You’re invited

Join us next Thursday 24th March for our next Civic Tech Surgery, as part of our TICTeC Labs programme.

The ability to access good quality data and information is pivotal to the success of many civic tech projects, but still remains one of the biggest challenges facing the global civic tech sector.

Therefore, we’re hosting a Surgery on the topic, to bring together civic tech practitioners and researchers from around the world to discuss these challenges, as well as solutions and ideas to tackle them.

We’ll hear perspectives from:

• Khairil Yusof, Coordinator and Co-founder, Sinar Project (Malaysia)
• Nehemiah Yelu Attigah, Co-founder & Principal Lead, Odekro PMO (Ghana)
• Nati Carfi, Executive Director, Open Data Charter (Argentina)
• Sym Roe, CTO, Democracy Club (UK)

There will also be ample opportunity for attendees to provide their feedback on issues they have faced, and their solutions and ideas – so come along ready to contribute!

Your insights

Ahead of the event, please feel free to share your thoughts on the topic over on this Padlet board, whether you can attend the Surgery or not.

These will then be discussed at the Surgery, and then by the subsequent TICTeC Action Lab (aka working group) that will ultimately commission a project to help tackle one or more of the identified common challenges around accessing quality information for civic tech projects.

About TICTeC Labs

TICTeC Civic Tech Surgeries are part of mySociety’s TICTeC Labs programme, which aims to address the biggest issues facing the civic tech/digital democracy sector, and enhance the effectiveness and potential impact of civic tech projects. This programme is made possible thanks to support from the National Endowment for Democracy.

Who are Civic Tech Surgeries for?

Anyone interested in the use and effectiveness of digital tools to enhance public participation, democracy, transparency and accountability.

We think the event will be of particular interest to civic tech practitioners and researchers, elected government representatives, civil servants, technology companies, funders and software developers, but anyone interested is welcome to attend.

Register to attend

The Civic Tech Surgery will be held virtually on Zoom. You need to register to attend by signing up on this Eventbrite page.

To hear of future TICTeC events and initiatives first, do sign up to our mailing list.

In one sentence

TICTeC Action Lab #1 is looking for an individual, organisation or joint team to produce a piece of work to showcase examples of where civic tech interventions have resulted in tangible improvements and benefits for governments/public institutions and their citizens.

About TICTeC Action Lab #1

As part of the TICTeC Labs programme, mySociety convened the TICTeC Action Lab #1 working group in order to take ideas raised at Civic Tech Surgery #1 forward, and decide together what piece of work would be useful to commission to help civic tech organisations around the world to work more effectively with governments/public institutions.

The TICTeC Labs programme is looking at six key dilemmas facing civic tech. The first of those challenges was how civic tech organisations can work effectively with public and private institutions. Our Civic Tech Surgery #1 discussed some of the challenges and suggested some ways forward. Our Action Lab #1 considered those ideas and decided on a piece of work that could be commissioned to help solve some of the problems raised.

TICTeC Action Lab #1 is comprised of 6 individuals from across the world, who between them have many years of experience working on civic tech and/or the issues that surround the effectiveness of civic tech. You can read more about Action Lab #1 members here.

About this project

TICTeC Action Lab #1 members agreed to commission a piece of work that showcases examples of where civic tech interventions have resulted in tangible improvements and benefits for governments/public institutions and their citizens.

The Action Lab believes highlighting successful examples will help civic tech organisations across the world to work more effectively with governments, as it will help them to promote the benefits of civic tech and inspire and motivate government actors, as well as themselves, to start similar civic tech projects in their contexts.

Therefore, the primary target audience for this work are public institutions across the world, as well as civic tech organisations themselves who want to be inspired. The work should include:

• Examples of civic tech organisations working with public institutions (e.g. local governments/councils; national governments; government departments/agencies etc) on civic tech/digital democracy projects that have resulted in tangible improvements for the public institutions and their citizens. By ‘civic tech organisations’, we mean organisations that focus on informing citizens, connecting them with each other and getting them to engage with their governments in order to work together for the public good.
• Examples from multiple countries, ensuring that examples from both the Global South and the Global North are represented.
• Specific details on how the civic tech/digital democracy projects were set up and why; what the challenges were; what the tangible improvements were; and any other details that would be helpful for other civic tech organisations and public institutions who may like to replicate the examples in their contexts.

There is $2500 USD (inclusive of taxes) available for this work. We are open to what form this piece of work takes – e.g. it could be a set of case studies; interviews; visualisations/images; a literature review; a graphic novel even! Above all, we want the work to be as accessible as possible to ensure it can be easily used in practice. We ask applicants to let us know what approach they will take in their application.

It may be helpful for applicants to look back at schedules from previous TICTeC events to find examples of presentations that discuss how civic tech projects have led to tangible improvements.

How to apply

If you’re interested in producing this piece of work, then please fill in this application form by 28th March 2022. Applications will be reviewed by the TICTeC Labs team at mySociety and the TICTeC Labs Steering Group. Applicants will be notified of the status of their application no later than 15th April. The work will then need to be completed within 8 weeks of the successful applicant being appointed.

What happens after the project

We intend to publish the work you produce, credited to you, on the TICTeC and mySociety website, licensed under a Creative Commons licence. We may make some light edits (beyond proofreading) before we publish. You will be free to make publicly available your own version should you wish to, and any other material based on the research you conducted. The project will then be disseminated by TICTeC Action Lab members, the TICTeC Labs Steering group, and the TICTeC community to ensure it’s used as much as possible.

mySociety will convene a ‘report back’ event at the end of the TICTeC Labs programme to discuss how the programme went and the work commissioned by the programme and its participants. Authors of commissioned work will be invited to attend to present their work.

Any questions?

Please send any queries or questions to tictec@mysociety.org.

Alongside many others, we are appalled to see Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting bloodshed, destruction and assaults on democracy and freedom. We unequivocally condemn this unjustified and unprovoked attack on Ukraine.

Since 2014, we have worked with partners in Ukraine who use our Alaveteli software for the country’s Access to Truth website, where tens of thousands of people have requested information from public bodies. The site was originally started by the Ukrainian NGO Centre of United Actions, in collaboration with the Pravda online news site. In 2017, Centre of United Actions passed the site over to their partner NGO “Human Rights Platform”. 

These organisations’ work on transparency and helping citizens to access vital information has been an inspiration to us and many others around the world. Most recently, the Access to Truth site has been used by citizens to find out locations of bomb shelters, a sobering example of transparency laws in practice now being made use of in people’s day to day experience. 

We are deeply concerned for the welfare of those we have worked with in Ukraine, as well as users of the Access to Truth platform. We stand in solidarity with them, and stand ready to help wherever we can. 

We hope Ukraine’s fight for its own country will be successful and they’ll rise again as a prosperous democratic nation.

Would you like to join TICTeC Action Lab #2, collaborating with others around the world to discuss this question, and to commission a solution to  benefit everyone who uses civic tech? 

As part of the TICTeC Labs programme, we recently convened a Civic Tech Surgery that brought together a group of around 100 civic tech practitioners and researchers from across the world to discuss common challenges in ensuring the tech we make is accessible, and the possible solutions.

You can find resources from this online event here, including minutes, a summary blog post, contributions from attendees, and the full recording.

Now the second part of the TICTeC Labs process kicks in, as we convene an Action Lab, a working group to decide on what to commission as a solution to the issues raised at the Civic Tech Surgery.

The aim is to provide a practical solution that will help organisations running civic tech projects to make their projects more accessible for everyone.

Some of the ideas that arose from the Surgery were: gathering and sharing existing guidance on accessibility best practice and sharing with community; creating policy templates for civic tech organisations; and compiling a database of for-hire or volunteer software developers with experience in making sites and tools accessible. There were many more ideas, and it’s up to Action Lab #2 members to decide which would be most useful —  and practical to commission — using a dedicated $2,500 USD grant.

Apply now

Applications to join this Action Lab are now open, and we would like to invite those interested in being part of this project to apply. Your job will be to decide exactly which piece of work to commission with the available funding.

To be considered as part of the Action Lab, please fill in this form by the end of 4 March 2022. You can find further details here.

You’re invited

Join us on Thursday 3rd February for our next Civic Tech Surgery, as part of our TICTeC Labs programme.

We’ll discuss the challenges of ensuring civic tech tools are accessible and inclusive, as well as solutions and ideas to tackle them. The Surgery will also feature reflections from civic tech researchers, to give perspectives on existing research, evidence gaps or research ideas on the topic that might help to tackle common challenges.

We’ll hear perspectives from:

• Mark Renja, Project Manager at Code for Africa
• Laura Nelson-Hamilton, Principal Consultant at Public Digital
• Oluseun Onigbinde, CEO of BudgIT Nigeria
• Bonnita Nyamwire, Research Manager at Pollicy

There will also be ample opportunity for attendees to provide feedback on issues they’ve faced, along with solutions and ideas. We look forward to connecting civic tech practitioners and researchers from around the world again!

Your insights

Ahead of the event, please feel free to share your thoughts on the topic over on this Padlet board, whether you can attend the Surgery or not. These will then be discussed at the Surgery, and then by the subsequent TICTeC Action Lab (aka working group) that will ultimately commission a project to help tackle one or more of the identified challenges around civic tech accessibility.

About TICTeC Labs

TICTeC Civic Tech Surgeries are part of mySociety’s TICTeC Labs programme, which aims to address the biggest issues facing the civic tech/digital democracy sector, and enhance the effectiveness and potential impact of civic tech projects. This programme is made possible thanks to support from the National Endowment for Democracy.

Who are Civic Tech Surgeries for?

Anyone interested in the use and effectiveness of digital tools to enhance public participation, democracy, transparency and accountability.

We think the event will be of particular interest to civic tech practitioners and researchers, elected government representatives, civil servants, technology companies, funders and software developers, but anyone interested is welcome to attend.

Register to attend

The Civic Tech Surgery will be held virtually on Zoom. You need to register to attend by signing up on this Eventbrite page.

We look forward to seeing you there! To hear of future TICTeC events and initiatives first, do sign up to our mailing list.

Back in December 2020, we blogged about how we track mySociety’s carbon footprint in order to understand our impact and to monitor whether climate policies we’ve implemented are having the desired effect of reducing our emissions. 

In that blog post, we said: ‘having learned of disturbing failings in even the most-recommended [carbon] offsetting services, we are researching where we might be able to make direct payments to mitigate the carbon we produce’. As you can tell from the title of this blog post, we’ve now settled on a different approach, for the time being at least!

After many discussions within our Climate Action Group, we’ve decided for now to purchase carbon offsets from atmosfair.

This blog post aims to explain why we’ve made the decision (for now) to offset all mySociety’s carbon emissions, and how we’re doing it. This is part of our policy of talking openly about our climate actions, in the hope that these types of conversations become more normal and widespread in our sector and beyond — and that we can all learn from each other.

Doing something is better than doing nothing

It’s important to emphasise that our main priority is to reduce mySociety’s carbon footprint, and as you can see over on our Environmental Policy, we’ve set in place various strategies to do this. However, it’s undeniable that our work still produces carbon emissions, and by its very nature, no matter how much we succeed in minimising them, inevitably will continue to do so at some degree.

We don’t want to shrug and say that there’s nothing we can do about these emissions, and we want to emphasise that carbon has a cost, so mySociety’s Climate Action Group (a internal policy group comprising around six staff members) has been (and still is!) on a bit of a learning journey about what to do.

We spent quite a bit of time discussing the pros and cons of offsetting as a concept, and exploring other avenues we could take — more about which, below — and it was beginning to feel like we were letting perfect be the enemy of any progress whatsoever.

Enter atmosfair

So when atmosfair was recommended to us as “historically the most responsible and environmentally conscious provider of offset credits” — their projects are verified by both the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism and Gold Standard — we decided to offset with them for now, while still actively exploring other options. 

According to atmosfair, the Clean Development Mechanism of the United Nations requires considerably more from carbon-offsetting projects than the Gold Standard, including written consent to the project from the government of the host country, liable auditors, on-site audits of each individual project, and recurring audits of each project by an elected body of representatives with equal rights from industrialised and developing countries (the CDM Executive Board). 

This additional level of scrutiny on their projects resolved some of the doubts we’d had around offsetting, giving us that extra confidence to purchase from them. Nonetheless, as we’ve previously said we know this is not a perfect solution and we will review our decision on offsetting every year at a minimum, as well as continually keeping an eye out for news articles and innovations in the area. 

When we come to review our decision to offset next year, we will take into account whether companies include representatives from the Global South on their board or executive team.

We think this representation is important when implementing offsetting projects directly in the region, as is the practice of many offsetting companies. We have written to atmosfair to ask them if they are considering diversifying their board and/or executive team, and we’re keen to learn about Global South-led carbon offsetting/removal organisations we could support in future. 

The winding path to our decision

Over the last year, we considered a few different options for mitigating the carbon our activities produce, including: donating to high impact projects for climate change action; paying for trees to be planted; investing in local community energy organisations in the UK; and purchasing carbon offsets from non-profit certified providers. 

What we’ve realised about mitigating carbon is that there really isn’t a ‘perfect’ solution and every idea/scheme seems to have its controversies or counterarguments that, if you’re not climate change experts, are pretty difficult to assess and view comparatively. However, as a group we felt that trying to do something to mitigate our carbon is still better than doing nothing.

• When it came to donating to high impact projects for climate change action, we learned that even organisations like the NewClimate Institute are still figuring out which projects are the most beneficial to support, and we haven’t felt confident enough in their efficacy to support projects that are still very new. 
• As for paying for trees to be planted, we’d heard from a few sources that it’s not as effective as other offsetting projects, and takes longer for benefits to arise. 
• We loved the idea of investing in local community energy projects in the UK, but as a charity ourselves there are strict legal requirements we must meet when investing charity money, and as a small organisation we don’t currently have the resources to administer that without letting other aspects of our work suffer. 
• We had initially decided last year to offset by purchasing credits directly from Gold Standard, but after hearing from investigative journalists at the Dataharvest conference that Gold Standard projects are potentially not reviewed as well as they could be, we decided to have a rethink.

So atmosfair it is for now – which, along with all the safeguards mentioned above, also has the additional appeal of being a nonprofit, like us.

To reiterate, just because we’ve chosen to offset in this way for now, doesn’t mean we will do so forever. On that note, we’re really keen to hear from others about if/how they are mitigating their carbon emissions, so please do get in touch if you have any thoughts you’d like to share.  The latest idea we’ve heard of is carbon budgeting, and if you know anything about it we would love to chat.

—

Image: DFID (CC by-nc-nd/2.0)

As part of our new TICTeC Labs programme, last week we convened a Civic Tech Surgery that brought together a group of 100+ civic tech practitioners and researchers from across the world to discuss common challenges of working with governments and public authorities on digital projects to enhance public participation, transparency and accountability, as well as possible solutions to these.

You can find resources from this Civic Tech Surgery here, including minutes, a summary of inputs, a Padlet of contributions, and the full recording.

To carry on the Surgery’s momentum, we are now convening an Action Lab (aka working group) of up to 6 individuals, who will work together to commission a piece of work that will be useful to tackle the issues raised in the above Civic Tech Surgery, to answer this question:

What would help the global civic tech community to work more effectively with public and private institutions?

We’re pleased to say that applications to join this Action Lab are now open, and we would like to invite those interested in working with others to tackle the above to apply.

You can apply to join the group by filling in this form by the end of 24 November 2021, and you can find further details about the Action Lab here.

Funding will be available to those who apply to work on the piece of work identified by the Action Lab.

The TICTeC Labs programme is made possible thanks to support from the National Endowment for Democracy.

As outlined in this blog post, as part of our brand new TICTeC Labs programme, we’ll be hosting a series of Civic Tech Surgeries to diagnose, dissect and address Civic Tech dilemmas to unlock impact.

I’m delighted to share details of our first Civic Tech Surgery. It will be held online on 28th October 14.00 – 16.00 GMT+1, and the topic is: Public-private collaborations: how can civic tech work effectively with public and private institutions?

During the Surgery, we will hear about the challenges of working on private-public civic tech projects from practitioners from across the world, as well as their solutions and ideas to tackle these. There will be ample opportunity for attendees to also provide their feedback on issues they have faced, and their solutions and ideas.

The Surgery will also feature reflections from civic tech researchers, to give perspectives on any existing evidence or research ideas on the topic that might be beneficial, that can then be elaborated on in subsequent TICTeC Action Labs.

After not being able to meet as a global community in-person since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re really excited to again facilitate the exchange of relevant and timely research, lessons learnt, successes, failures, ideas and code amongst the civic tech sector globally, so ultimately, civic tech tools are more effective.

Who are Civic Tech Surgeries for?

Anyone interested in the use and effectiveness of digital tools to enhance public participation, democracy, transparency and accountability.

We think the event will be of particular interest to civic tech practitioners and researchers, elected government representatives, civil servants, technology companies, funders and software developers.

Register to attend

The Civic Tech Surgery will be held virtually on Zoom. You need to register to attend by signing up on this Eventbrite page.

We look forward to seeing you there! To hear of future TICTeC events and initiatives first, do consider signing up to our mailing list.

We’re delighted to share an exciting new chapter for TICTeC.

TICTeC stands for ‘The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference’. Since 2015 mySociety has convened an international cohort of those who build, use and research technologies that aim to enhance public participation, transparency and accountability, in order to openly and honestly examine how digital civic interventions are shaping society.

Discussion leading to action

Now, thanks to financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy, TICTeC is expanding from an annual conference into a continuous programme of activities and events that will run across the next 18 months, primarily remotely.

The aim is to discuss and tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the global civic tech/digital democracy sector — and once they’ve been identified, we’ll grant participants the funding that will enable them to work on solutions.

We’re calling this new programme TICTeC Labs and it consists of two streams:

1. Civic Tech Surgeries

Regular online convenings bringing together the global civic tech community to discuss challenges facing the sector, to share existing research and experience, and identify evidence gaps and other needs.

Each Civic Tech Surgery will be around two hours long, and open to participants from around the world; there will be six surgeries across the next 18 months, each focused on a specific theme identified as a key challenge for the global civic tech sector.

The first Civic Tech Surgery

Public-private collaborations: how can civic tech work effectively with public and private institutions?

28 October 14.00 – 16.00 GMT+1

Read more about it and sign up here.

2. Action Labs

A collaborative and action-oriented process to take forward ideas generated in Civic Tech Surgeries and support initiatives that address common challenges.

Following each surgery session, a working group of expert individuals will be convened to lead the Action Lab for that issue area, feeding back to the wider pool of participants as they go. Action Labs members will work together to decide what would be helpful to produce in order to help the civic tech community with challenges identified in Civic Tech Surgeries.

Grants will be available to those who apply to actually produce the work identified by the Action Lab.

We’ll be opening applications to join the first TICTeC Action Lab soon, so do sign up for updates.

Oversight

To help guide and promote the TICTeC Labs programme, as well as to make it as relevant and inclusive as possible to local and regional contexts and contributors, we have established a global Steering Group. We are delighted to welcome the following exceptional people to the TICTeC Labs Steering Group, and we thank them for their contributions:

• Neema Iyer, Founder, Pollicy
• Oscar Montiel, Independent Consultant (formerly The Engine Room, Codeando México, Open Knowledge etc)
• Matt Stempeck, Technologist in Residence, Cornell University, and founder and director of the Civic Tech Field Guide
• Isabel Hou, Open Culture Foundation and g0v
• Nonso Jideofor, Funding & Partnerships Manager, Code for All

With the help of the Steering Group we have now identified topics for the Civic Tech Surgeries and Action Labs over the next 18 months:

• Public-private collaborations: how can civic tech work effectively with public and private institutions?
• Ensuring civic tech is accessible: how can we lead and popularise best practice?
• Accessing quality information: how can we overcome barriers to accessing good data and documentation?
• Scaling and replicating civic tech: how can we overcome the well known challenges to achieving scale and replication?
• Tackling the climate crisis with civic tech: Where can civic tech be most impactful?
• Storytelling and reach: how can we amplify our successes beyond the civic tech community to evidence our impact through mainstream channels?

If you would like to join a Civic Tech Surgery as a discussant to share your experiences of, or reflect on, any of the above topics, then please get in touch. We will of course communicate dates for the Civic Tech Surgeries in due course, and you can hear these first by signing up to our mailing list.

Future plans

We do of course still plan to host our usual in-person TICTeC global gatherings again in future, but at this stage we still think it is too early to start organising a conference with attendees from over 35 countries worldwide, whilst international travel is still so uncertain.

This is why TICTeC Labs is so exciting – we can’t wait to connect more meaningfully with the global civic tech community again and ensure that the peer and cooperation network we worked so hard to build through TICTeC conferences can survive and thrive in this period of uncertainty. We really hope you can join us for this new chapter.

We’re excited to invite you to our TICTeC Show & Tell events, which will be taking place online in March, April and May.

At each event, six speakers from across the world will be given 7 minutes each to share their research and learnings related to the impacts of civic technology.

TICTeC is the global home of civic tech impact research, learning and change. It’s a safe place to honestly examine what works, what doesn’t, what can be improved, what to be aware of etc., so ultimately, better digital tools for civic and democratic engagement are developed.

Event 1:

At this session, speakers will share their research, lessons learned and insights related to the impacts of using technology and data for improved accountability and transparency.

Find out more here and sign up to come along.

Event 2:

At this event, speakers will share research and past experiences on using technology to involve citizens in policy and decision making. Topics include online citizen assemblies, online post-COVID consultations and citizen-representative communications.

Read about each of the presentations and sign up here.

Event 3:

Shows & Tells at this session will cover how using geospatial/place-based technology can empower local communities to engage in planning and policy decisions.

Read about all the presentations, and sign up here.

Interested in sponsoring TICTeC?

We’re a charity, so in order to continue running TICTeC events and initiatives we need financial support. Sponsorship opportunities for the TICTeC Show & Tells can be found here. We’re also looking for support for an expanded TICTeC programme of work to strengthen and solidify an international network of specialists armed with the skills and knowledge to instigate real change in how democracy can be developed and practised online. Get in touch if you’d like to learn more about these opportunities.