Civic Tech Field Guide
Sharing knowledge and productively growing the fieldSpecial coverage > Predecessors & Pioneers - (62)
Predecessors catalogs the projects and organizations that were early in and important to the development of the field of civic tech.
Showing 62 Results
Pinakion
AthensIn ancient Greece, a pinakion was a small bronze or wooden plate used as a form of citizen's token.
Kleroterion
AthensA kleroterion was a randomization device used by the Athenian polis during the period of democracy to select citizens to the boule, to most state offices, to the nomothetai, and to court juries.
Candidats.fr
France 🇫🇷À l'occasion des élections municipales et communautaires des 15 et 22 mars 2026, l'April propose aux personnes candidates de signer le Pacte du Logiciel Libre afin de marquer leur engagement, si elles sont élues, à promouvoir et défendre une priorité aux logiciels libres et aux formats ouverts au sein de leurs collectivités.
Internet Identity Workshop
Mountain View, CAThe Internet Identity Workshop has been finding, probing and solving identity issues twice every year since 2005.
Framasoft is a not-for-profit popular educational organization, a group of friends convinced that an emancipatory digital world is possible, convinced that it will arise through actual actions on real world and online with and for you!
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), founded in 1986, is the premier standards development organization (SDO) for the Internet.
Portal e-Cidadania
BrasíliaO e-Cidadania é um portal criado em 2012 pelo Senado Federal com o objetivo de estimular e possibilitar maior participação dos cidadãos nas atividades legislativas, orçamentárias, de fiscalização e de representação do Senado.
Sugestões da população para a Assembleia Nacional Constituinte de 1988
Brazil (Brasil) 🇧🇷Learn about the history of the 72,000 letters sent by citizens to the Brazilian Constitutional Convention and how to consult them, and the Sistema de Apoio Informático à Constituinte (SAIC)
Google Summer of Code
Mountain View, CAGoogle Summer of Code is a global, online program focused on bringing new contributors into open source software development.
The Leadership LAB
CaliforniaThe Leadership LAB works to reduce prejudice and change voters’ hearts and minds. We have a national reputation for our success developing practical, positive, non-partisan, non-judgmental ways to connect with voters.
WriteToThem
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 🇬🇧Email your Councillor, MP, MSP, MS, MLA or London Assembly Member for free
Global Privacy Assembly
Quezon City, Metro Manila, PhilippinesThe Assembly seeks to provide leadership at international level in data protection and privacy. It does this by connecting the efforts of more than 130 data protection and privacy authorities from across the globe.
Mahatma Gandhi retires from politics to engage himself in development of village industries
India (Bhārat) 🇮🇳Gandhi advocated for small, local and predominantly village-based technology to help India's villages become self-reliant
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
Washington, DCThe basic function of the Freedom of Information Act is to ensure informed citizens, vital to the functioning of a democratic society.
Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil (CGI.br)
Brazil (Brasil) 🇧🇷O Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil tem a atribuição de estabelecer diretrizes estratégicas relacionadas ao uso e desenvolvimento da Internet no Brasil e diretrizes para a execução do registro de Nomes de Domínio, alocação de Endereço IP (Internet Protocol) e administração pertinente ao Domínio de Primeiro Nível ".br".
Since 2001, the United Nations E-Government Survey has provided a comprehensive assessment of the digital government landscape across all 193 Member States.
ITU is the United Nations specialized agency for digital technologies (ICTs).
VoteMatch
Netherlands (Nederland, Holland) 🇳🇱VoteMatch was first developed in 1989 as a test on paper to assist voters in understanding the positions of political parties and the key issues of an election. Over time, it evolved into a digital tool, used by millions of Dutch voters to help them determine which political party aligns best with their own viewpoints.
Founded in 1895, it is one of the oldest non-governmental organisations and one of the largest ones measured by the number of people represented: 1 billion cooperative members on the planet.
The Community Networking Movement
Canada 🇨🇦They were locally controlled sites on the Internet that typically free services including training and hardware donations, as well as e-mail (years before Google and others got involved) web space, and community forums
KICTANet
NairobiKICTANet is a multi-stakeholder think tank in Kenya that serves as a catalyst for ICT sector reforms through policy advocacy, capacity building, research, and stakeholder engagement.
A country’s EPI reflects the e-participation mechanisms that are deployed by the government as compared to all other countries.
NLnet Foundation
Netherlands (Nederland, Holland) 🇳🇱We support organisations and people who contribute to an open internet for all.
Working for an MP (w4mp)
Parliament Square, London, UKThe Working for an MP website is a resource for anyone working for a British Member of Parliament or with an interest in how Parliament works.
Open Source Initiative
West HollywoodAs steward of the Open Source Definition, we set the foundation for the open source software ecosystem.
Open Source Definition
CaliforniaA long-standing and heavily-cited definition of what it means for a tech project to be "open source"
Political monitoring. Set apart by heritage, personal touch and breadth of coverage.
Center for Democracy and Technology
Washington, DCThe Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is the leading nonpartisan, nonprofit organization fighting to advance civil rights and civil liberties in the digital age.
"From the historian Dan Bouk, a lesson in reading between the lines of the U.S. census to uncover the stories behind the data."
The Closing The Gap Conference is an annual assistive technology conference that presents an opportunity to deepen your assistive technology (AT) knowledge and strengthen your implementation strategies.
New York City Directories
New York City (NYC / New York, NY)Archive of New York City directories
Focuses on bringing together practicing technologists and researchers to facilitate understanding of the complex interaction between technology, science and society, its impact on individuals and society in general, professional and social responsibility in the practice of engineering, science, and technology, and open discussion on the resulting issues.
Internet Archive
San FranciscoInternet Archive is a non-profit digital library offering free universal access to books, movies & music, as well as 1 TRILLION archived web pages.
BetaNYC
Manhattan Borough PresidentWe empower individuals and local communities to build a civically engaged technology ecosystem and provide for an honest and inclusive government. We want New York’s governments to work for the people, by the people, for the digital era.
X-Road
TallinnX-Road, the data exchange layer for information systems, is a technological and organizational environment enabling a secure Internet-based data exchange between information systems.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
815 Eddy Street, San Francisco, CA 94109The leading nonprofit defending digital privacy, free speech, and innovation.
a movement (and its manifestations) encompassing technological choice and application that is small-scale, affordable by locals, decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and locally autonomous.
JamiiForums
Tanzania, United Republic of (Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania) 🇹🇿JamiiForums is a Tanzania-based user-generated content website founded by Maxence Melo and Mike Mushi in 2006
This book explains the transition by tracing the brief and colorful history of the Circuit Riders, a group of activists who sought to lead nonprofits across the digital divide
Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor Boston, MA 02110A nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom. We defend the rights of all software users.
mySociety
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 🇬🇧mySociety is a not-for-profit social enterprise that exists to invent and popularise websites and apps that enable citizens around the world to exert power over institutions and decision makers.
Healthcare.gov
200 Independence Avenue, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20201The Marketplace is a way to find health coverage that meets your needs and budget.
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