1. TICTeC Show & Tell: Scrutiny, oversight, and the data that makes it possible

    TICTeC – mySociety’s long running research conference – continues to offer a convening place for the global civic tech community. Of course, like every other event we’ve moved to an online environment, and we’re keen to keep things fresh in an era of screen fatigue.

    With that in mind, the TICTeC Show and Tell sessions are just an hour long, feature six different speakers, and move fast. We’re putting them on monthly until May, and the first, ‘Scrutiny, oversight, and the data that makes it possible‘, took place this week.

    Given the speed of the proceedings, you may be glad to know that a variety of outputs are available for you to review via whichever format you prefer:

    Full video

    Six 7-minute presentations  on using tech for transparency and accountability.


    How to monitor emergency procurement with open data: lessons from 12 countries

    Camila Salazar from Open Contracting Partnership kicked things off with a look at OGP’s research into the data around emergency procurement in 12 countries. As you might expect, the availability and quality of data varied widely, but the project was able to provide an outcome of useful recommendations across the board.

    See this presentation


    Civic tech for smartphone beginners: is the future binary?

    Next up, Arran Leonard of Integrity Action took us through a variety of iterations in a promise-tracking app, each of which built on learnings from the last. Monitors on the ground may have a strong motivation to report on progress, but low tech skills – here we see how a simple interface can still provide the data that’s needed to effectively oversee public services and infrastructure projects.

    See this presentation


    Find that Charity: a tool to help find charities and improve charity data

    David Kane, Project Lead at 360Giving introduced the Find that Charity tool, while discussing the importance of standardised data in the grant-making world and beyond. With charities often being known to the public by different names than the ones they’re registered under, a searchable register is invaluable for the sector.

    See this presentation


    Civic tech vs. illicit pharmacies

    We next turned to the issue of unlicensed pharmacies, with Ibraheem Saleem of Code for Pakistan. A project to digitise the previously manual licencing process and cut down on counterfeit medicines has been widely successful, saving government hours and bringing transparency and accountability to the sector.

    See this presentation


    Keeping track of open data in times of political change

    Silvana Fumega of ILDA  and David Zamora from Latin American and the Caribbean Open Data Barometer talked us through how data was gathered in the most recent update that would inform and contribute to the improvement and extension of open data policies and projects in the region. With the inclusion of lessons learned, this was a practical overview of how to manage such a snapshot.

    See this presentation


    How AfricanLII saves its users $100million a year

    Finally, Paul Lenz of Indigo Trust and Amy Sinclair from AfricaLII explained why the latter is such an inviting prospect for funders: just a small investment can provide very substantial returns in the form of access to legal documents, brining significant positive, social, legal, and financial impacts for their users.

    See this presentation


    And that’s not all

    The next TICTeC Show and Tell, Hearing every voice: lessons learned from online deliberation projects focuses on public engagement, and takes place on April 20. See who’s speaking, and sign up for free, here.

  2. TICTeC 2018 in Lisbon: Conference resources now online

    Back in April, we hosted the fourth edition of our research conference The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference (TICTeC) in Lisbon, Portugal.

    We were thrilled to bring together 150 leaders in the field from 29 countries to take stock of the civic technology research landscape and to discuss what works and what doesn’t when it comes to using technology for social good.

    62 speakers from 19 countries covered topics such as: responsible technology; accountability keywords; blockchain; fact-checking; service delivery; bridging the civic tech research divide; working with governments; impact measurement; open contracting; amongst many, many others. Thank you to everyone involved for sharing your experiences and research.

    If you weren’t able to attend (or indeed if you’d like to experience it all again), do check out the TICTeC website to see videos of all conference sessions, interviews with delegates, photos, and slides where available.

    As a taster, here’s an overview of the whole event… in just two minutes:

    Thank you again to Google and the MacArthur Foundation for sponsoring TICTeC. We’ll keep you all posted on next year’s event over on the research mailing list and on the TICTeC Google Group.

  3. TICTeC: looking back to Florence and forward to Taipei

    Thanks so much to everyone who joined us in Florence last week for the third Impacts of Civic Technology conference, TICTEC. As always, it was an event shaped by the many thoughtful contributions from both the speakers and the audience.

    Resources

    For those who couldn’t be there, and for those who were but couldn’t see everything, here’s where to find a taste of the two days.

    • The official TICTeC website has a full list of speakers and the schedule. To see more about any session, click on it from the speaker’s page or from the schedule. We’ll add any links, transcripts, slides or videos as they become available to these pages, too.
    • Want to know more about a specific session? Most speakers have included their Twitter handles on their page, so you can tweet them your question.
    • You can also see all the slides in one place (where we’ve received permission from speakers; there may be more to follow) on Slideshare.
    • Everyone who attended is automatically a member of the TICTeC Google Group (and you can also join even if you weren’t there, of course). Feel free to continue discussions or start new ones there.
    • Thanks so much to the enterprising delegates who contributed to these crowdsourced notes on many of the sessions.
    • We’ve gathered together the best tweets and pictures on Storify.
    • Key sessions were videoed, and we also interviewed several delegates — but editing takes a little time, so keep an eye on this blog or our Twitter feed to find out when those go live.
    • We’ll also put professional photos from the event over on our Flickr account, as soon as we have them. They’ll all be under Creative Commons, so feel free to download and share them if you wish.

    Taiwan

    Don’t forget that TICTeC is expanding this year: we’ll also be in Taipei as part of the Civic Tech fest in September.

    We’re really glad to be taking the event to Asia, and we’re certain that this will bring a completely new perspective to the issues and initiatives discussed — it should also make the event accessible to a wider audience.

    If you’d like to present at TICTeC@Taipei, please submit a session proposal by 16th June 2017. Applications for travel grants are now also open, so if you need financial support to attend submit your application here by the same deadline.

  4. Adding translated subtitles on YouTube

    Almost all the videos on our YouTube channel now have subtitles in English. You can tell which ones do, by the small CC symbol beneath each one:

    mySociety YouTube channel

    Watching our videos with subtitles

    To switch subtitles on or off, you click the CC sign at the bottom right of every video:

    Where to find the CC button on youtube videos

    If we’ve already provided subtitles for the video you’re watching, that’s what you’ll see. If you’ve picked one of the few we still haven’t got round to, you get YouTube’s automatically-generated subtitles which — while they do obviously represent great strides in voice recognition technology, compared to how things were only a few years ago — can still be a bit hit and miss.

    Subtitles make videos more useful for all sorts of people, from the hearing impaired to those who just want to watch without disturbing others. But of course, English subtitles aren’t necessarily useful for people who speak other languages.

    The National Democratic Institute (NDI) recently asked whether we’d mind them translating some of our subtitles into Arabic. Mind? We were positively delighted.

    Video with Arabic subtitles

    It turns out that YouTube has really upped its game on subtitles, making it much easier to add them to our own videos, and providing the means for others to contribute too.

    Here’s how to view subtitles in another language:

    Click on the ‘settings’ cogwheel at the bottom right of the video:

    settings cogwheel on youtube videos

    You’ll see a short menu pop up. Click on ‘subtitles/CC’:

    settings menu on youtube videos

    Then select the language you require: in this case, you have the choice between Arabic, our own English subtitles, or, for potential comic value, the auto-generated version.

    language menu for subtitles on youtube

    Incredibly, you can also select ‘auto-translate’, which takes the English transcript and gives you what appears to be a fairly reasonable version (presumably run through Google Translate) in any one of more than 100 different languages.

    Here’s how to contribute subtitles in another language

    If you think our videos might be useful for organisations, researchers or students, but that they would benefit from being able to read the subtitles in their own language, you are more than welcome to contribute a translation.

    Begin by clicking on the three dots next to the word ‘More’, and then selecting ‘transcript’ from the drop-down menu:

    youtube where to find the 'add transcript' menu

    This will show you the existing transcript in written form. At the top you’ll see a dropdown menu with options for the transcripts which are already in place, and at the bottom, ‘Add subtitles/CC’:

    where to find the 'add transcript' menu on youtube

    Again, you’ll be shown a list of the translations that we already have, and invited to search for the language that you wish to add — in this case, let’s say Greek:

    select a language to translate into on youtubeClick on the name of the language, and you get this simple translation interface, with a box below each section of the existing transcript for you to type your translation into. And as you type, you’ll see how the subtitles will look on the video.

    translation interface youtubeOnce you’re done, you just click ‘submit for review’ on the top right, and that sends us an email to tell us there’s a translation waiting.

    And that’s it! You’ve benefited everyone who speaks your language… and of course we here at mySociety will also be very grateful.


    Image:
    © European Union 2012 EP/Pietro Naj-Oleari (CC by-nc-nd/2.0)

  5. How 350 FOI requests will increase the chance of success for start-ups

    Gavin Chait hates walking past empty shops.

    We’re talking about shops where the only person inside is a bored cashier, waiting for customers. Gavin sees it as a sign that the business should never have been set up in that location, and, more importantly, as something that’s completely avoidable.

    With his company Whythawk, he’s on a mission to get that changed — and he’s using Freedom of Information to do so. It’s a very interesting case study that shows just how WhatDoTheyKnow, our Freedom of Information platform, can be used for the social good.

    So, if you have a few minutes, sit back and watch Gavin explain what led him to make 350 FOI requests, one to each local authority in England and Wales — and what he did when many of them were turned down.

    You can read more about the whole project at Pikhaya.com.

    Thanks very much to Gavin for taking the time to talk to us.

    Do you have a story to tell about how you’ve used one of mySociety’s sites? We’d love to hear from you: just drop us a line on communications@mysociety.org.


    Image: Dan Thompson (CC)

  6. Videos from TICTeC 2016

    Videos from TICTeC — our Impacts of Civic Technologies Conference — are now available for viewing.

    So, whether you were there and you want to experience it all over again, or you just want to see what you missed out on, settle down and enjoy accounts from some of the most interesting civic tech projects around the world right now.

    What is TICTeC?

    Here’s mySociety CEO Mark Cridge explaining what TICTeC is, and why we run it:

    And if that’s left you hungry for more, make sure you visit our YouTube channel to watch the other TICTeC videos.

    You might also enjoy the slides, photos and other media that have all been collected together on the TICTeC 2016 page.

  7. Videos from AlaveteliCon

    Earlier this year, the AlaveteliCon conference brought together people with an interest in online Freedom of Information technologies.

    It was an event quite unlike any other, and left a lasting impression of many dedicated people making good things happen for their communities, in places across the world.

    That impression is reflected in these short videos, which came about when we yanked attendees away from their lunches and asked them questions in a darkened room.

    Thanks very much to everyone who responded so amiably, as well as giving us such useful insights into what it’s like to run an FOI site in all sorts of circumstances. We’ve named them at the foot of this post, along with links to their sites.

    (more…)

  8. Alaveteli and mySociety

    Just to finish off this collection of video clips from the Alaveteli conference, here are a couple featuring mySociety people. They were shot by Romina Colman.

    First, mySociety Director Tom Steinberg, talking about what he hopes will happen as a result of the conference.

    And below is Seb Bacon, Lead Developer of the Alaveteli Platform, explaining how the project began:

    You can see all Romina’s videos from the Alaveteli Conference – some in English, some in Spanish – on YouTube. Romina also put together a Storify story of the conference.

    Phew! Do you feel like you were there yet? If you’ve been inspired by the examples and advice from transparency hackers and activists around the world, you may be thinking about building your own Alaveteli site. Why not join our mailing list and introduce yourself? After all, if you’ve watched these videos, you’ll already be familiar with many of the people on the list!

  9. Alaveteli in Italy

    Romina Colman is, in her own words, a Freedom of Information activist from Buenos Aires. She did a great job of recording events at AlaveteliCon, what with blogging for Argentina’s national newspaper La Nacion, copious tweeting, and videos.

    Here, Romina speaks to Andrea Menapace from Italy, co-founder of Diritto di Sapere.

    In this short clip (1:15), Andrea explains the current situation with Freedom of Information in Italy, and what his nascent organisation hopes to achieve.

    Together with Guido Romeo (science editor at Wired Italy) I am the founder of Diritto di Sapere, a brand new organisation working on the Right to Information and Transparency in Italy. I am a lawyer by training and I have been working as a researcher and project manager in human rights and humanitarian organizations. I am currently working as a consultant for international NGOs on digital media and civil society capacity building projects.

    Find Andrea on Twitter.

  10. Alaveteli in Serbia

    Two good reasons to use Alaveteli: it’s flexible, and there’s a supportive, worldwide community. So says Danko Nikolic from Serbia in this half-minute clip.

    Danko is one of the founders of the Zajecar Initiative (ZI). ZI has grown into a leading civil society organization working outside the capital of Belgrade. On behalf of ZI, he has developed, co-managed and managed projects funded by various donors, such as National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USA Embassy Democracy Commission, USAID, Fund for an Open Society and others.

    Zajecar Initiative is now working on the Serbian version of WriteToThem, aiming to enable the citizens of Serbia to communicate with their local representatives and MPs.