Civic Tech Field Guide

Bangladesh Open Innovation Lab (BOIL)

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Our aim is to build a community that supports the Open Data and uptake of the Living Lab paradigm.

OpenOil

Leading provider of financial analysis and commercial advice on natural resource assets for public policy.

Soils Revealed

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

Civic maps

Tinfoil

Tinfoil is a place where we can talk about digital security, privacy, and journalism.

The Foilies

Recognizing the year’s worst in government transparency

Just like how we use AI to detect sidewalks, street signs and road names in satellite imagery to display helpful information in Google Maps, we’ll also use AI to identify oil and gas infrastructure, like oil storage containers, in our imagery. Then, we’ll combine it with EDF’s information about oil and gas infrastructure to locate where the emissions are coming from.

BudiPest

Hungary (Magyarország)

Map of publicly available toilets of Budapest

NYC OpenRecords

City Hall, Centre Street, New York, NY, USA

Welcome to NYC Government’s home for filing Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests.

Penplusbytes

Ghana

Established on the 18th of July 2001, Penplusbytes is a not-for-profit organization driving change through innovations in three key areas: using new digital technologies to enable good governance and accountability, new media and innovations, and driving oversight for effective utilisation of mining, oil and gas revenue and resources.

Civic tech tools that did not meet expectations: Lessons learned from the field

Eastern Europe

Civic tech tools are often not used to the extent that their creators hoped for.

reports

Google.org Global Impact Awards

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

Google

Census Open Innovation Labs

United States of America (the)

We bring together government, industry, and communities to unleash creativity and solve national challenges.

census

Data Lanterns

MIT Media Lab

illuminating local water quality through data performances for collective action

Clean water and sanitation

Intel's Big Data for Precision Farming

University of California, Davis, Shields Avenue, CA, USA

Intel is working with University of California, Davis, to perfect irrigation techniques by placing sensors in crops and other strategic areas to monitor soil and air moisture levels.

Greenpeace Unilever campaign

Greenpeace USA, Southeast Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard, Portland, OR, USA

As the biggest single buyer of palm oil in the world, Unilever has a special responsibility to help clean up the industry that's behind so much forest destruction. Thanks to the staggering public support for our international Dove campaign in April 2008, Unilever has now agreed to play their part in saving the Paradise Forests of South East Asia.

Grassroot

Johannesburg, South Africa

Grassroot is a civic tech tool plaform that uses web, mobile app, USSD, Whatsapp and social media, it allows informal settlements citizens to engage with other members, call meetings, take votes, mobilise rallies and create actions lists. Communities can also start crowdfunding campaigns to raise funds for example the campaign to raise funds for the construction of new toilets in the Mzondi community in Ivory Park which raised about R68 890, excedeeding the community's R60 000 goal. Communities can also create community groups for different purposes. In total as of 17 October Grassroot had a total of 19 433 groups. In total Grassroot has about 169 037 users (October stats).

GovTech Top 25

United States of America (the)

A program started in 2002 to recognize those technology leaders putting their knowledge to work to solve problems and serve their communities.