Grants and solutions
As part of the TICTeC Labs programme, mySociety brought together the global civic tech sector to identify and discuss the field’s biggest challenges at Civic Tech Surgeries; to discuss and decide on solutions to commission at Action Labs; and to provide subgrants to individuals/organisations to produce work to contribute to meeting these challenges.
Below you’ll find details of the completed work.
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#1. Showcasing public-private civic tech success stories
TICTeC Action Lab #1 commissioned People Powered to create case studies from the platforms that were highly rated in their digital participation platform ratings. Following interviews with the organisations involved, they created blog posts to showcase the examples, including key information on the cases and personal narratives from the participant interviews.
#2. A toolkit to help the global civic tech community fix common accessibility challenges
The TICTeC Action Lab #2 subgrant was awarded to Technoloxia (Tunisia) who created a practical guide for civic tech practitioners on how to start incorporating accessibility into their work, available as web pages, a PDF and as an audio guide. Working with team members with disabilities, trained practitioners and a focus group of users with different accessibility needs, they have produced an overview of what accessibility means, how to approach it, a selection of good practice for specific elements and a further list of resources.
#3. Resources to help train organisations/ the public in accessing good quality data
TICTeC Action Lab #3 commissioned Open North Inc to develop an online course on data governance and data quality, which is now available in English and French.
#4. Storytelling and reach
TICTeC Action Lab #4 awarded the subgrant to Fundación Multitudes from Chile, to create and deliver training for civic tech organisations, equipping them with effective tools to get stories about their projects and successes into mainstream channels. The training ran from December 2022 to January 2023 – find out more and see course materials here.
#5. Driving impactful societal change
TICTeC Action Lab #5 awarded the grant to the Demography Project, Kenya, for Maai Makwa, an open-source, open-data and public domain water quality and quantity monitoring project integrated with practical civic education, running from November 2022 to February 2023.
#6. Civic tech in hostile environments
TICTeC Action Lab #6 commissioned a piece of work which repurposes existing software in a way which benefits civic tech organisations working in hostile environments. This grant was awarded to Policy Lab Africa to develop their Election Violence Tracker mapping electoral-related violence in Nigeria.