Access Now defends and extends the digital rights of people and communities at risk. By combining direct technical support, strategic advocacy, grassroots grantmaking, and convenings such as RightsCon, we fight for human rights in the digital age.

• Advocacy tech
• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Digital rights

After the installation, users can decide which messages they want to receive

• apps
• cities

• Issue reporting

The Internet Archive has started to surface some of these annotations for Wayback Machine users.

• Fight disinformation
• Factchecking
• Archives

by AI Initiative

• Media
• Artificial Intelligence

This is a public interest bot, a project of Demand Progress, that tweets primary source announcements concerning US House and Senate Appropriations

• Parliamentary and Legislative Tech
• Parliamentary and congressional monitoring
• Bots

With less staff and fewer resources than ever before and building pressure to enable contactless government, how can you continue to delight your citizens? With smart customer service automation.

• Govtech
• Artificial Intelligence
• Bots

OCSI provides high quality research, data and analysis to public and community sector organisations, helping you make better decisions – decisions that contribute to the public good.

• neighborhoods

• Civic data

The Brown Institute’s Local News Lab is a new team of engineers, designers, data scientists, and journalists, working to build AI-powered, open-source products to help support local newsrooms and their businesses.

• Media

The easiest way to check the status of every voter. Alloy Verify is an API that helps voter registration groups, progressive campaigns, and political techies know who’s registered to vote. Get started for free

• partisan

• Civic data APIs
• Voter registration

Our journey of 5 years delivering positive social impact with technology for the public interest – Tech4PI.

• Incubators

Urban Reviewer catalogs over 150 urban renewal plans that NYC adopted to get federal funding for acquiring land, relocating the people living there, demolishing the structures and making way for new public and private development.

• land
• cities

• Urban planning

Use #WildEye Asia to track seizures, arrests, court cases & convictions across the continent. The data is anchored in our dossier of investigations.

• animals

• Media
• Civic maps

The Digital Democracy Lab researches the implications of digital technology for politics and democracy using computational social science methods.

• Research and policy centers

The PIT Lab is building a thoughtful community around public interest technology at Stanford. Themes include systemic inequities, democratic values, bridging the divide, career pathways.

• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Research and policy centers
• Academia

A 3-year census of the wild cat population in Washington, DC

• animals

• Crowdsourcing

In ever changing times, it is important for every citizen to have their voice heard. Polliticly is the app that lets you find your voice by tailoring polls and questions that relate to pressing issues in your community and then sends results of those polls to your local elected officials.

• apps

• Communicating with the government
• Surveys & polling

The Pudding's clever visual essays present data in artistic and meaningfully interactive ways. Here they share "How to make dope shit", and other lessons.

• resources
• guides

• Media
• Data visualization

Design With is a free, self-scheduled guide to collaborative design for social change.

• Design
• Co-design

The adoption of policing technologies must be guided by democratic legitimacy and an imperative to minimize harm.

• police violence

• Justice tech

A revealing look at how user behavior is powering deep social divisions online—and how we might yet defeat political tribalism on social media

• books

• Books
• Filter bubble poppers

596 Acres built tools to help neighbors see vacant lots as opportunities and create needed green spaces that become focal points for community organizing and civic engagement.

• land
• cities

• Graveyard
• Specific campaigns

This Cornell University fund supports students who are participating in any type of community-based research activities or community-engaged learning projects

• students

• COVID Engagement Projects

Through training, research and digital tools, our expertise in relational organizing makes an impact at hundreds of progressive organizations, including Sunrise Movement, AFL-CIO, and Rock the Vote.

• trainings
• partisan

• Organize campaigns
• Relational organizing

This class uses the idea of values-driven design to help creators consider the politics of the technologies we use and which we bring into the world and teaches methods of research, design and deployment intended to help technologies meet the needs of real-world communities.

• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Courses

A union for Democracy Works employees. Fulfilling the promise of a more equitable, sustainable, and representative democracy, inside and outside of Democracy Works.

• labor

• Civic tech unions

The Electronic Frontier Alliance is a grassroots network of community and campus organizations across the United States working to educate our neighbors about the importance of digital rights. Organized by EFF.

• Digital rights
• Partner networks and coalitions

Current is Chicago’s water innovation hub.

• Clean water and sanitation

• Smart Cities and sensors

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

• Media
• Journalism
• Nonprofit newsrooms

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.

• cities

• Engagement tech
• Artistic interventions
• Citizen Engagement

GovLab NYU's Collection of Lectures on the Ethical implications of Data and Artificial Intelligence from Different Perspectives

• Artificial Intelligence
• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Academia

Digital Civics is a long-term research initiative led by Open Lab, Newcastle University that is exploring how digital technologies can empower citizens and communities.

• Research and policy centers
• Urban planning
• Assistive and Accessible Tech

Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers from all over the world. - Wikipedia

• Funders & donors

The B Team is a global nonprofit initiative co-founded by Sir Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz. It advocates for business practices that are more centered on humanity and the climate.

• Climate action

• Funders & donors

The IT University of Copenhagen and the Danish Agency of Digitisation have established a Research Centre for Government IT

• Govtech
• Research and policy centers

Down for the Cause works to unpack various social issues and highlight the work that is being done by incredible people and organizations. DFTC aims to create a community committed to sustainable social change.

• Podcasts

The 2021 Global Mayors Challenge is the farthest reaching, most ambitious to date

• cities

• Get funding
• Challenges

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

• Promise trackers

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

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

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Artificial Intelligence

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

• Civic data
• Justice tech

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

While COVID-19 has put a temporary stop to our classroom-based training, we have created a library of online training courses to support local authority staff to learn and develop their digital skills.

• Govtech
• Professional associations

A Field Guide to the Dark Ecologies of Newtown Creek is designed in phases that we are developing over time.

• local
• Sustainable cities and communities

• Artistic interventions

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

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

A non-profit organisation that promotes democracy and a culture where media and the powerful respect human rights and encourage a just and fair society. MMA acts in a watchdog role to promote ethical and fair journalism that supports human rights.

• human rights

• Media
• Media monitoring

Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab's Guidebook

• local
• guides

• Procurement

A centralized platform for traffic volume and collision data by Code for Canada

• mass transit
• mobility

• Data visualization
• Urban planning

How local governments can serve people better through effective communications and digital services.

• local

• Govtech
• Playbooks and design principles

Political campaigns spend a lot of money to reach voters on Facebook. Are they telling the truth? Are they saying different things to different people? Help hold them accountable by installing our browser plugin, which sends us the ads you see on Facebook.

• extensions
• Facebook
• YouTube

• Watchdogging and transparency
• Crowdsourcing
• Consumer watchdogging