The recording of an ATI Community of Practice meeting discussing how organisations are using crowdsourcing and ATI laws to uncover data, monitor public projects, and drive accountability.
Speakers are: Nnenna Eze from PPDC Nigeria, Marzena Błaszczyk from Citizens Network Watchdog Poland and Stefan Wehrmeyer from FragDenStaat in Germany.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
A small charity was able to gather significant data around councils and carbon reduction, by sending mass FOI requests and using volunteers’ help to analyse them.
Generally, contributing to OSM’s mapping is regarded as a form of volunteer service. However, recent analyses suggest that experience of mapping could be as important as the data contributed.
Crowd2Map trained first time smartphone users in the Serengeti District to map their communities and help protect girls from female genital mutilation.
Disfactory is a crowdsourcing platform that enables citizens to report illegal factories on farmland in Taiwan, aiming to decrease pollution and accidents.
Constitutional revision has been a long running theme for Iceland in recent years. Now they’ve been through a wide-ranging public consultation on changes to the nation’s constitution.
OpenSCHUFA, took data donated by the public, and reverse engineered the algorithms of Schufa, Germany’s credit rating system.
Sindhupalcheck was an intervention that engaged citizens to monitor a house reconstruction programme in Nepal. How impactful was it?
An overview of the work of Democracy Club, which leads a huge effort in crowdsourcing data every time there’s a UK election. A slide deck.
A qualitative meta-analysis of the existing literature and additional original case studies, organising monitorial citizenship tools into thematic groups.
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?
Code for Pakistan’s applications have improved government efficiency and the experiences of hundreds of citizens who interact with government every day.
Using data on Lower House representatives’ expense reimbursements, the Serenata de Amor Operation team built an artificial intelligence capable of analysing each expense and rating it for the probability of having broken the law.
Venkatesh Kannaiah speaks about Civic Tech experiments in India, including I Change My City and I Paid A Bribe.
Slide deck on which you can read the entire paper.
Some examples of how to leverage mySociety sites, including WhatDoTheyKnow, to help fight the climate emergency.
Alaveteli site AskTheEU called upon their followers to help request the travel expenses of EU Commissioners.