The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab constructed a timeline of key events, both online and offline, centered on the coordination of “Stop the Steal” efforts that escalated to violence and threatened the transition of power core to American democracy.

• Timelines
• Media and social media analysis

By MIMI ỌNỤỌHA

• Civic data
• Artistic interventions

showcases work by artists and designers that demonstrate the power of numbers in helping us understand New York and New Yorkers.

• Civic data
• Data visualization
• Artistic interventions

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

The Fulcrum is a digital news organization focused exclusively on efforts to reverse the dysfunctions plaguing American democracy.

• News and blogs

Book by Sarah Williams -- How to use data as a tool for empowerment rather than oppression.

• Civic data
• Data science for social good
• Books

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

• Journalism
• Media
• 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

• Artistic interventions
• Engagement tech
• Citizen Engagement

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.

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

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

Though successive generations of digital technology have become increasingly powerful in the past twenty years, digital democracy has yet to realize its potential for deliberative transformation.

• Digital Public Infrastructure

We integrate fragmented data into a powerful analytical view, providing on-demand analytics that can uncover insights at unprecedented speed.

• Challenges
• Public project trackers

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

In the winter of 2020-2021 Center for Urban Pedagogy collaborated with eight Teaching Artists to create civically-engaged art activities to do at home!

• Artistic interventions
• Civic literacy

El Tímpano—Spanish for “eardrum”—informs, engages, and amplifies the voices of Oakland’s Latinx and Mayan immigrants.

• Latinx

• Media
• Nonprofit newsrooms

an AI-powered scientific paper search engine. It provides a one-sentence tl;dr (too long; didn’t read) summary under every computer science paper (for now) when users use the search function or go to an author’s page.

• Artificial Intelligence
• Research tools

Tech hub empowering youth through innovation, entrepreneurship, Civic tech, SDG and Tech4good in Africa

• Hubs
• Incubators

TGH has graduated more than 35,000 people at more than 300 schools and community sites and has distributed more than 22,500 new computers. Last year: 3,640+ graduates report that they learned skills that can help improve their lives 1,150+ children are better able to do schoolwork online because of TGH 2,530+ graduates have used their TGH device and digital skills for their health and wellness Tech Goes Home empowers communities to access and use digital tools to overcome barriers and advance lives.

• Digital literacy

Copia Gaming is our ongoing initiative to design and facilitate a variety of games that explore serious and important subjects.

• Media
• Games and gamification

The Liberating Voices pattern language is intended to help us develop the social imagination we need to better face the future as engaged and empowered citizens. Browse the patterns in the book or see all of the patterns in the pool environment.

• Fieldwide resources

Benefits Data Trust (BDT) is a national nonprofit that harnesses the power of data, technology, and policy to provide efficient and dignified access to assistance.

• Access social benefits

People-powered news on your local government. We’re putting every public meeting on the record. A City Bureau project.

• local

• Crowdsourcing
• Media
• Meeting tech

Low cost, mobile air quality and other environmental sensors installed on City vehicles. The City Scanner is a low-cost alternative to traditional methods of collecting environmental data. The sensor attaches to the roof of vehicles and collects detailed data at a more geographic level than traditional fixed-position sensors. The City Scanner sensors capture data related to environmental conditions including air quality (particulate matter 1, 2.5, and 10), temperature, humidity, and road conditions in New York City. The solar-powered sensors are removable and do not permanently alter vehicles.

• air quality
• cities

• Smart Cities and sensors

This powerful tool allows viewers to donate directly on YouTube through the live chat donations or the Donate button, and it’s now available to all YouTube Partner Program channels with more than 10,000 subscribers in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

• YouTube

• Civic features

Empowering a faster, smarter emergency response Contextual emergency data: e.g. precise location, medical profile, and real-time sensor data One centralized platform: Securely sends data to public safety agencies worldwide Developed together with public safety: Seamlessly fits into existing public safety workflows

• Govtech
• Location
• Emergency services

Circular City Studio, a program established with support from NYCEDC, encourages entrepreneurs to reimagine urban environments and help New York City address short, medium, and long term challenges facing our city. The 2020 iteration empowers engineers, inventors, and entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds to pilot technologies that support NYC's sustainability agenda and rethink energy, waste, and recycling systems in New York City. Selected teams will deploy products and services in testbeds around Manhattan and Brooklyn, working with program partners, domain experts, and research institutions to deliver solutions and introduce relevant technologies that can support community needs.

• Climate action

• Incubators

We are campaign workers from across the United States who are committed to improving our work conditions, empowering organizers, and promoting healthy career longevity.

• labor

• Organize campaigns
• Civic tech unions

In Close Up at a Distance, Laura Kurgan offers a theoretical account of these new digital technologies of location and a series of practical experiments in making maps and images with spatial data.

• Books
• Mapping

OpenCovid19 is a JOGL program that develops open-source and low-cost tools and methodologies that are safe and easy to use in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• COVID Engagement Projects

Signalboost gives grassroots organizers the power to communicate with mass audiences securely and directly via message broadcasts and hotlines.

• Organize campaigns
• Peer to peer SMS
• Hotlines

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

/dev/color is the most powerful community of Black software engineers, technologists, and executives in the world.

• racial equity

• Peer networks

systemic racism, cannot be solved with yesterday’s toolkit. Solving PublicProblems shows how readers can take advantage of digital technology, data,and the collective wisdom of our communities to design and deliver powerfulsolutions to contemporary problems."

• Books

Human-centered design frameworks start by identifying who a product is for and then placing them at the center of the product strategy. The Co/Act toolkit adapts and expands this approach to design digital products, services, or campaigns through modular do-it-yourself style activities that are aggressively low cost, high impact, interdisciplinary, and focused on building the capacity of participants. Co/Act will help you design more powerful products, services, and campaigns by centering them on your community, stakeholders, and colleagues - ensuring that the end result is more inclusive and therefore democratic.

• Design
• Toolkits

We empower startup innovators and pioneering partners to better collaborate and create scalable impact to speed up the EU’s goal to create 100 sustainable cities by 2030.

• cities
• Sustainable cities and communities

• Accelerators
• Social impact design firms

We’re power sector experts who gather, curate and analyse data to empower climate campaign organisations. Our data & analysis helps to shape the global narrative on coal.

• Climate action
• Affordable and clean energy

• Civic data

Liberating Knowledge for Opportunities

• Civic apps outfits
• Open knowledge

We connect and support national digital campaigning organizations around the world which provide opportunities for activists to influence national and international politics.

• partisan

• Organize campaigns
• Partner networks and coalitions
• Advocacy tech

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

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

• US Election 2020

• Vote by Mail
• Voter registration
• Voter assistance tech

The Microsoft Justice Reform Initiative works to empower communities and drive progress towards a more equitable justice system.

• Microsoft
• criminal justice
• racial equity

• Civic teams at tech companies
• Justice tech

The CUNY Mapping Service at CUR engages with foundations, government agencies, businesses, nonprofits, and other CUNY researchers to use spatial information and analysis techniques to develop and execute applied research projects.

• gerrymandering

• Data visualization
• Mapping

We are environmental charity with a unique approach - we use the power of our laws to protect life on Earth.

• Climate action
• Sustainable cities and communities

• Legal tech

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

ENCO (European Network of Corporate Observatories) is a network of European civic and media organisations dedicated to investigating corporations and corporate power.

• Watchdogging and transparency
• Consumer watchdogging

KivuHub is a community hub of entrepreneurs, developers, business and startups with the right technological skills and business.

• Decent work and economic growth

• Hubs

An academic and practitioner-focused journal on all aspects of technology and communities.

• Journals
• Academia
• Information & Communication Tech for Development ICT4D

We are a group of badass scientists who use technology to empower communities across America.

• Data science for social good

OpenMedia works to keep the Internet open, affordable, and surveillance-free.

• The Tech
• Organize campaigns
• Advocacy tech

A collection of 232 resources for political progressives

• The People
• The Tech
• Learn about civic tech