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/RSS FeedmySociety staffers Zarino, Gemma and Myf discuss the TICTeC Session “Fostering inclusive approaches to technological innovations for climate action”, in which Pryou Chung of East West Management Institute gave real life examples of how seemingly positive climate initiatives can go badly wrong when financial structures and baked in biases provide an incentive to overlook indigenous people.
Watch Pryou’s presentation for yourself here.
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Transcript
0:05 Myf: I’m Myf, I’m Communications Manager at mySociety.
Zarino: I’m Zarino, I’m the Climate Programme Lead at mySociety.
Gemma: I’m Gemma, I’m mySociety’s Events and Engagement Manager.
0:16 Myf: We’re going to talk now about Pryou Chung from the East West Management Institute, and the name of the video is “Fostering inclusive approaches to technological innovations for climate action”, and that was a remote session at TICTeC 2024.
0:31 Gemma: Having a session that highlights the human rights risks involved with digital innovation in the climate space, and ways to navigate that, seemed especially important to include – and actually I don’t really remember us
0:45 having highlighted technology’s impact and effect on indigenous peoples at previous TICTeCs.
Zarino: Yeah, so she was talking about two examples – one in Cambodia and one in Thailand – of places where local indigenous communities had
1:01 basically been excluded often intentionally from really fundamental decisions about how the climate crisis is being addressed in their area in ways that really would affect them: big infrastructure projects and
1:14 implementation of things like biodiversity credits, and she described them as like technocratic approaches to the climate crisis.
Myf: You could feel warm and fuzzy and like everybody’s doing the right thing because they’re using these wonderful phrases: “carbon financing” and “biodiversity credits” and
1:32 all of these things, but there’s a bit of greenwashing going on there.
Zarino: At one point she said, “Data’s not neutral”, which I really like, and she sort of explained how data and technology has been implemented to perpetuate the existing kind of imbalance of power.
Myf: She was saying these inequalities are almost baked in, whether by design or just
1:51 because technology is coming from a world that just completely ignores indigenous populations.
Zarino: There was one kind of thread through it which is something we’ve been thinking about at mySociety, around ownership of
2:05 data, or physical infrastructure – ownership of things like heat pumps. Ground source heat networks, for anyone who doesn’t know, are one of the more efficient alternatives to individual gas boilers in everyone’s homes, but they throw up really interesting questions about who
2:22 literally owns that physical infrastructure and so we were coming at it as mySociety from like, how can we bring communities together to take on shared ownership of an asset like a heat network that is literally, like, embedded in the streets around your estate or whatever? I think
2:38 it also applies to like the physical kind of infrastructure, like Pryou was talking about, she gave an example of a mangrove protection scheme and how communities were meant to look after these mangroves but they only got like 20% share of profits of what comes out of the mangroves, whereas somebody else – I
2:55 assume the organisations that set this up, or who invested in the first place -get 80%. Nice for them. I think one of the things we’ve been wondering is like, is there a fairer way to try and do that, through things like community share offers, or like local nonprofits and co-ops? Like are there ways we can use
3:11 Civic Tech to try and give those organisations an unfair advantage in a way?
Gemma: Pryou’s presentation really made me reflect on some of our previous
discussions that we’ve had internally about reducing our carbon emissions and carbon offsetting. At the moment,
3:28 mySociety does carbon offset – not to projects that are protecting rainforests,
like REDD projects like Pryou mentioned – but it raises the difficulties that there are in those sort of projects and for us it seemed like doing that was better than doing nothing. These sort of presentations really bring to the forefront those sort of discussions and
3:48 make us realise that we should be constantly reviewing our decisions about carbon offsetting.
Myf: I noticed that at the end she said that she was still an optimist herself. She said that a lot of the problems that she was facing now were the same problems that she had right at the beginning of her career, so good on her for being such an optimist – but she says, “I still believe that AI and
4:07 data-driven technology could be a solution. We’re still battling the same systemic injustices and imbalances as when I started my career.”
Gemma: I would have loved her to go into why she believes AI and other data-driven technologies can be the solution, but I think yeah her focus was on talking about those
power imbalances that still do exist.
4:26 Zarino: These feel like really deep structural problems, and being based in the UK I think we’re probably missing some of the historical and cultural social aspects of that, but when I apply
4:42 it to what we’ve been thinking about here in the UK, I think it does give me
some hope – things like CAPE, our Climate Action Plan Explorer; the Scorecards even; the Local Intelligence Hub – they’re all about scrutiny and transparency of local government decisions. Admittedly we’re
4:56 not talking about indigenous populations here, but there are communities in the UK who are really on the breadline, who are often completely excluded from decisions either because they don’t feel they have a voice, they can’t participate in
5:09 decision-making or policy making or they’re just busy single moms who don’t have time to turn up to a consultation exercise. And so some of the stuff we’ve been doing here in the UK, and I think some of the other the other topics throughout the whole of this year’s TICTeC have sort of proven that there are
5:25 ways that technology and more transparent data can help. Pryou was being really brutally honest about how difficult that is. But yeah, taking it as part of a wider picture, I think we have seen some examples of how technology can be used for good as well as ill.
5:40 Myf: I’ll put the link to this video in the show notes, and it’s just one of many videos that were taken at TICTeC 2024, so whatever you’re interested in, there’s sure to be a session that is of interest. -
TICTeC will be returning in 2025: 10 & 11 June in Mechelen (Belgium), and online.
Registration is open now.
This year we are framing our call for session proposals around ‘pro-democracy technology’. This blog post contains information about the audiences, themes, and formats for the conference – and information on how to submit proposals. Read on to discover what we’re looking for in submissions, and guides to the different formats of sessions.
What is TICTeC?
TICTeC, short for The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference, first launched in 2015 as an annual gathering. Since then, it has evolved into a programme of year-round activities through our current TICTeC Communities and previous TICTeC Labs projects.
A key tenet of the civic tech movement is the idea that the best advocacy is the demonstration of what’s possible. This is what TICTeC is all about. We’re bringing together practical people and practical thinkers to talk about the impact of our work, and learn lessons in how we can go further.
TICTeC is all about sharing research, knowledge and experiences on how digital technologies are being used to defend and advance civic and democratic values across the world. We want a future where technology strengthens democracy rather than undermines it, in order to build societies and technologies that serve the many, not just the few.
TICTeC is a place where you can learn about everything from combating corruption and misinformation to empowering communities and enhancing civic participation, and is a unique platform where attendees connect and collaborate.
Attendees are a distinctive mix of small and big tech practitioners, civil society leaders, funders, users, civil servants, government representatives and academic researchers. Together we want to showcase cutting-edge pro-democracy innovations with a relentless focus on their real-world impact and effectiveness.
At previous TICTeC conferences, between 150-250 people have gathered in person and online, from more than 40 countries.
Conference themes
This year we’re shaping TICTeC around three thematic areas.
- Access to information and open data
- Democracy, people and politics
- Climate change
In these areas, we’re structuring panels around ideas of defensive and constructive democratic tech. Read our blog post on pro-democracy technology to understand more what we mean by defensive and constructive technologies (there are also examples below). Proposals may in practice cover multiple areas. If your proposal does not fit either category, you can select both or neither.
Beyond these topics, we will also have time for sessions that are interested in meta questions around ideas of civic tech and pro-democracy technology.
The examples below are not meant to be comprehensive, but give a sense of what we mean by each category.
Access to information and open data
This thematic area applies to people working with access to information/Freedom of Information laws, or open data. The tech side may be innovations in running ATI platforms, improved government efficiencies, or projects that produce subsequent analysis or tools as a result of the data.
Defensive tech
This category is looking at the use of access to information laws/platforms or open data as part of anti-corruption projects or platforms. This might include how data from ATI requests have been used as part of wider initiatives, or meta-investigation about how technology can make anti-corruption use of ATI more effective.
Constructive tech
This category is looking at how open data or access to information laws can be used to build new data and tools, and the wider social (or commercial) impact of making it easier to access information.
Democracy, people, and politics
This section covers projects concerned with mainstream democratic structures, or technical approaches to democratic processes involving people directly.
This might include democratic transparency projects, e.g. those that create/rework public information about democratic institutions/politicians to improve transparency, accountability, standards, or efficiency. This includes Parliamentary Monitoring Organisations, but also extends to projects looking at elected politicians in other contexts that are Parliaments (such as city governments), or other democratic processes such as deliberative democracy and citizens’ assemblies.
But it might also look like technology that directly involves people in democratic processes, such as toolkits of deliberative processes, consultation approaches, conditional commitment etc.
Defensive tech
This covers a range of uses of technology to safeguard and investigate democratic processes. For instance: electoral violence monitoring, political donation tracking and broader anti-corruption work.
Constructive tech
Here we are looking for empowering technologies that build democratic fibre and capacity. These approaches are less of a zero-sum game, but are looking at the potential for technology that enriches democratic life.
This covers technology that may be trying to improve processes and understanding of electoral democratic institutions. It might include new forms or innovations in PMOs applying machine learning to existing problems. It also includes innovations in new forms of technology, and the uses of technology in deliberative processes.
Climate change
The climate crisis is a massive practical issue that requires urgent action — and like all practical issues it’s a democratic question. We’re interested both in where action on this issue is being actively disrupted by anti-democrats, and where we need to build democratic capacity to solve these problems.
At TICTeC we want to explore practical approaches to facilitating and delivering democratic action on climate change.
We need to develop defensive approaches — but we also need to bring the full cognitive and relational capacity of democracy to bear on the problem, – pushing decisions away from a few big levers in the middle, to understand how to reshape our environments and communities to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.
Submissions in this category may also fit into one or both of the other two.
Defensive tech
In this area, defensive tech may take the form of anti-corruption approaches focused on the influence of fossil fuel companies and petrostates. This might include monitoring of fossil-fuel sponsored narratives repeated by politicians, or fact checking for climate conspiracy theories.
Constructive tech
Constructive tech in this area is trying to bring the cognitive and relational capacity of democracy to bear on the problem, – pushing decisions away from a few big levers in the middle, to understand how to reshape our environments and communities to respond to the effects of climate change.
This might be participatory approaches to shaping policy, directing local changes, or collaborative approaches to mixed public/private decisions home upgrades and retrofit.
Session types
This year we’re looking for three session types.
- 20 minute presentations
- 35 minute short workshops
- 75 minute long workshops/panels
For workshops, we really want to see a strong interactive element that involves the audience in working through a practical activity, sharing information and experiences.
Short workshops may (but don’t have to) take the form of a short presentation, with structured audience participation.
Long workshops may take the form of a panel (where multiple speakers are involved), but there should still be a strong interactive component. For these, we would want to see panellists from a range of expertise and backgrounds.
Structured participation doesn’t have to be complicated. When we run sessions, we tend to use the 1-2-4-all method to structure conversation around questions. Sessions in the past have used slido or similar. What we’re looking for in evaluating workshops is:
- A clear sense of the kind of discussion and questions you want to have.
- A sense that participants will have something to say, and get something out of these discussions (so being clear which subset of the TICTeC audience and themes you are talking to).
When submitting workshop proposals, the key thing to bear in mind is that we have fewer time slots and can accept fewer of these proposals.
You are allowed to submit multiple proposals if you would like to pitch a presentation and a workshop (but both are unlikely to be accepted).
We have a limited number of travel grants available to support speakers to attend, you can apply for this via the submissions form.
While we will favour speakers to be in-person, there are a limited number of slots for people who cannot travel to present remotely. Please indicate if you may need to present remotely when filling out the submission form.
Submission details
Submit your proposals via this application form by 15 Jan 2025 at the latest.
Those selected for inclusion in the conference programme will be notified by 31 Jan 2025.
Presenters will be required to register for the conference by 14 February in order to confirm their slot (the registration fee will be waived for individuals presenting; people who have already booked will be refunded).
What is a good TICTeC presentation?
TICTeC is a practical and reflective conference. We encourage presentation submissions to focus on specific impacts or usage, rather than showcase new tools that are as yet untested. We’re less interested in speculative uses of technology, but more in people’s practical experiences of working with tools and technical approaches. Technology does not have to be new, and we welcome retrospectives on long running projects.
A tool doesn’t have to have mass usage to be worth talking about – we’re equally interested in qualitative stories on the impacts of technology; their impacts on official processes; and how users have used platforms to campaign for change. We’re also interested in stories about obstacles and barriers to having impact. The main work of your organisation does not have to be technology centred: we are interested in experiences and impacts of adopting new approaches in less technical organisations.
TICTeC attendees are a mixture of practitioners and researchers. Presentations should expect audiences to include different levels of technical knowledge.
We score proposals according to their alignment to the conference themes, as discussed above.
Use of AI in writing proposals
You may use ChatGPT or similar to sharpen ideas for proposals, better highlight alignment with our themes, or improve written language. However, proposals and sessions that are entirely AI-conceived will not score well.
Last year we saw a number of proposals we suspected were AI-written because while they were at first appearance well crafted, they ultimately only spoke in vague and general terms about the themes we asked for. Because we prioritise experience and impact, such submissions will score poorly. If using these tools, ensure the result is an accurate and truthful account of your own experiences, research, or impact.
More information
The TICTeC 2025 Eventbrite page contains further information about the conference, including FAQs. If you still have any questions after reading that, please email tictec@mysociety.org.
Speaking opportunities through sponsorship
TICTeC 2025 sponsors receive a guaranteed speaking slot, with no need to participate in the open call. Find out more about sponsoring TICTeC 2025.
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You can follow updates as they are announced over on the TICTeC website. If you’d like to be the first to receive TICTeC 2025 updates, please sign up for our emails.
And in the meantime, if you’d like to see what TICTeC is all about, you can browse all the resources from previous events over on the TICTeC Knowledge Hub.
We look forward to welcoming you to TICTeC 2025!
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The TICTeC conference will be returning next year: on 10 & 11 June 2025 in Mechelen (Belgium), and online.
In light of the exceptional political times we’re living through, and that 2025 marks 10 years since TICTeC began, TICTeC 2025 will have a renewed focus on what we’re calling “Pro-Democracy Technology”.
TICTeC 2025 will bring together people working on defensive technology against threats to democracy, and those who are using technologies constructively to enrich and strengthen the heartbeat of civic and democratic life. Read more on our thoughts on reframing civic tech for the current moment.
If you’re working in this area and have things to share, or want to understand how technology can be applied to the democratic needs of our age – sign up now, we’d love for you to join us.
What is TICTeC?
TICTeC, short for The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference, first launched in 2015 as an annual gathering. Since then, it has evolved into programmes of year-round activities through our current TICTeC Communities and previous TICTeC Labs projects.
A key tenet of the civic tech movement is the idea that the best advocacy is the demonstration of what’s possible. This is what TICTeC is all about, we’re bringing together practical people and practical thinkers to talk about the impact of our work, and learn lessons in how we can go further.
TICTeC is all about sharing research, knowledge and experiences on how digital technologies are being used to defend and advance civic and democratic values across the world. We want a future where technology strengthens democracy rather than undermines it, in order to build societies that serve the many, not just the few.
From combating corruption and misinformation to empowering communities and enhancing civic participation, TICTeC is a unique platform where attendees connect and collaborate.
With a distinctive mix of small and big tech practitioners, civil society leaders, funders, users, and academic researchers, we want to showcase cutting-edge pro-democracy innovations with a relentless focus on their real-world impact and effectiveness.
At previous TICTeC conferences, between 150-250 people have gathered in-person and online from more than 40 countries.
Why do we host TICTeC?
We run TICTeC because we think there is important work being done, and that we are stronger and smarter together.
Threats to democracy and civic power are rising across the world. Anti-democratic actors aren’t standing still – and are constantly learning how to use technology to extend their power and control over people.
Democracy’s reaction to this needs to be not to reject technology but to use it to evolve and compete, particularly in addressing society-changing issues like climate change.
Democracy needs to be fast, effective and popular, and digital technology can and is helping to achieve this.
That’s why TICTeC exists – to highlight and examine these pro-democracy technologies, in a collaborative and safe space. This not only strengthens our work at mySociety but also contributes to a global movement harnessing technology to protect and advance democratic values around the world.
TICTeC 2025 themes
The 2025 TICTeC conference will focus on exploring the impact of pro-democracy tech innovations across several critical themes: Access to information (ATI), Democratic Transparency, and Climate.
In each of these areas, we want to explore what we’re calling ‘defensive’ and ‘constructive’ approaches. Defensive approaches safeguard the openness democracy needs to operate – while constructive approaches build the capacity of the engine of democratic progress.
Call for Proposals
We’ll soon be launching our Call for Proposals, giving more information and the opportunity to pitch your session ideas on the above themes. Be sure to sign up for email updates to be the first to know when submissions open.
Register now- Early Bird tickets available
It is essential to register on Eventbrite in order to attend TICTeC 2025, whether that’s in person or online. Early Bird tickets are available until 3rd March 2025, saving £100. More practical information and FAQs can be found on the TICTeC 2025 webpage.
If you have general ideas or questions about TICTeC 2025, or are interested in sponsoring the conference, please get in touch.
We can’t wait to see you at TICTeC 2025—either in person in Mechelen or online. Let’s come together again to explore how technology can be leveraged for a resilient and proactive global democratic future.
Image: CC Visit Mechelen.
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In how we’re framing TICTeC and our wider work, we’re talking less about civic tech and more about what we’re calling Pro-Democracy Tech (PDT).
The reason for this is we’re finding civic tech is a less helpful term for the kind of convening work we want to do. It won the argument of its time, and there is much less need to make the basic case for technology as part of the civic tool kit. But as a result, it has less to say about the situation we’re in now. Instead, we need framing that better talks to the range of people and institutions who are doing civic and democratic work with technology today.
What is Pro-Democracy Tech?
Pro-Democracy Tech describes digital tools aimed at realising and defending democratic values.
A key motivation of this approach is that authoritarianism isn’t standing still – and is learning how to use technology to extend its surveillance and control over people. Democracy’s reaction to this needs to be not to reject technology but to use it to evolve and compete. Democracy needs to be fast, effective and popular, while not conceding that the only way to do this is by becoming more centralised and authoritarian itself.
Within this, there are two key activities:
- Defensive democratic tech – defending the open society: anti-corruption, anti-misinformation, etc.
- Constructive democratic tech – empowering technologies that build democratic fibre and capacity: participation and deliberation, community tools, civic response tech.
These are interconnected, and not hard divides. Defensive approaches safeguard the openness which democracy needs to function, while constructive approaches build the capacity of the engine of democratic progress.
There are tools and approaches that apply to both. Access to Information laws are both vital anti-corruption tools, and part of capacity building through lowering costs of accessing information. Democratic transparency organisations (PMOs and similar) are both about increasing anti-corruption surveillance, and transforming the capacity and connections of democratic institutions.
Where they differ is in their approaches to new technological tools. Defensive democratic tech is in an arms war with anti-democrats. We have to keep moving and innovating to stay in place. It is reactive against a well-financed opponent, and needs to understand how to bend tools (often developed by those with deep pockets and their own motives) to democratic purposes.
Constructive democratic tech is less of a zero-sum game. Just as there are technological approaches that make authoritarianism much more effective, there are approaches that make democracy much more effective. Here the enemy is less organised but omnipresent: inertia, low expectations, and a belief that things can’t be better. The goal of this approach is developing civic capacity, and taking us on the path from “citizen sensors” to “citizen thinkers” – where the extraordinary capacity and cognitive diversity in a democracy are fully enabled to work together to solve the big problems of the age (such as climate change).
Why do we need this shift?
Going back twenty years (or even just ten years to the first TICTeC), what the “civic tech movement” is trying to get across is that there are civic-minded people who are using technology to create new kinds of organisations and services. Civic tech is a term to describe this novelty, make the case to funders, and advocate for this idea that technology isn’t just about online shopping, but can help people work together to improve the society they’re in.
The good news is that these people mostly won. Governments, journalism and NGOs have generally taken on the lessons of the early civic tech movement. A wider range of governments and organisations understand the value of technology in helping them achieve their purpose, and there are more outlets for the kind of people who originally would have founded civic tech organisations.
As a result, when we look internationally, we see very few organisations where the core identity is “civic tech” and that run a range of services in the same way that mySociety does. Instead, we tend to see organisations more tightly focused on an area of work (like access to information), and tech is one of a range of skill sets represented, or where civic tech-like work is part of a broader portfolio of more traditional research and advocacy work.
As civic tech is speaking to problems that no longer exist in the same way, the phrase doesn’t apply well to the problems we have now. We need language and terms to bring together people who are using tech as part of the work to defend and enrich our democratic societies.
Putting this into practice
The purpose of this framing is to create practical language. At TICTeC 2025, we’re exploring how we’ll use constructive/defensive framing to structure the conference – across specific areas of work we have a focus in: democratic transparency, access to information and climate change. We also want to use it to be clearer about the broader range of organisations and projects we ‘d like to see there.
Pro-Democracy Tech reflects both the purpose of the technology, a general attitude that pro-democracy tech is possible, and a recognition that there is anti-democratic technology out there. It was really helpful putting this together to see some similar language and divides in this NED/IFDS essay collection.
Leaving the tech aside, the spirit of civic tech is about challenging low expectations of how things are, and demonstrating that things can be done better. As mySociety, we still see ourselves as a civic tech organisation, and the idea of a civic tech movement as important to understand ourselves and our history. But we also need language that helps us understand how we relate to others that don’t share that history.
A feature of the current moment is that ideas of democracy are under attack, and authoritarians have embraced and made technology core to how they work. What is up for debate is the orientation of the pro-democracy side towards technology. We think ceding the ground would be a mistake and through TICTeC we want to incubate the best version of the pro-democratic tech argument. At the same time, we want to stay true to an important value of the civic tech movement: that the best advocacy is the demonstration of what’s possible.
Header image: Photo by Bhushan Sadani on Unsplash
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/RSS FeedTICTeC, the Impacts of Civic Technology Conference from mySociety, runs for just two days – but those two days are packed with civic tech practitioners sharing insights and experience from projects along the world.
We share most of the sessions as videos on our YouTube channel, and to help you decide what to watch first, we’ve asked mySociety staff to pick their favourites and chat about what they found so interesting. In this episode, Alice, Gemma and Myf discuss “Have you empirically improved transparency and accountability?” from Sean Russell of OpenUp South Africa.
You can watch that session in full for yourself at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsfjF7kV5go.
If you value the work we do at mySociety, please donate.
Transcript
0:00 Gemma: Hi, I’m Gemma I’m mySociety’s Events and Engagement Manager and I am the producer of TICTeC.
Myf: I’m Myf and I am the Communications and Marketing Manager
00:10 at my Society.
Alice: Alice I’m the Head of Fundraising at mySociety.
Myf: Today we’re going to talk about one of the sessions that was at TICTeC 2024 and this was
0:20 Sean Russell from openup South Africa and the title was “Have you empirically improved transparency and accountability?”. Alice you chose this one to talk about.
0:30 Alice: Yeah I liked that he was challenging us to think about how do we prove that we are having the impact in the world that we say we want to? It’s obviously very relevant as a fundraiser.
0:40 I have to demonstrate that we are having an impact. He gave some really good examples of what he called The Good, The Bad and The Misguided.
Gemma: in terms of impact measurement it was a really
0:50 nice sort of back to basics presentation of why it’s important to measure impact in the first place and some ways to go about it, but they also talked
1:00 about some really interesting impacts of their own work which is what TICTeC’s all about. They run a tool, apparently, that is a medicine price registry, so a massive database where you can see
1:10 prices of all the medicines across South Africa at their lowest price, so you can see if you’re being overcharged and apparently it’s a legacy project doesn’t have any funding
1:20 and they don’t measure the impacts of it, and then when website went down one day and they had loads of calls and emails saying, “Where’s the website? I use it all the time!”
1:30 and it it has a massive real world impact that they just weren’t measuring, so I thought about some of mySociety’s tools, you know, our legacy projects that we keep up to date but we don’t
1:40 have any funding for and just wondered what would happen if we turned off some of our sites and what the impact of that would be.
Alice: He also talked about how there’s a service
1:50 that they have for looking at corruption in lottery grants, and he said it essentially only has two users, which if you – and his words were,
2:00 “If you’re measuring success based on user numbers then this would be the worst website ever!”, but he then went on to talk about the fact that those two users have
2:10 then gone on to have like significant impact with that and it’s been dramatic the things that have come from it.
Myf: Those two users are journalists, right?
2:20 Alice: Journalists and legal experts, so people who can actually make change happen from seeing this data, and that I think is really interesting relating it to mySociety again like Gemma was just talking
2:30
about – we’ve got services that are more niche and they they reach like more specific audiences, so user numbers, we’ve got services that reach millions of people, but we’ve got2:40 other services that have much smaller numbers, but if those people are then going on to have really significant real world change with the information that we’ve provided or the
2:50 way that we’ve been able to connect them to important information, then that’s what we want to see. It doesn’t matter how many people are doing it as long as there is change happing as a result and
3:00
I think that’s where he was trying to make the distinction between outputs and numbers, and actual outcomes and impact.Gemma: I found it really impressive that they actually could count up
3:10 how much money was actually being recovered from uncovering that corruption so I think he said like 20 million Rands which, I don’t know, is like a million pounds or something that had been recovered from
3:20 those investigations of that civic tech project that had two users.
Myf: I remember he sort of opened the whole talk up, didn’t he, by saying somebody came into the office one day and said, “Why should people fund our projects
3:30 rather than just feeding a hungry child?” The answers that he came up with was that it’s about systemic change so it’s about making the changes that then
3;40 ensure that there are fewer hungry children in the world rather than just addressing the problem.
Alice: Which is what I guess people in civic tech are trying to do like and it’s why
3:50 I think he wanted to do this talk and challenge us in the room to think about how how we’re measuring that systemic impact because it’s harder to prove than, yes, we’ve fed this many children but actually how do you see if you are
4:00 having systemic impact and as you say the systemic change bit is a really important part the impact of civic tech.
Gemma: But also he mentioned that if civil
4:10 society are not doing those projects, then for-profits might take up that space.
Myf: I thought that was a brilliant point actually.
Gemma: Yeah. I find it really refreshing that he was saying how hard
4:20 this stuff is to track you know, because you almost expect everyone else to be finding it a bit easier or like there’s some magic silver bullet that is the way
4:30 to track impact and measure impact but of course there isn’t. They’ve got some really good ideas, you know they gave their methodologies. I feel like it makes us feel a bit better that like this is a hard thing.
4:40 This presentation by OpenUp was chosen for TICTeC 2024 because it it really epitomises what TICTeC’s all about. Obviously the Impacts of Civic Technology Conference, we want to talk
4:50 about how do you measure impact, what impact your civic tech projects are having, and the fact that this encapsulated both impacts of their civic tech tools
5:00 telling us about those and methodologies for how to actually do the impact measurement was just TICTeC all over. OpenUp, they’re going to be mentoring a couple
5;10 of the organisations that are part of the Access to Information community to help them measure impact of their civic tech tools and their Access to Information tools, so that’s a a really nice impact of
5:20 TICTeC, you know you meet amazing people doing really interesting work and then you end up partnering with them to do longer term projects.
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Welcome to autumn, and as we have breezed past Right To Know day let’s take a look at what the Access to Information network have been up to this month.
FragDenStaat: released their most recent “redaction art” for Right to Know day on September 28th 2024, this piece comes from Saxony – an area which only ratified their access to information law in 2023, the last of the federal states to do so.
mySociety: has been experimenting with AI in our Projects data analysis service, with mixed results, and kicking off our new round of support for marginalised groups in the UK. We’re also busy designing some exciting learning opportunities coming in October and November 2024!
Access Info: have a winner for their inaugural Impact Award! Lighthouse Reports won with their brilliant Suspicion Machines investigation and their leadership of the collaboration around this work. The other finalists were really strong contenders and worth checking out too!
SPOON: announced their collaboration with Access Info and their intent to work on important topics such as introducing Information Commissioners to the Netherlands system.
Sieć Obywatelska Watchdog Polska: On September 28-29, the 3rd Openness Fans’ Convention took place. 110 people from all over Poland took part in the two-day meeting. There were meetings with journalists, talks about technology, legal advice and a presentation of monitoring results conducted by graduates of the Watchdog School. On the evening of September 28, we also raised a toast to openness and FOI.
Ma Dada: Ma Dada held its General Assembly and welcomed new board members from a variety of backgrounds. We also ran training sessions for journalists and kept digging through data for our observatory.
ForSet: had a fantastic Datafest, and are now taking a well deserved breather to take stock and share insights.
Transparencia: After the belgian elections in june, we made lobbying towards the new regional government for stronger FOI regulation in walloon region
ImamoPravoZnati: Gong held its second annual School for Democracy for young politicians and activists. The programme covered a range of civic literacy topics, including new forms of democratic participation and digital tools which can be used for conducting public oversight (such as IPZ).
KiMitTud: have been investigating topics such as Lithium mining in Serbia and oversights in safety zones near factories in Göd. They’re also looking for developer support for 10 hours per month – so if you’re a Ruby whizz and want to support another partner in the network drop us a line!
Vouliwatch/Arthro5A: In view of the government’s initiative to update article 5 of the Code of Administrative Procedure (regarding the right to access to public documents), Vouliwatch submitted a set of proposals during the public consultation process. The proposals submitted aimed at aligning the provisions of the article in question with the standards set by the Tromso Convention. In addition, Vouliwatch proceeded to contact MPs to inform them about its submission and ask for their support during the debate in parliament.
PPDC: We held the Freedom of Information (FOI) Ranking 2024, where we celebrated the strides made in promoting transparency and accountability in governance. This annual event showcases the achievements of public institutions in upholding the principles of openness and citizen participation.
Abrimos Info: has published “Millions of requests: the evolution of the massive use of access to information and the role of INAI”, a data analysis of the impact that the creation of the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data (INAI) and the entire National Transparency System had on the right of access to information in Mexico. This op-ed is especially relevant given the possibility of reform or disappearance of these institutions. Read here (spanish)
CITAD: CITAD held its fifth Annual Kano Social Influencers Summit (KANSIS24) with the theme ‘Artificial Intelligence in Election and Governance’ which was attended by over 1000 people.
Other news:
We’ve created a directory of the partners in this Community of Practice in the Civic Tech Field Guide. You can view it here.
If you’d like to add your organisation or project, add a free contact form to your listing, or make any changes, please write to matt@civictech.guide.
Photo by Alexandre Chambon on Unsplash
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It’s our first ever podcast at mySociety! Heeey how about that?
Myf, our Communications Manager, runs you through all the stuff we’ve been doing at mySociety over the last month. It’s amazing what we manage to fit into just 30 days: you’ll hear about a meeting of Freedom of Information practitioners from around Europe; our new (and evolving) policy on the use of AI; a chat with someone who used the Climate Scorecards tool to springboard into further climate action… oh, and there’s just the small matter of the General Election here in the UK, which involved some crafty tweaking behind the scenes of our sites TheyWorkForYou and WriteToThem.
Links
- TICTeC videos on YouTube
- TICTeC photos on Flickr
- Browse the TICTeC 2024 schedule, find slides etc
- Matthew’s post on updating TheyWorkForYou on election night
- Sign up to get an email whenever your MP speaks or votes
- Democracy resources and our future plans in Alex’s post
- Local Intelligence Hub lets you access and play with data around your constituency
- Matt Stempeck’s summary of the Access to Information meetup
- Our summary of Matt’s summary of the meetup
- Updates from all those ATI projects around Europe
- New in Alaveteli: importing & presenting blog posts; request categories and exploring csvs in Datasette
- Fiona Dyer on how volunteering for Scorecards upped her climate action
- Where to sign up if you fancy volunteering as well
- mySociety’s approach to AI
- Contact us on hello [at] mysociety.org if you have any questions or feedback.
Music: Chafftop by Blue Dot Sessions.
Transcript
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Well, hello and welcome to mySociety’s monthly round-up.
My name is Myf Nixon, Communications Manager at mySociety.
0:11
This is part of an experiment that we’re currently running where we’re trying to talk about our work in new formats, to see if that makes it easier for you to keep up with our news. (more…)
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Summer is finally upon us, and though things are slowing slightly in the heat there’s been lots of amazing work happening on Access to Information across Europe this month!
NB: Our TICTeC community of practice is Global and we’d love to hear updates from our global members too in the future!
Without further ado:
FragDenStaat: are working on a long running investigation into a funding scandal at the Ministry of Education looking at the withdrawal of funds from critical scientists. More on that here
mySociety: are working on a new release of Alaveteli to bring some of our new features into your platforms. We’re also getting WDTK Projects as a self serve option into the Alaveteli Codebase, investigating AI for assessing batches and talking about our marginalised communities work at the Women’s Aid 50th Anniversary Conference. We’ve also finally released our Resource Hub, can you spot the pre-September event doc? Hint hint
Access Info: are working on legal reform projects with Moldova and Greece, as well as supporting Serbia with some legal challenges and convening a group of CSOs and activists around the 1049 Article.
SPOON: just got a win from the court in Amsterdam (more here) on rejections based on draft documents! There’s been some support from a minister who suggests the house waits to see what happens with FOI before talking about Abuse of the law and dealing with the complexities of things passing through the house when trying to ask for information about bill proceedings.
Transparency International Slovenia: have been Releasing their global integrity report with Ernst Young and going into conversation with Ernst and Young about what this means for Slovenian businesses.
Transparencia: is using FOI campaign to change 7 Belgian FOI regulations. Our actual campaign is on the federal Belgian law. We have collaborated with mainstream media to support that goal Transparence : ces documents que l’on ne veut pas (facilement) rendre publics – Le Soir and we presented to the press an FOI-investigation on fraud in covid-government contracts Des espions dans le Covid #1 : Vaccins périmés, manipulations et vidéos, le scandale belge qui éclabousse la France et l’Europe (blast-info.fr)ImamoPravoZnati: are sailing along smoothly this month; Users are sending their questions, receiving answers and they calculated they receive around 6% of all the FOIs sent in the Republic of Croatia to public authorities!
KiMitTud: Atlatzso (KMT’s parent company) have been using FOI to investigate fraudulent calls for vote recounts and uncovered that almost half the calls (114) for a recount in one constituency were made by the candidate themselves, not the vote counters.
Arthro5A: Vouliwatch (Arthro5a’s parent organisation) ran their first workshop around Access to Information to encourage journalists and CSOs to make requests and use their right to information. It was well attended and 18 CSOs signed up to the campaign afterwards. The event was supported by Access Info and Open Knowledge Germany.If you’re in our Network and Community of Practice and have something to share for August monthnotes – drop Jen a line!
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Whether or not you were lucky enough to attend TICTeC in person earlier this month, you can now experience it all over again.
Where there are videos and slides for a session, you can access them via the Schedule page. Just click on ‘see session detail’ to see which resources there are. Or discover all the videos via the TICTeC 24 YouTube playlist.
Note: Videos and slides are only available for sessions that were recorded, and where presenters gave consent to share.
Plus: browse through photos from the two days of TICTeC 24 on our Flickr page, here. All photos are available under a non-commercial Creative Commons licence, so please do share them where you like.
Don’t miss TICTeC 2025!
Work with us at TICTeC 2025: we’re open to suggestions from organisations who might like to partner with us to host TICTeC in your region; and we’re also always happy to talk to potential sponsors. Drop us a line if you’d like to discuss more.
Subscribe to updates: Be the first to know when we put out the call for papers, open bookings and announce the location for next year’s TICTeC — sign up here.
Thanks for your feedback
We love hearing what other people got out of TICTeC! Special thanks to those who have taken time to feed back on what those two days meant to them.
Here are just a couple of the comments we’ve received: follow us on Instagram to see more over the next few weeks.
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We’ve just come back from two intense days packed with presentations from the wonderful global community of civic tech practitioners. Heartfelt thanks to everyone who made TICTeC 2024 possible: our wonderful speakers, delegates both on the ground and joining us remotely; sponsors the National Endowment for Democracy, the team of red-shirted mySociety staff who made everything run so smoothly (including our volunteer for the day, Teona); venue Mary Ward Hall; and the videography team from AV Projections who gave our online attendees a seamless experience.
Each attendee will of course have their own highlights, but they surely must include some of the following: María Baron and Nick Mabey OBE igniting each day’s proceedings with relevant and provocative keynotes; a panel of seasoned civic technologists reflecting on what happened the day they woke up and realised their project had become critical national infrastructure; first-person testimonies from practitioners operating in hostile or war-torn environments; and deep dives into where AI can be helpful and where it has inherent dangers.
The last in-person conference was in 2019, and to be completely honest, we did wonder whether we’d be able to fully recapture the TICTeC spirit. Fortunately, people’s reactions, messages and social media posts — not to mention the buzz of excitement throughout the two days — has put those concerns entirely to rest. There’s as much affection and appreciation for TICTeC as there ever was.
Thanks to everyone who was a part of it – not least our own Gemma Moulder who pulled off her usual seemingly effortless, but in reality massive, feat of organisation.
We’ll be sharing slides, videos and photos as soon as they’ve all been processed, so watch this space.
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Photo: Alice Williams
