Civic Tech Field Guide

Tech Matters

Palo Alto

We help social change leaders understand what tech can and can’t do, and build the tech solutions behind solving a social problem.

Hearken Switchboard

Chicago

Hearken’s Community Management System, Switchboard, connects members of your community with one another so they can ask for help and offer opportunities in a safe, trusted environment.

Beat Academy

Poynter Institute for Media Studies, 3rd Street South, St. Petersburg, FL

Poynter’s Beat Academy is a virtual classroom designed to provide journalists from any newsroom the skills to tackle emerging coverage areas, like private equity, and better grounding on key topics like immigration, climate change response, federal infrastructure dollars and more.

courses

Forerunner

San Francisco

The Floodplain Management Platform for Resilient Communities

floods

Advancing Democracy Fellowship

United States of America 🇺🇸

This joint initiative from Hearken, Solutions Journalism Network and Trusting News will equip newsroom-based journalists to transform their coverage of democracy through solutions-focused reporting that builds trust and avoids polarization.

Hearken's Engagement Management System

Chicago

Hearken’s Engagement Management System empowers organizations to generate actionable insights from the public to create more relevant, representative and original content.

The Flip Side

See both sides of important issues— in 5 minutes a day.

DCinbox

Hoboken

Official e-newsletters from every member of Congress. In one place. In real time.

The Atlantic

Palo Alto

The Atlantic is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. - Wikipedia

Media

The Collective Intelligence Project

Our mission is to direct technological development towards the collective good.

Custodianship in the Urban Commons

Boston

BARI has worked closely with the Mayor’s Office of New urban Mechanics and the 311 system examine how Bostonians contribute to the maintenance of the public spaces and infrastructure of neighborhoods—that is, custodianship in the urban commons.

public space

“Seeing” Neighborhoods through “Big” Data

Boston

Modern administrative data—from 311 and 911 calls to building permit applications to Tweets—offer a detailed view of events and conditions across the city.

Platform://Democracy

Humboldt-Institut Berlin, Invalidenstraße, Berlin, Germany

The project "Platform://Democracy: Platform Councils as Tools to Democratize Hybrid Online Orders" examines how the rules of discourse on platforms can be aligned with public values

The Social Media Listening Center at Clemson University

Clemson, SC

Opening in early 2012, The Social Media Listening Center at Clemson University is an interdisciplinary, cutting-edge laboratory that seeks to monitor, measure, and engage in social media conversations from across the web.

Using no-code to build and grow your tech for good startup

A webinar by Bethnal Green Ventures

Build something

Task Force: Digital Organizing at HIIG

Berlin

The task force Digital Organizing is a group of researchers who study the implications of digital practices for the processes of organizing.

Public Interest AI world map

Humboldt-Institut Berlin, Invalidenstraße, Berlin, Germany

This interactive global map of Public Interest AI projects aims to help foster research on Public Interest AI projects, demonstrate their self-understanding, and provide publicly accessible data about them to the broader public.

Public Interest AI explainer site

Humboldt-Institut Berlin, Invalidenstraße, Berlin, Germany

A project map of Public Interest AI and related research

OpenCRVS

Open source identity solution. "Our vision is that every person on the planet is recognised, protected and provided for from birth"

All Tech Is Human Slack

New York City (NYC / New York, NY)

Our Slack workspace helps individuals in the Responsible Tech ecosystem connect with one another, discuss research, share events, learn about careers and job opportunities, and more. In addition, we have channels for specific locations to allow for people to collaborate based on vicinity.

Convey911

United States of America 🇺🇸

Enabling public safety, law enforcement and government services to communicate in any language over text, video, and voice.

RapidDeploy

Austin, TX

Realtime data. Unified Public Safety workflow. Reduced emergency response times.

Deon

deon is a command line tool that allows you to easily add an ethics checklist to your data science projects. We support creating a new, standalone checklist file or appending a checklist to an existing analysis in many common formats.

Veri.FYI

Prototype - Enter a URL to detect fake news websites at scale.

All Tech Is Human

New York City (NYC / New York, NY)

All Tech Is Human is strengthening the Responsible Tech ecosystem with multiple stakeholders, disciplines, and perspectives so we can tackle wicked tech & society problems.

GovInfo

Capitol Hill

GovInfo is free U.S. Government information for all. GovInfo is a service of the United States Government Publishing Office (GPO), which is a Federal agency in the legislative branch.

United States (federal government)

Data Commons

Mountain View, CA

Data Commons aggregates data from a wide range of sources into a unified database to make it more accessible and useful. More

Iffy Index of Unreliable Sources

United States of America 🇺🇸

The goal is to give researchers a more complete, current, and accurate dataset of sites that spread mis/disinformation, which will lead to more accurate disinformation research.

SmartResponse

Informed Giving = More Effective Relief

Tech Stewardship Practice Program

A 12 hour asynchronous online “base” program to help you launch your practice

courses

Pursuit

An upskilling initiative "to equip 1,000 adults from low-income backgrounds with the tools and skills they need to become software engineers and thrive in tech careers."

Decent work and economic growth

UN General Assembly resolutions on ICTs for Sustainable Development

Geneva

A UN resolution in favor of ICTs for Sustainable Development

Needslist

Durham, NC

NeedsList matches community needs with offers of support, making humanitarian assistance and disaster response cheaper, faster, and more targeted.

AI Tools for Local Newsrooms Database

An Airtable collection of general AI tools explaining how they can be used by local media

Grist Cities + Solutions

Chronicles surprising and inspiring climate initiatives in communities across the U.S. through stories of cities leading the way

Climate action

Mobile Intelligence Alliance

Secure the Future of Mobility

Global Digital Development Forum

GDDF 2023 builds on three years of successful global virtual forums that engage over 3,000 participants each time and feature keynote speakers from USAID, tech companies, and across the digital development ecosystem.

BARI Conference

MIT Media Lab, Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA

BARI is an inter-university research partnership for Northeastern University and Harvard University in conjunction with the City of Boston.

Congressional Directory

Washington, DC

This site contains directories for the 41st (1869-1871) -104th (1995-96) Congresses forward, as well all Interim editions (online-only revisions) for the 105th Congress forward. Documents are available as ASCII text and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files

United States (federal government)

Let's Talk Vaccines

Internews Network, 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC

A free course to help journalists translate the language of vaccine science and the promise of vaccine access into compelling human stories.

Good health and well-being

First AI-written speech delivered by US congressman

Capitol Hill

Representative for Massachusetts Jake Auchincloss used ChatGPT to help introduce legislation supporting AI research

ChatGPT

CS Fund Just Transitions

CS Fund is launching a new funding program on Just Transitions to advance social and ecological justice for a future grounded in justice, joy, belonging, and liberation for all beings.

Code for Dallas

Dallas, TX

Code for Dallas is an official Code for America Brigade in Dallas, TX working on projects with government and community partners to improve people’s lives.