are to truly help everyone. Practitioners from across the world share the challenges and their solutions and ideas to tackle these.
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Storytelling and reach: how can we amplify our successes beyond the civic tech community to evidence our impact through mainstream channels?
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During this Surgery, we discussed the challenges of amplifying civic tech projects and their successes through mainstream channels with practitioners from across the world, as well as their solutions and ideas to tackle these.
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Find that charity: a tool to help find charities and improve charity data
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A big part of publishing high quality grants data is having good organisation identifiers. 360Giving helped develop “Find that Charity”, a tool for finding non-profit organisations.
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Don’t build it: a practical guide for those building civic tech
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Lessons learned from four years spent building Grassroot, a civic technology platform in South Africa.
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How to last in civic tech (especially now)
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Of the many live organisations listed in the Civic Tech Field Guide, only about 75 are more than ten years old. What are the factors that bring about such organisational longevity?
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What role for Civic Tech (and data) in mitigating the climate crisis?
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We know that civic technology can do things such as help citizens hold their representatives to account; present data and information about policy and decision making in more accessible ways; and get information to the right people. The next crucial step is to understand how this wealth of skills, experience and tools can be used in the most beneficial way to mitigate the climate crisis.
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Digital tools for democracy: what’s been built and where are the spaces?
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Alex Parsons, the Research Associate at mySociety, gives an overview of tools for democracy as things stood in 2020.
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Seeing like a state: lessons from building an open data support team
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Technologiestiftung Berlin started with the hypothesis that the main obstacle for progress in Open Data was a lack of digital expertise in government. This turned out to be wrong.
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How volunteers engage with government
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Volunteers drive a large proportion of civic tech activity around the world. The community organisation efforts of the Code for America network have exponentially increased the influence and impact of civic tech ideals and reshaped public expectations and government culture.
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When civic tech collaborates with government: what works?
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In countries with more autocratic governments, traditional models are not effective at improving institutional performance, and impact on citizens is often very limited. ePaństwo are testing new models and already seeing promising outcomes.
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Civic tech impact: what doesn’t work?
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This workshop provided space to explore a less talked-about side to civic tech: the very real barriers to long-term impact.
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Investing in the future of civic tech
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A panel of funders dig in deep to the question of what grantmakers want to see before they invest in civic tech.
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Questioning impact: what if you find it lacking?
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What happens when a seemingly successful initiative starts to question its Theory of Change?
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Funding impactful civic tech in Latin America
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Fundación Avina worked with researchers to try to understand the evolution and impact of civic tech projects and the organisations that lead them.
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Scaling civic tech impact through the Open Government Partnership
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One of the key challenges facing civic tech initiatives is scaling: they often fail to achieve their full impact potential — not due to design issues, but a lack of an effective dissemination and scaling platform.
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The state of open data: research findings
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Key findings from the report (published in May 2019) and in particular, how they can be useful for the civic tech community.
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The civic tech timeline: a recent history
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The Civic Tech Field Guide has collected and mapped hundreds of civic tech initiatives. The result is a comprehensive timeline demonstrating over a decade of growth in our field.
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When civic tech matures: the issues that arise in long-running projects
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Running Civic Tech websites over a long period of time brings some unique challenges, not all of which are foreseeable when setting out.
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Engagement metrics for social impact
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A workshop exploring how to develop better metrics that can serve organisational missions, using two technology platforms for civic engagement.
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The impact of civic technology in Latin America
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Panel discussion. With examples from Latin America used as a starting point, insights are applicable for civic tech practitioners around the world.
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Blockchain for civic change: can it deliver?
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A panel offers insights into Blockchain, the much-hyped technology, widely heralded as the answer to a vast array of public problems.
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Design for civic participation
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One of mySociety’s designers takes us through the main civic tech product design lessons he’s learnt while working at the organisation.
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Design principles for re-engaging disaffected citizens
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This paper assesses the impact of a design process to understand root causes of anti-government populism, and the means of reversing its spread.
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What research has mySociety been doing internally?
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Looking more deeply into the use, and users, of mySociety’s street fault reporting platform FixMyStreet, and the contact-your-representative website WriteToThem.
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The problem with impact measurement in civic tech
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Just how meaningful are the various types of impact measurements offered by civic tech startups, really? An honest look at what has value, and what counts for very little.
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Knowledge from failure: learnings from the Civic Tech Field Guide
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Discover the four common reasons that civic tech projects fail, gleaned from analysis of 800 tools, apps, platforms, and companies.
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Bridging the civic tech research divide
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A discussion on how to increase the ways that useful knowledge about civic tech gets created, shared, and incorporated into our projects.
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Words from Google: supporting the civic tech ecosystem
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Google’s commitment to the civic tech field, outlining why the search engine giant believes it to be of such critical importance in the current age.
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Two heads are better than one: working with governments
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Governments have a wealth of knowledge about the needs of their citizens. Civic tech organisations often have innovative technologies that can meet those needs.
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Donor forum: good practices to support civic tech
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A discussion between donors and civic tech organisations, to surface trends within the civic tech movement, explore shared objectives of scaling, and become sustainable.
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(Un)civic tech?
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An overview of the use of technology to enhance democratic processes, highlighting how they have often failed to meet the expectations of their time.
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Political matchmaking online: changing the electorate?
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Research into the impact of voting advice applications, which help citizens choose which candidate to opt for, by offering an explicit ranking of viable options.
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Look who’s talking
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The Open Government Partnership is perhaps the most prominent international effort to connect citizens and governments through the use of technology.
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RTI platforms as a force for positive change
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RTI (also known as FOI) laws create a new type of relationship between government and civil society. Fumega and Scrollini argue that civil society-led FOI portals have affected RTI regimes in a positive way.
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Randomised control trials: lessons for civic tech
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What have these powerful tools taught us about state capacity, government accountability, and responsiveness? And what does the RCT literature tell us about the use of technology to improve public services and galvanise citizen groups?
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Automating feedback – the answer for small civic tech teams?
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We all know it’s crucial, but if you’re a tiny team of developers, it’s hard to dedicate resources to study the impact of your work.
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The impacts of civic tech… on the people who make it
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When we talk about the impact of civic technology, we tend to look only at the impact on the end users. But what about the impact it has on the makers — the individuals who become creators and change agents?
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The state of civic tech: beneath the surface
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Looking beneath the surface at the state of civic tech by tracing the dependency graph — the links between software and its constituent parts.
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Designing for digital democracy
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EngageTech, not just online engagement, is critical for representative democracy. How are governments now designing for digital democracy? Slide deck.
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Data collaboratives: an assessment of new ways to use data for civic impact
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While the impact of open government data has become more understood, little is known about the practice, potential and impact of sharing proprietary datasets to solve civic problems.
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Examples of civic technologies and their impacts
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Now that the Civic Technology sector has matured, we can take a step back and assess its worth.
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Fireside chat: Stephen King, Omidyar Network
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The Omidyar Network is one of the most significant benefactors for those working in Civic Tech. Through the Governance & Citizen Engagement initiative, it supports a broad range of organisations working in the US and around the world.
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How can civic tech reach more people? How can civic tech be more inclusive?
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Examples of technology projects that tackle digital exclusion. As a community, coders and activists must ensure that tools genuinely benefit the communities who need them most.
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Government led civic technology: successes and challenges
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Increasingly governments are innovating in the civic tech sphere. What are the advantages and disadvantages of citizen-to-government applications implemented by governments themselves?
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Impacts of leak sites
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Leak sites are web-based initiatives which usually employ encryption and anonymisation technologies for concealing the identity of whistleblowers.
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Impacts of civic tech projects in Pakistan
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Code for Pakistan’s applications have improved government efficiency and the experiences of hundreds of citizens who interact with government every day.
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Impacts of open data standards on transparency tools
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Most open data initiatives assume the provision of data by governments which will be used by a variety of sectors for the good of all. But for some, the promises of Open Data fall far short of the reality.
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The impacts of the SmartCity platform
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The Government of Andhra Pradesh aimed to bring 110 cities and towns online, with the goals of improving service delivery to citizens, moving to data-driven governance processes, improving revenues and increasing transparency and accountability.
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Impacts of ‘school chooser’ digital tools
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When the sole determinant of which school children attend is their residential address, it can produce a spiral of unequal schooling conditions that are difficult to remedy.
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Impacts and challenges of civic tech experiments in India
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Venkatesh Kannaiah speaks about Civic Tech experiments in India, including I Change My City and I Paid A Bribe.
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An analysis of ‘g0v’ for collaborative participation
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g0v is a distributed, civic hacker community in Taiwan. Its members collaborate to bridge the information gap between the government and citizens — and to enlighten and empower citizens to oversee the government.
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What is civic technology? How and why is mySociety measuring its impacts?
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Dr Rebecca Rumbul presents mySociety’s research projects which strive to evaluate the impacts (both positive and negative) of Civic Technologies in many countries worldwide.
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TICTeC closing: all you can CHANGE!
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The inspiring wrap-up session from TICTeC@Taipei, with words from representatives of the two organisations that ran the conference, mySociety and g0v.
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The digital divide: why civic tech leaves 3 billion people behind
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The chasm between the digital haves and the have-nots has never been more evident. Are we all missing the point?
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From the funders
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Funders discuss what they look for when choosing which civic tech projects to support.
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Mobile civic tech: encouraging accountability or increasing inequality?
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Mobile technology has quickly become pervasive in civic tech – but there is much about its impact that we don’t yet fully understand.
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GovLab demonstrate The Open Governance Research Exchange (OGRX)
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GovLab launch OGRX, an online hub for quantitative and qualitative research on innovations in governance.
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TICTeC2015 Keynote: ‘Hey! It’s time to check your tech’
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What if your civic tech had no impact in the real world? Dr. Boulianne talks us through an analysis of more than 80 studies, because isn’t it time we checked that the internet actually has an effect on civic and political life?
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Opportunity and threat: experimenting with Mzalendo
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Research on how to obtain more users, what information appeals to those users, and how to prompt them to engage with their institutions and politicians on issues that matter to them.
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It starts with a click
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Civics through the lens of efficacy. What can individuals do to influence their communities, their societies and their nations?
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The politics of civic tech platforms
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Civic tech started as an idea that became a community that became a buzzword. Now, it is a market.
Slide deck.
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Approaching research as a small team of developers
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The OpenAustralia Foundation run seven projects with just three full time and one part time staff. When do they find time for research?
Slide deck with speaker notes.
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Code for All: comparative models across borders
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Looking at different setups of the volunteer network across the globe. A slide deck.
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What counts as civic tech success for Africa?
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A donor’s perspective on how to think about impact in the civic tech space in Africa. Slide deck.
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The haves and the have nots: is civic tech impacting the people who need it most?
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The digital divide means that a lot of people never even see those fancy civic tech interventions. Looking into the data behind the impact claims.
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It’s there for you now use it: making sure young people see the point of civic tech
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Slides from the Accountability Lab, looking at the challenges around getting young folk to adopt civic tech initiatives.
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ICT and governance in East Africa: preliminary study findings from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania
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A look at civic tech that has facilitated two-way interaction between representatives and citizens. A slide deck.
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Election Violence Tracker, Nigeria
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A TICTeC Labs grant allowed PolicyLab Africa to launch this project, an open-source reporting tool that enables citizens to document and report violent incidents during Nigeria’s elections.
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Training for Civic Tech Organisations on storytelling and reach
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Using a TICTeC Labs grant, Fundación Multitudes created a training course for civic tech organisations in how to get stories about their projects and successes into the mainstream media.
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Chilean institute harnesses digital platform to engage young people as change agents
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Produced thanks to a TICTeC Labs grant, this case study documents how the Chilean government’s National Youth Institute used a digital platform, CitizenLab, to get young people involved in policy making.
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Participation must be designed to ‘leave no one behind’: Argentina case study
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Produced thanks to a TICTeC Labs grant, this case study documents how Rosario municipality makes their digital participatory budgeting tools accessible to individuals with visual disabilities.
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In China, popular social media platform is harnessed to increase participation
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Produced thanks to a TICTeC Labs grant, this case study documents how China’s Participation Center developed a “mini app” for the popular WeChat platform, and grew the number of participatory budgeting users in Chengdu city to more than 3 million.
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Digital platform and training boost participation in rural Kyrgyzstan
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Produced thanks to a TICTeC Labs grant, this case study documents how the World Bank worked with the government to empower local communities to make decisions, facilitated by a digital platform.
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Accessibility ABCs: A practical toolkit for the global civic tech community
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Produced thanks to a TICTeC Labs grant, this guide is meant to be a resource to support the global civic tech community to make their work more accessible. It is available in Arabic, Spanish, French and English.
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Accessing quality information for civic tech success: how can we overcome barriers to accessing good data and documentation?
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Practitioners from around the world discuss the challenges of accessing quality data and information for civic tech projects, as well as their solutions and ideas to tackle these.
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Digital tools for democracy: what’s been built and where are the spaces?
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An overview of what tools existed for democracy in 2020, by mySociety’s researcher Alex Parsons.
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Seeing like a state: lessons from building an Open Data support team
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The ODIS project started with the hypothesis that the main obstacle for progress in Open Data was a lack of digital expertise in government. This turned out to be wrong.
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Unlocking civic tech impact: reflections on TICTeC Labs
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An online event featuring presentations from TICTeC Labs subgrantees on the work produced thanks to the programme, and how these have met the needs identified in the Civic Tech Surgeries and Action Labs.
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Safeguarding elections and democracies
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Question and answer session for the following TICTeC 2024 presentations:
How to build a country-led election coalitions and combat misinformation online – Mevan Babakar (Google, UK)
Common civic tech needs across global contexts – Matt Stempeck (Civic Tech Field Guide, Portugal/US)
Empowering civic engagement: leveraging Ushahidi for transparent and inclusive electoral monitoring and governance – Rhoda Omenya (Ushahidi, Kenya)
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