A newsletter on democracy, organizing, movements and tech by Micah Sifry

• Newsletters

Our union strives to protect Alphabet workers, our global society, and our world. We promote solidarity, democracy, and social and economic justice.

• Google
• labor

• Civic tech unions

Act Hub Africa is a ‌civic-tech‌ ‌NGO‌ ‌that‌ ‌works‌ ‌to‌ promote ‌good governance, democracy, ensure‌ ‌openness‌ ‌and‌ ‌transparency‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌local‌ ‌governments‌ ‌by‌ ‌making‌ ‌their‌ ‌fiscal data‌ ‌available‌ ‌in‌ ‌a‌ ‌simplified,‌ ‌easy‌ ‌to‌ ‌understand‌ ‌form‌ ‌and‌ ‌engage‌ ‌people‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌local‌ ‌government‌ ‌areas‌ ‌on‌ ‌how‌ ‌to‌ ‌use‌ ‌them‌ ‌in‌ ‌engaging‌ ‌their‌ ‌political‌ ‌officeholders

• Watchdogging and transparency
• Government transparency

An engagement program

• homelessness
• crime
• Sustainable cities and communities

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Digital participation platforms

VoteAmerica builds technology to simplify political engagement, increase voter turnout, and strengthen American democracy for all eligible voters.

• US Election 2020

• Voting and elections
• Voter assistance tech
• Voter registration

The Alliance is a nonpartisan collaborative that is bringing together election officials, designers, technologists, and other experts to help local election departments improve operations, develop a set of shared standards and values, and obtain access to best-in-class resources to run successful elections.

• Voting and elections
• Partner networks
• Election administration

We take planning proposals out of city hall and onto their urban context, seamlessly communicating projects with a large, diverse audience to win community support while crowdsourcing stakeholders' feedback.

• apps
• cities

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Urban planning

Public Agenda's Healthier Democracies project studied public engagement systems from 15 locations around the world, and, accordingly, each study has its own report with key learnings and takeaways.

• case studies
• reports

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Reports

An activist project working and proposing advanced solutions in fields related to digital rights and democracy: freedom of expression; net neutrality; digital privacy; the free circulation of culture, knowledge and information; mechanisms for transparency, participation and citizen control of power and institutions; the defence of citizen journalism for the right to know, inform and be informed; the technical, communications and legal fight against corruption; and the technopolitics understood as the practice of networking and taking action for citizen empowerment, justice and social transformation.

• Watchdogging and transparency
• Digital rights
• Consumer watchdogging

Community Voting - Turning Ideas into Action. Vocaleyes is an advanced participation and engagement tool.

• Engagement tech
• Digital participation platforms
• Participatory budgeting

Community engagement and organising in the rural wards of Swansea

• Participatory democracy
• Citizen Engagement
• Participatory budgeting

Bring a healthy new energy to your city’s conversations, and build trust with your community along the way.

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Voting and elections

Action Path is a mobile app for civic engagement produced by Erhardt Graeff at the MIT Center for Civic Media.

• apps

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy

In "Abierto al Público" we explore the use of open knowledge through data, code and other media.

• The Tech
• The People
• Engagement tech

A first-of-its-kind resource that defines corporate civic engagement, providing clear tools to help more companies become active players in strengthening the resiliency of our democracy

• commercial

• Playbooks and design principles
• Building in the private sector

Dialogue is a digital platform for building consensus via ideas, comments and ratings in a shared space. Manage closed conversations with defined groups of stakeholders, or open up a public debate.

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy

The Reporters’ Lab is a center for journalism research in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Our core projects focus on fact-checking, but we also do occasional research about trust in the news media and other topics.

• The Tech
• The People
• Media

A single civic action each day ensures that a voter will never miss an election and feel empowered showing up to the polls.

• apps
• US Election 2020

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Voting and elections

Data about every national legislature in the world, freely available for you to use.

• The Tech
• Civic data
• Graveyard

Idee.paris est le site de coopération entre les services de la Ville de Paris, les Parisien.ne.s et les acteurs des projets de la Ville de Paris.

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy

Focuses on the topics of “digital transformation” and “innovation for democracy”

• Funders & donors

When to Use Them, How to Choose & Tips for Maximum Results

• guides

• Digital participation platforms

GovSight is a 501(c)(3) US nonprofit that is building a comprehensive civic information platform to help make citizenship simplified for all.

• local

• Participatory democracy
• Parliamentary and Legislative Tech
• Civic literacy

This year's Summit will focus on Open vs. Closed Tech in Government, Democracy & Elections, Disinformation & Fake News and Power Dynamics in Tech. We'll have different session formats: Panels, Lighting Talks and Workshops!

• Meet the others
• Conferences

Verified Voting’s mission is to strengthen democracy for all voters by promoting the responsible use of technology in elections.

• Voting and elections
• Election administration

Doublethink Lab was founded in 2019 to strengthen democracy through enhancing digital defenses. Our work focuses on researching malign Chinese influence operations and disinformation campaigns and their impacts via the digital tools and methodologies we have developed.

• LINE

• Media
• Fight disinformation
• Artificial Intelligence

Founded in Taiwan, "g0v" (gov-zero) is a decentralised civic tech community with information transparency, open results and open cooperation as its core values. g0v engages in public affairs by drawing from the grassroot power of the community.

• Engagement tech
• Watchdogging and transparency
• Participatory democracy

Bringing underheard voices to the center of a stronger public dialogue

• Engagement tech
• Artificial Intelligence
• Participatory democracy

Hosted + technical support for using the CONSUL platform, offered by two of the platform's core team

• Govtech vendors

The programme provides you with the planning, management and technical skills necessary to lead and transform public organisations to be open, inclusive, innovative, flexible and effective using Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

• Academic programs

‘Pocket Change’ is a Hindi digital content channel that creates relatable, comedy content for young Indians with civic engagement at its heart.

• YouTube

• Shows and films
• Civic fiction

"Democracy as a service" voting app

• apps

• Voting and elections
• E-voting and I-voting

Online collaboration, discussion & consensus. For institutions, organisations & groups.

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Voting and elections

Planning and participatory democracy consultancy out of Portugal that also publishes books about participatory budgeting

• Participatory budgeting
• Civic and social impact companies

En Ollin trabajamos por un México en donde impere el estado de derecho, a través de fortalecimiento de nuestras instituciones democráticas y ciudadanos capaces de transformar su realidad.

• Participatory democracy

Czech participatory engagement platform for towns, villages, schools, and non-profits (and NYC's participatory budgeting)

• Participatory democracy
• Digital participation platforms
• Participatory budgeting

Democracy and participatory political group in Guayaquil

• Participatory democracy

Now defunct Finnish legislation crowdsourcing site

• Graveyard
• Parliamentary and Legislative Tech

Join us as the 2022 Civic Design Fellow. In a 4-month program, from January to April, you’ll take your interest in democracy as a design problem to the next level, working with the Center for Civic Design team and completing an independent project exploring the intersection of language access and voting participation.

• Fellowships
• Design

Estonian engagement platform with binding triggers for popular proposals to go before government, locally and nationally

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Ideation

aula is a completely new way of thinking about what participation means, offering young people the chance to play an active part in shaping the world around them. Our online platform and learning resources (click here) promote a better understanding of democracy and develop the skills needed to participate in it.

• students

• Graveyard
• Civic literacy

A digital participation platform offered by Enviroissues

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Digital participation platforms

Participatory engagement organization in Chengdu

• Participatory democracy
• Participatory budgeting

​Democracy Without Borders campaign

• Participatory democracy

Es un espacio para fomentar la participación de la ciudadanía en la generación de ideas para mejorar la gestión de la ciudad.

• cities

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Digital participation platforms

Italian company offering services and projects to engage the public in decision-making

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Digital participation platforms

With thanks to financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy, TICTeC has expanded from an annual conference into a year-round programme of activities and events: TICTeC Labs. The aim of TICTeC Labs is to discuss and tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the global civic tech/digital democracy sector.  We want to grow the civic tech evidence base, address issues, and enhance the effectiveness and potential impact of civic tech projects.

• Conferences

Veritas works to advance open government, democracy, constitutionalism, rule of law, justice, and human rights in Zimbabwe.

Intervozes – Coletivo Brasil de Comunicação Social is an organisation that works for the realisation of the human right to communication in Brazil.

• Translation and linguistic representation

Argentine Chapter Of Transparency International. Poder Ciudadano is a non-partisan and non-profit foundation that was born in 1989 as an initiative of a group of citizens concerned about the defense of civic rights in our country. From its origins the founders took into account for their integration the criterion of gender equality, diversity in political-party inclinations and social classes. But they shared a base of common values, considering that in this plurality a civic thought could be built that would engage the participants beyond the vote, setting aside differences to strengthen the true value of democracy.

• Watchdogging and transparency