Provides a richly researched yet concrete agenda for addressing the current crises of American democracy.

• books

This open access book is about public open spaces, about people, and about the relationship between them and the role of technology in this relationship

• books

The twelve chapters in this volume present the perspectives of insiders like founder Wade Rathke and leading outside practitioners and academics.

• books

• The craft of organizing

Democracy requires a connection to the 'will of the people'. What does that mean in a world of 'fake news', relentless advocacy, dialogue mostly among the like-minded, and massive spending to manipulate public opinion?

• books

• Participatory democracy

Voice Of the People (VOP) is a nonpartisan organization working to re-anchor our democracy in its founding principles by giving ‘We the People’ a greater and more effective voice in government.

• Democratic Innovations
• Policy simulators

How do you measure gifts of time, expertise and leadership? What indicators can you use to assess grassroots power building, organising and volunteer initiatives?

• reports

• Advocacy tech
• Organize campaigns
• Evaluate impact

A Berkeley Copwatch + WITNESS Initiative

• criminal justice

• Watchdogging and transparency
• Crowdsourcing
• Justice tech

Democratic Society (Demsoc) was commissioned by the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (ALLIANCE) to identify and share best practices and evidence on including people with lived experience in health and social care policy and practice in Scotland.

• reports

• Participatory democracy
• Citizen Engagement

NYC's first citywide Mayoral participatory budgeting process, run by the NYC Civic Engagement Commission (CEC) (2022-2023)

• city
• Sustainable cities and communities

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Participatory budgeting

Knowledge and Rights with Young people through Safer Spaces (KRYSS) - deploys a coordinated network of individuals to amplify positive counter-messages on social media to counter online gender-based violence and disinformation.

• youth

• Media
• Fight disinformation
• Creators and Influencers

The People’s Bus is a bus formerly used to transport people detained on Rikers Island; it has been transformed with input from New Yorkers into a community center on wheels, with the purpose of engaging people in NYC’s civic life through beauty and joy.

• city
• Sustainable cities and communities

• Engagement tech
• Artistic interventions
• Citizen Engagement

Building community power through journalism. Newsrooms created by, with and for everyone

• Media
• Journalism
• Investigative journalism tech

This popular education-inspired guide breaks down and contextualizes artificial intelligence technologies within structural racism — and provides hands-on exercises to help us imagine beyond, and dream up alternate and ideal futures with AI.

• The Tech
• Artificial Intelligence
• Adjacent Fields

The New York Times on civic tech for social benefits

• Access social benefits

A process of improving, adapting, or developing a product, system, or service in order to deliver better results and create value for people.

• The People
• Learn about civic tech
• Courses

Comparing Harold L. Cross’ Pre-FOIA World to Post-FOIA Today

• Predecessors

E.thePeople is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that is the nation's leading provider of interactive voter guide software.

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Graveyard

Public People makes news more effective at supporting accountability and democracy

• Media

To secure the necessary financial and technical resources to publish large quantities of data online in user-friendly formats

• The Tech
• Advocacy tech
• Watchdogging and transparency

We The People is the best place for politics, debate, news & your vote to count.

• The Tech
• Govtech
• Engagement tech

From a cutting-edge cultural commentator, a bold and brilliant challenge to cherished notions of the Internet as the great leveler of our age The Internet has been hailed as an unprecedented democratizing force

• books

• The People
• Learn about civic tech
• Ethical tech and responsible tech

The original White House petition site

• United States (federal government)

• The Tech
• Advocacy tech
• Graveyard

A mobile-first civic platform connecting clients to local freelancers and cybercafés to boost youth employment and access to digital services across East Africa.

The UN Public Service Day intends to celebrate the value and virtue of public service to the community; highlight the contribution of public service in the development process; recognize the work of public servants, and encourage young people to pursue careers in the public sector.

• United Nations

• Celebrating public service and public servants
• Holidays

The Digital Forensic Research Lab’s Democracy + Tech Initiative centers human rights and democracy in technology and policy debates.

• human rights

• Fellowships
• Civil society research outfits

Digital Access is a non-profit social enterprise that aims to promote digital opportunities for young people.

• youth
• Global South Alliance
• human rights

• Fight disinformation
• Digital literacy
• Digital rights

We are a group of lawyers and technologists interested in enhancing and promoting digital rights and related freedoms in Egypt. 

• Global South Alliance

• Artificial Intelligence
• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Justice tech

IWGIA promotes and defends Indigenous Peoples’ collective and individual rights with partners in 32 countries.

• indigenous
• human rights

• Partner networks and coalitions

The GYPI is the first global tool that tracks and compares youth political participation in over 130 countries, measuring indicators like electoral inclusion, civic engagement, youth representation in parliaments, and more.

• youth

• Civic data
• Evaluate impact
• Indicators

The Trust for Civic Life invests in local efforts that help people connect and create their community’s future together, ultimately reshaping civic life and building a stronger democracy.

• rural

• Get funding
• Funders & donors
• Foundation initiatives

KhmerCare is a trusted platform for local campaigns that you can support from around the world

Thai happiness so that Thai people Healthy and Happy.

Tenant Watch is a mobile-first platform that empowers renters to report unsafe housing conditions and enables cities to monitor violations, enforce codes, and improve housing equity through data-driven oversight.

• housing

Refugee Info Bus provides multilingual legal information, wifi and phone charge for displaced people.

• migration
• refugees
• immigration

• Graveyard
• Disaster response and humanitarian tech

We want an equitable and just digital world where people are empowered to negotiate with technology

• Advocacy tech
• Ethical tech and responsible tech

PC4R was set up in February 2016 by James Pearce as a way to provide phone credits to people in refugee camps.

• migration
• refugees
• immigration

• Disaster response and humanitarian tech

Gamifying Civic Engagement to Rebuild Community Wealth

• Games and gamification
• Economic development

Digital Democracy’s mission is to work in solidarity with frontline and indigenous communities to use technology to defend their environmental and human rights. We partner with environmental defenders to co-design and co-develop tools they can use to defend critical ecosystems and Indigenous cultures. Digital Democracy helps our partners achieve transformative change and works toward a world where all people can participate in decisions that govern their lives.

• migration
• refugees
• immigration

• Disaster response and humanitarian tech

Our goal is to provide digital work and training opportunities in some of the areas of the world which are hit hardest by armed conflict and forced displacement. We recognize the complexity of working in such fragile contexts and in order to navigate the challenges around employing and paying people in these locations, we partner with a network of established local organizations with a proven track record.

• migration
• refugees
• immigration

• Disaster response and humanitarian tech
• Job-matching

Watch The Med is an online mapping platform to monitor the deaths and violations of migrants’ rights at the maritime borders of the EU. The WatchTheMed project was initiated as part of the 2012 Boats4People campaign in the Central Mediterranean. Today the project further involves a wide network of organisations, activists and researchers. Through the transnational cooperation with migrants’ rights organisations, activists, researchers, migrants, seafarers active in, around and beyond the Mediterranean and the use of new mapping technologies, WatchTheMed aims to document the deaths and violations that are the structural product of the militarized Southern European border regime. The online map allows to spatialise incidents across the complex legal and political geography of the Mediterranean Sea. Through the accounts of survivors and witnesses, but also the analysis of ocean currents, winds, mobile phone data and satellite imagery, it is possible to determine in which Search and Rescue zone, jurisdictions and operational areas an incident occurred – as well as showing other boats who were in the vicinity of those in distress. Spatialising such information is essential to determine responsibility for violations at sea. Apart from reconstructing past events, the participatory nature of the platform allows many different actors to to indicate ongoing situations of distress. The documentation generated by WatchTheMed seeks to support the work of organisations that defend migrants’ rights, inform migrants of their rights and security at sea, pressure authorities into respecting their obligations at sea, support the ongoing campaigns by the relatives of the dead and disappeared at sea, and support legal proceedings against those who violated the rights of migrants.

• migration
• refugees
• immigration

• Disaster response and humanitarian tech
• Crowdsourcing
• Mutual aid

A non-profit that seeks to eliminate humanitarian language barriers to improve the lives of refugees and immigrants. This service is built for people on the move and non-profit organisations.

• migration
• refugees
• immigration

• Disaster response and humanitarian tech
• Translation tools, platforms, and communities

The organisation focuses on making skilled migration systems for refugees more accessible, and to create a world where displaced people can safely migrate for work, using their skills to rebuild their lives with dignity and purpose. It also collaborates with governments to achieve its purpose.

• migration
• refugees
• immigration

• Disaster response and humanitarian tech
• Job-matching
• Upskilling

This taxonomy is a living repository of digital systems that fall under the definition of what we call ‘Resistance Technology’ or ‘ResTech’, a digital layer in the migration sphere that is community-led, and built to fill gaps in information, welfare, and development through bottom-up means, thereby rebalancing existing power structures and enabling negotiation for people on the move.

• immigration

• Civic tech catalogs
• Taxonomies

To make arts and culture more visible and accessible to people in outskirt neighborhoods of Berlin, particularly those with migration, asylum, and exile histories.

• migration
• refugees
• immigration

• Disaster response and humanitarian tech

Jangala is a technology charity dedicated to providing essential internet access globally, with the goal of connecting 4 million people to the internet by 2030. Founded in 2015 as a volunteer initiative providing Wi-Fi to 5,000 people in the Calais Jungle refugee camp, Jangala offers a unique approach through its novel connectivity solutions, and takes great pride in its strong partnerships with international aid actors, grassroots organisations and public bodies.

• migration
• refugees
• immigration

• Disaster response and humanitarian tech
• Connectivity

Developing and applying a preference-based algorithm that brings together welcoming cities and people seeking protection, Re:Match aims to bring just, sustainable and human-rights centered innovation to the field of migration governance.

• migration
• refugees
• immigration

• Disaster response and humanitarian tech
• Resettlement

MeshPoint One believes that access to Internet is one of basic human rights. Their mission is to enable Internet access and improve the quality of life for people in disaster struck areas. Also by empowering people in rural communities to take action to build their own village telecoms to address disadvantage, become more sustainable and increase local control. Currently, they are focused on Syrian refugees in Croatia.

• migration
• refugees
• immigration

• Smart Cities and sensors
• Hardware
• Connectivity

With wireless survey devices, we make it easy to gather the opinions of more and different people.

• place-based

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Hardware