The unregulated attention economy driving social media is fraying our democracy, threatening our mental and physical health, and exposing our children to violent and disturbing content. Our limited attention has become the most valuable resource on the internet and it is captured and manipulated via the rampant and unregulated collection of our personal data. This is surveillance capitalism at work - a relentless assault on our private data that provide intimate insights which are sold to the highest bidder, with next-to-no awareness or control. We are told that having our data taken is the price we pay for the “free” use of digital services. But this system places the priorities of corporates ahead of the social good while it manipulates our social perspective, drives division and isolates us from each other. There are few practical ways to opt out of the attention economy that depends on pervasive surveillance. And even if you manage to on an individual level, the real world impact of this data-driven social manipulation is impossible to avoid. Big Tech controls a global audience of billions with a market power that is unprecedented in the history of media. Yet they have almost no oversight and reject liability for the harms their products cause.

• Ethical tech and responsible tech

New York City is launching the second cohort of its NYC[x] Innovation Fellows program to expand on this successful collaboration, embedding small teams of technologists with City agencies to rapidly solve specific challenges through the use of best practices in digital service delivery.

• cities

• Pro bono and volunteer
• Fellowships

The Technology and Public Purpose (TAPP) Fellowship provides a unique opportunity for practitioners at the intersection of responsible technology development to explore multidisciplinary approaches to maximizing the societal benefits of emerging technologies while minimizing the harms.    

• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Fellowships

Public authorities from all levels of government increasingly turn to Citizens' Assemblies, Juries, Panels and other representative deliberative processes to tackle complex policy problems ranging from climate change to infrastructure investment decisions.

• reports

• Participatory democracy
• Group decision making

The XR Collaboratory (XRC) at Cornell Tech works with faculty, researchers and students from computer vision, computer graphics, and human-computer interaction, as well as practitioners in application areas such as healthcare, education, and architecture.

• Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR, AR, MR)

API access for the data of Hungarian ballot-offices, the candidates and results

• Civic data
• Voting and elections

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

• Voter registration
• Civic data APIs

Formed in 2009, the Archive Team (not to be confused with the archive.org Archive-It Team) is a rogue archivist collective dedicated to saving copies of rapidly dying or deleted websites for the sake of history and digital heritage.

• Archives

An Airtable with thousands of climate tech products, services, capital sources, and networks

• Climate action

• Civic tech catalogs

A free online course offered by The GovLab on: How to take advantage of technology, data and the collective wisdom in our communities to design powerful solutions to contemporary problems.

• Courses
• Online courses

The Heart of Civic Tech in Central and Eastern Europe

• The People
• Meet the others
• In-person meetings

tracked edits made to Wikipedia from U.S. Capitol computers

• The Tech
• Advocacy tech
• Artificial Intelligence

The AI Initiative is dedicated to shaping the global policy framework to govern the rise of Artificial Intelligence, addressing holistically short-, mid- and long-term governance challenges.

• The Tech
• The People
• Learn about civic 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

Driven by the rapid progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) research, intelligent machines are gaining the ability to learn, improve and make calculated decisions in ways that will enable them to perform tasks previously thought to rely solely on human experience, creativity, and ingenuit​y. As a result, we will in the near future see large parts of our lives influenced by AI.

• The People
• Meet the others
• In-person meetings

A nonpartisan group of businesses working together to build a future where everyone participates in shaping our country.

• Voting and elections
• Partner networks and coalitions

A volunteer-led, public, historical analysis of Canadian federal government contract spending at a whole-of-government level, based on scraping work to unify data from numerous departmental websites.

• Civic data
• Open government data
• Procurement

Audrey will shares stories of the dramatic transformations underway to upgrade democracy in Taiwan: How they engaged thousands of citizens in bottom-up policy development to solve the Uber problem; A digital media channel where young people are engaging directly with politicians; And how virtual reality is shaping public policy.

The challenges of 21st century city-making require innovative methods that incorporate the complexity of today’s rapidly urbanising world. Traditional ways of urban planning and design — top-down and singlehanded — are already making way for a practice of city-making deeply rooted in the collective experience, creativity, and intelligence of growing and increasingly diverse groups of people. This will be crucial in building sustainable urban futures.

Powerful geocoding and autocomplete API

By providing a neutral report of what happens in court, trial monitors can help ensure that rights are respected and abuses exposed.

• Watchdogging and transparency
• Crowdsourcing
• Justice tech

Program to accelerate community connectivity

• local

• Connectivity

Northwestern University has launched the Medill Subscriber Engagement Index, a tool that allows local news organizations to see what content encourages subscribers to stick around and lets publishers benchmark their performance against outlets in comparable markets.

• Media
• Media and social media analysis
• Benchmarks

The firehose of global crisis data

• Civic data
• Graveyard
• Disaster response and humanitarian tech

The Metagovernance Project is an interdisciplinary research collective. We build standards and infrastructure for digital self-governance. Our

• Decentralization

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

Platformable supports the development of open ecosystems

• Civic data
• Civic and social impact companies
• Open knowledge

This seminar by Jonathan Piron tackles the issues raised by digital technologies for political institutions, politics and policies, and more broadly for the evolution of what we call “democracy“.

• Courses

"Snapchat is launching a new tool aimed at guiding its young user base to consider running for political office. The company says it wants to help potential future candidates deal with common barriers to launching political campaigns by providing information, resources, and encouragement."

• apps
• Snap
• civic features

• Voting and elections
• Help more people run for office
• Civic features

A public engagement project around air quality

• air quality

• Engagement tech

America are dedicated to renewing the promise of America by continuing the quest to realize the nation's highest ideals, honestly confronting the challenges caused by rapid technological and social change, and seizing the opportunities those changes create.

The U.S. Digital Corps is a two‑year government fellowship to launch your career at the intersection of technology and public service.

• Govtech
• Fellowships

The Apollo DemTool is a powerful system for compiling, managing, and analyzing citizen reports from an election monitoring mission.

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Civic data

Anyone can join the Participedia community and help crowdsource, catalogue and compare participatory political processes around the world.

• The Tech
• Civic data
• Participatory democracy

Perspective is an API that uses machine learning to spot abuse and harassment online.

• APIs
• harassment

• The Tech
• Artificial Intelligence
• Emerging tech

Uses open-science to mitigate climate change. Open Climate Fix is a new non-profit research and development lab, totally focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible.

• Climate action

• The Tech
• Emerging tech
• Emerging Tech Organizations

The Cities, Government & Politics track focuses on innovative city planning and development, privacy and policy issues, and how politics plays a role in shaping policy in government.

• In-person meetings
• Conferences

A free, user-friendly, extendable application and API for drone image processing.

• Drones

Data for Policy is a premier global forum for interdisciplinary and cross-sector discussions around the impact and potential of the digital revolution in the government sector.

• The Tech
• The People
• Civic data

HousingMaps was the very first Google Maps mashup, created before there was a Google Maps API. It overlaid Craigslist apartment and housing listings on a map, for some 30 US cities plus London.

• housing

• The Tech
• Civic data
• Graveyard

The Urban Knowledge Exchange Southern Africa (uKESA) is an online platform built to benefit urban development decision makers, urban practitioner, researcher or policy maker by providing knowledge on related issues.

• cities

Unlock Collective Action

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Graveyard

our mission We dream of an equitable world where the poor and marginalised can lead lives that are empowered and just. We believe that this scale of change can be achieved through social enterprises, that is, businesses that place impact at the centre of their mission. We inspire, mentor, fund and support early stage, innovation‐based for‐profit enterprises that have an impact on the lives of the poor in India. The power of innovation, combined with entrepreneurship, to impact the lives of people who are poor Paul Basil, founder our values bold We embrace uncertainty, ambition and believe in possibilities Entrepreneurial We take initiative, and capitalise on opportunities Impeccable integrity We maintain confidentiality while being transparent in our dealings Empathetic We are customer centric, humble and are committed to helping entrepreneurs our story Villgro was founded in 2001 by PAUL BASIL with the mission of incubating

• The People
• Build something
• Accelerators

We support Human Rights Defenders facing digital threats and work to strengthen local rapid response networks.

• The Tech
• The People
• Media

Le collectif Regards Citoyens est une association constituée de citoyens de tous âges et régions, tous bénévoles, qui se sont rencontrés sur Internet dans un désir commun de proposer un accès simplifié au fonctionnement de nos institutions démocratiques à partir des informations publiques.

• The Tech
• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy

Our software measures economic and infrastructure conditions across Africa, informing how capital can be deployed to drive forward economic progress.

• development

• The Tech
• Artificial Intelligence
• Emerging tech

Popit database and API service that helps you make and maintain information about politicians, politically exposed persons (PEPs) and their memberships in organizations and generates Popolo standard compliant open data to power your project.

• The Tech
• Civic data
• Crowdsourcing

Yunga is a local rescue digital network that connects neighbor to neighbor and neighbor to police in case of an attack or emergency.

• Mutual aid

An API standard for ride hailing services

• mobility

• The Tech
• Civic data
• Graveyard

Global Impact Awards go to entrepreneurial teams who think on a global scale and have a healthy disregard for the impossible.

• Google

• The People
• Get funding
• Awards and prizes