An extensive explainer of the civic tech field

• Learn about civic tech

It answers the question “what can we do” by boosting the hell out of the great work being done in the resistance.

• Activism aggregators

Open Justice Oklahoma (OJO) seeks to improve understanding of our justice system through analysis of public data.

• Civic data
• Justice tech

Taught by David Eaves

• Govtech
• Courses
• Digital transformation

An open technical standard providing publishers, creators, and consumers the ability to trace the origin of different types of media.

• Fight disinformation
• Data schemas and standards
• Content provenance

The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation develops ideas and fosters practices for equal and inclusive, multiracial and multiethnic democracy and self-governance.

• Smart Cities and sensors
• Digital Public Infrastructure

SMARTFISH H2020 is an international research project which aims to develop, test and promote a suite of high-tech systems for the EU fishing sector.

• Life below water
• Sustainable cities and communities

• Smart Cities and sensors

Harvard report on “smart city” technology risks to civil liberties.

• reports
• public space

• Smart Cities and sensors

A platform built for accessible and consensus-driven public consultation, harnessing machine learning to derive quality insights. Cornell Tech Studio project

• Artificial Intelligence
• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy

Mobilizing the next generation of technologists to create civic impact in cities and states across the country.

• Find a job or hire someone

This Ford Foundation toolkit includes introductory disability definitions and language guidelines, in addition to guidance on creating accessible in-person and virtual events, social media, and disability inclusive employment practices from recruitment to retention.

• Assistive and Accessible Tech

Mapping the videos of the US Capitol building attack

• Civic maps

Apolitical's list of climate policy breakthroughs by governments around the world

• Climate action

• Civic tech catalogs

Plan✕ is a platform for creating and publishing digital planning services. It aims to make planning less hard work, for everyone.

• city
• Sustainable cities and communities

• Urban planning

S.T.O.P. at NYU fights to end discriminatory surveillance.

• Research and policy centers
• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Digital security and privacy

FOSS, govtech, and open data.

• Govtech
• News and blogs
• Procurement

Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott created an open source tool to track progress made during his administration’s first 100 days.

• Promise trackers

The Creative Bureaucracy Festival celebrates outstanding innovation in the public sector and its contribution to a better, more sustainable, and more just world.

• Govtech
• Conferences
• Bureaucracy tech

An internship program that supports diversity in free and open source software.

• Find a job or hire someone

In this historic election, in addition to a traditional editorial that argues that the former vice president can restore the integrity of the presidency and set the country on a better path, the Globe editorial board make 12 cases for 12 different kinds of voters.

• US Election 2020

• Media

Twitter bot that tweets RFPs from US legislative branch agencies. This is a public interest bot and a project of Demand Progress.

• X (Twitter)

• Govtech
• Graveyard
• Bots

City Possible™ is a new model for urban innovation in which a global network of cities, businesses, academics and communities work together to make the world’s cities more inclusive and sustainable.

• Consumer watchdogging

This site loads one of a series of prompts to help the user empathize with people experiencing various conditions, from Multiple Sclerosis to near-sightedness.

• Assistive and Accessible Tech
• Design

Open data on decarbonization

• Climate action
• Responsible consumption and production

• Open data publishing portals

Civic Tech Book Club is a virtual book club that meets sporadically to discuss readings related to civics and technology.

• Socialize online
• Reading lists

Track developments in rhino poaching court cases across South Africa

• animals

• Civic maps

OpenCovid19 is a JOGL program that develops open-source and low-cost tools and methodologies that are safe and easy to use in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• COVID Engagement Projects

Poland-based design studio that builds civic products

• Graveyard
• Social impact design firms
• Behavioral economics programs

The Global Participatory Budgeting Hub is the initial flagship program of People Powered. It aims to improve and expand participatory budgeting (PB) around the world by addressing common challenges and opportunities faced by PB implementers and supporters.

• People Powered

• Participatory budgeting
• Participatory budgeting tools

BoardTrack is a community board attendance tracking tool and data standard that helps community board staff submit attendance records to the Manhattan Borough President’s community board liaisons. In turn, liaisons can quickly analyze attendance history. By BetaNYC

• templates

• Meeting tech

Congress.gov is now OCRing the official Statutes at Large compilation, covering Congress's Generation X era of 1973-1994.

• guides
• United States (federal government)

• Parliamentary and Legislative Tech

We're looking for tech workers, researchers, journalists and content creators who want to tell the stories of collective action in tech in the Global South.

• labor

• Get funding
• Fellowships

iDPI looks to move beyond "fixing" existing internet infrastructures like Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and asks what we might build if we constructed digital spaces for the public good instead.

• Research and policy centers
• Digital Public Infrastructure

In 2019, Executive Order 50 created the Algorithms Management and Policy Officer (AMPO) role. This role is unique in urban governance and is intended to help provide protocols and information about the systems and tools City agencies use to make decisions.

• Govtech

DSFSG aims to enable collaboration within the data software for social good ecosystem and welcome a diverse and independent set of member projects.

• Civic data
• Crowdsourcing
• Data science for social good

Urban Impact Lab excels at strategy development, research and analysis, program development, implementation, creative placemaking, and community engagement.

• Govtech vendors

In Close Up at a Distance, Laura Kurgan offers a theoretical account of these new digital technologies of location and a series of practical experiments in making maps and images with spatial data.

• books

• Mapping
• Books

• Graveyard
• Innovation teams and labs

You want to tell great stories? You’re not alone. Hostwriter powers the collaborative future of journalism.

• Media

The Day One Project is launching its Technology Policy Accelerator to identify, develop, and publish a set of technology policy ideas that could be implemented by Congress or the Biden-Harris Administration.  The accelerator is a nine-week process, designed to guide each participant as they develop an initial idea into a tailored, actionable set of policy recommendations

• Tech or Digital Policy
• Accelerators

The Council’s vision is to improve government mission achievement and increase the benefits to the Nation through improvement in the management, use, protection, dissemination, and generation of data in government decision-making and operations.

• United States (federal government)

• Civic data
• Govtech

The Digital Lab Fellowship is a paid, non-resident opportunity to uncover and address emerging consumer harms in the digital world

• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Fellowships
• Consumer watchdogging

Now available at https://hansard.parliament.uk/

• Graveyard
• Parliamentary and Legislative Tech
• Archives

Soils Revealed is a platform that visualises how soil organic carbon stocks have changed globally, and how they might change in the future.

• soil
• Climate action

• Civic maps

The ODK-X community produces free and open-source software for collecting, managing, and using data in resource-constrained environments.

• Civic data
• Data visualization
• Information & Communication Tech for Development (ICT4D)

Advancing the responsible adoption of Artificial Intelligence and other emerging technologies for the benefit of humanity.

• Artificial Intelligence
• Digital literacy
• Tech or Digital Policy

We are campaign workers from across the United States who are committed to improving our work conditions, empowering organizers, and promoting healthy career longevity.

• labor

• Organize campaigns
• Civic tech unions

UNI Global Union's Top Ten Principles for Workers' Data Rights fills an enormous gap with regards workers' rights in the new world of work.

• labor

• Ethical tech and responsible tech

It educated policymakers and the public on a wide range of issues.

• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Predecessors
• Peer networks

We co-create and facilitate a network of local knowledge hubs in Africa, Asia and Latin America to build on existing expertise in drones, data and AI, the “Flying Labs®” network.

• Drones