09:00 · Reception Area
10:00 · Main Plenary (Sala Verde)
10:15 · Main Plenary (Sala Verde)
10:30 · Main Plenary (Sala Verde)
Civic Tech is no longer a new phenomenon, and we can now take a long view on its history and efficacy. Tiago presents an overview of what has worked, and what hasn't, then returns to the present day to see how we can set the agenda for both persisting and emergent issues.
11:15 · Foyer Verde
11:45 · Main Plenary (Sala Verde)
Media Cloud is a big data, open-source platform developed by the Center for Civic Media. It aggregates news stories daily from over 50,000 sources across the world, and delivers analysis and visualisations on media influence and attention.
New digital tools, and initiatives such as crowdfunding and crowdsourcing, are profoundly affecting the relationship between the citizen and the media. How have these innovations affected transparency and accountability in the media?
To take informed voting decisions, citizens need to know what their representatives stand for. School of Data Germany monitored and analysed news stories and party communications, and combined these with an existing channel where citizens could put direct questions to MPs to address the current climate of mistrust in politics and enable more meaningful voting decisions.
11:45 · Room 4
How Gerak Aceh, an anti-corruption advocacy group in Indonesia, uses open data as a tool to influence provincial mining policy.
Open Data promises to contribute to more transparency, participation and accountability in health service delivery — but how exactly is this promise to be delivered? Case studies in Uruguay, Mexico and Peru help to bring clarity.
11:45 · Room 9
These days, Voting Advice Applications are used by million of voters at election time. They have been shown to increase political interest and knowledge, and to foster turnout as a result. Will they lead to the de-personalisation of politics in the long run?
Across the UK, USA and France — and in the context of Brexit, Trump and the French election — how Open Data can help inform voters with objective information on politicians' positions.
For over a decade, Association 61 have been gathering and publishing data about politicians. During that time, they have been striving to find better ways to catch the attention of the public. What actually works?
13:00 · Galleria
14:00 · Main Plenary (Sala Verde)
15:00 · Main Plenary (Sala Verde)
Last November, Argentina's Ministry of Justice launched an Open Judicial Data Portal, publishing 21 datasets. Meanwhile, on the Justice 2020 platform, citizens can debate and design public justice policy.
When governments commit to OGP, how much do they really commit to civic participation and citizen engagement? When they do engage, do both sides get equal airtime? By coding the commitments, we can start to distinguish between consultation and conversation.
Examining the role of digital Right to Information (RTI) platforms in five different contexts across developing and developed countries: an analytic framework to explore how online portals impact RTI regimes.
15:00 · Room 4
Looking at citizen feedback technologies in Guatemala, Kenya, Liberia, Uruguay, and the United States, MIT Governance Lab and Omidyar Network investigate their impact and efficacy.
Civic engagement apps are seen by governments as a way to boost public trust and receive quality feedback from citizens. But these initiatives are often missing something - enough participation. Is UX design to blame or do governments struggle to reach their citizens in the digital age?
If governments ask citizens to engage online, they have to be ready to hear them. They need plans in place if the response is unexpectedly large… or conversely, if there’s barely one at all.
15:00 · Room 9
In 2013, the Red Cross’s Global Disaster Preparedness Center released an app designed to be customised for use anywhere in the world. This study examines the program goals and product design and delivery in Chile and the Philippines. What are the challenges? How can processes be improved to better meet program goals?
Often, those with the greatest knowledge and understanding of a disaster zone are the local aid workers used for data input and then quickly discarded. Looking at the Typhoon Haiyan response, this paper (co-authored by Jonathan Ong) will argue that there is a better way.
Using several years of tax return data from Delhi, Machine Learning models can be trained to spot the signs that a company is fictitious, set up in order to commit VAT fraud - based solely on its tax returns. What are the repercussions of authorities using tech in this way?
16:15 · Foyer Verde
16:30 · Main Plenary (Sala Verde)
Making All Voices Count has been a four-year grant-making program, supporting over 160 innovative projects across twelve countries to explore how technology can support greater transparency, accountability and responsiveness of governments to their citizens.
In its final year MAVC is seeing a range of different governance outcomes from its work.
This session will illustrate what some of these outcomes look like in different contexts and, drawing on projects from the MAVC portfolio, how these changes have come about.
16:30 · Room 4
Personal data, when linked with city data, has the potential to allow for transformative technologies. But how safe do citizens feel when it comes to giving up their own information?
The relationship between the US government and the country’s Civic Tech groups abruptly shifted at the last election. To adjust to this new reality, practitioners must look to those who have long operated in more contentious public sector environments. How do they overcome entrenched opposition to achieve their civic missions?
The Global Open Data Index seeks to audit the availability of open government data relevant to civil society. But who is ‘civil society’? And which data is relevant to what part of civil society?
16:30 · Room 9
16 years, 41 countries, and extensive statistical analysis. What can we learn about the relationship between actors, institutions, organisations, and the development of digital governance?
Three phases of thinking on, and practice of, government as a platform. Where are we now, and how did we get there?
Randomised controlled trials have dramatically changed the development landscape, casting doubt on the effectiveness of accepted strategies, and identifying the value of less orthodox activities.
17:45 · Amphitheatre
A chance to chat over drinks and canapés. This will take place in the amphitheatre behind the Villa Vittoria.
19:45
09:30 · Foyer Verde
Since Audrey’s appointment as Minister for Digital in August 2016, the government has undergone a colossal transformation into one of the most open and participatory administrations operating in the world today. She presents some of the groundbreaking changes.
11:00 · Main Plenary (Sala Verde)
An outline of the product development cycle used by Google’s Civic Engagement team, with a particular focus on understanding user needs and the use of learnings from past elections. Plus, discussion of plans to build a scalable Search product to support informed participation in elections in every democracy worldwide.
11:45 · Foyer Verde
12:15 · Main Plenary (Sala Verde)
A chronicle of the phenomenon of involuntary government transparency, with reference to GlobaLeaks, corruption mapping and other crowd-sourced resistance activities.
High levels of mistrust in governments and politicians around the world are catalysing the development of new digital tools for monitoring issues and institutions. In order to prevent the reinvention of the wheel, there is a significant and immediate need to know what does and does not work.
12:15 · Room 4
They're busy with coding and bug-fixing, so it can be hard for small groups to find time to monitor the impact of their tools. Learn how the Open Australia Foundation are using bots and other tools to automate the feedback that informs their work.
Of course it's important to study the impacts of technology on the end users — but what about the people making it? How has the Civic Tech movement affected its very agents of change?
A look beneath the surface: how much does Civic Tech contribute to the commons? How healthy are the projects that underpin Civic Tech? How can we support one another better?
12:15 · Room 9
Decidim Barcelona is a platform for online petitions, citizen debates and decision making. The analysis of the data from the Open API shows the impact of social and technological features on the development of political processes.
CivicTech and online engagement won’t impact democracy until we redesign the way governments manage data and relationships. Hear three case studies on how technology is changing engagement in Australia and New Zealand.
In the UK, citizens have rights to shape planning policy in their own communities, but the process is long, and the inputs rigid. Knowing that people experience neighbourhoods through stories, not forms, Open Lab are working towards a New Media Neighbourhood Plan.
13:30 · Galleria
14:15 · Main Plenary (Sala Verde)
It's been a rollercoaster year in politics! Wherever you call home, you cannot fail to have seen some pretty unexpected events unfold last year, and will no doubt have heard the terms 'fake news', 'populism' and 'post-truth' bandied around in the press and online. In this session we ponder some of these issues and discuss what civic tech's role in challenging some of these issues might be.
Insights gained from a comprehensive mapping project on how corporate (and other) data is being shared to create public value; and a look at the role of knowledge-sharing within the civic tech and open government research communities, especially as it relates to the Open Governance Research Exchange (OGRX).
15:45 · Foyer Verde
16:00 · Main Plenary (Sala Verde)
Messaging apps are a favoured form of communication, so it makes sense to integrate them into our tech. But what are the potential impacts of adopting a proprietary platform, often managed by private companies that will not openly describe what they do with your data?
As governments start to harness emerging media platforms for communicating with citizens, there are benefits and pitfalls for both sides.
How these two organisations worked together on tools, combining known data science and social science techniques, that measure and monitor the shifting collective discourse of Kenyan youth.
16:00 · Room 4
When you create technologies, and also research into those technologies, there are unique symbiotic benefits. Find out more about the work of mySociety's Research Department, and how it has directly impacted the development of their Civic Tech tools.
16:00 · Room 9
The 'Interested Bystander' is the citizen who is civically aware, but not civically active. Outlining an ongoing mixed methods research study which seeks to understand the various social influences that inform and create this archetype.
In the current climate of central government devolving power downwards, and set against austerity economics, efficient and effective public consultation becomes essential. Can a simple tabletop game, backed with a digital platform, help in this aim?
Governments around the world are increasingly turning to technology to engage with their citizens. Evidence from randomised evaluations tells us what's working — and what's not — in these large-scale efforts.
17:15
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