Misplaced Pages

Comparison of civic technology platforms

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

Civic technology is technology that enables engagement and participation, or enhances the relationship between the people and government, by enhancing citizen communications and public decision, improving government delivery of services and infrastructure. This comparison of civic technology platforms compares platforms that are designed to improve citizen participation in governance, distinguished from technology that directly deals with government infrastructure.

Platform types

Graham Smith of the University of Southampton, in his 2005 book Beyond the Ballot, used the following categorization of democratic innovations:

  • Electoral innovations – "aim to increase electoral turnout"
  • Consultation innovations – "aim to inform decision-makers of citizens' views"
  • Deliberative innovations – "aim to bring citizens together to deliberate on policy issues, the outcomes of which may influence decision-makers"
  • Co-governance innovations – "aim to give citizens significant influence during the process of decision-making"
  • Direct democracy innovations – "aim to give citizens final decision-making power on key issues"
  • E-democracy innovations – "use information technology to engage citizens in the decision-making process"

Comparison chart

Platform Name Founder Dates Active Corporate Structure Geography Parent Company Party Affiliation Technology Used Open Source Platform Type Software License Primary Funders
CitizenLab Wietse Van Ransbeeck, Aline Muylaert, Koen Gremmelprez September 2015 - Present For profit Brussels, Belgium Proprietary software No E-democracy innovation, Consultation innovation
Pol.is Colin Megill, Christopher Small and Michael Bjorkegren -Present 501(c)3 Seattle, WA Yes Deliberative Democracy AGPL v3
Countable (app) Bart Myers, Peter Arzintar July 2014 – Present For profit San Francisco, California, United States Non-partisan
Loomio Ben Knight Nov 1, 2012 - Present For profit Wellington, New Zealand Ruby, Javascript Yes Deliberative Innovation AGPL v3 Crowdfunding
DemocracyOS Pia Mancini, Santiago Siri 2012 - Present Non profit Palo Alto, California, United States Democracy Earth Foundation Net Party JavaScript Yes Direct Democracy Innovation GPL v3 Y Combinator, Teespring
VotingWorks Ben Adida 2018-Present 501(c)3 San Francisco, CA n/a Yes Open-source voting system
GovTrack Joshua Tauberer 2003 - Present Washington, District of Columbia, United States Civic Impulse, LLC Django Yes Crowdfunding
NGP Van Mark T. Sullivan, Nathaniel Pearlman 1997–present For profit Washington, DC, United States Democratic and Progressive Campaigns Proprietary software No E-democracy innovation
OpenGov Joe Lonsdale, Mike Rosengarten, Nate Levine, Zac Bookman 2012–present For profit Redwood City, California, United States JavaScript, Ruby, Java, Python Yes Emerson Collective
Hustle Perry Rosenstein, Roddy Lindsay, Tyler Brock Dec 2014 For profit San Francisco, California, United States Proprietary software No Electoral Innovation Social Capital (venture capital)
Resistbot Jason Putorti, Eric Ries 2017–present 501c4 Saint Petersburg, Florida, United States Resistbot Action Fund Non-partisan Python, Amazon Web Services, RapidPro, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL Yes Electoral innovations, Consultation innovations, Co-governance innovations, E-democracy innovations CC0
LiquidFeedback Andreas Nitsche, Jan Behrens, Axel Kistner and Bjoern Swierczek November 2009 Berlin, Germany Public Software Group, Interaktive Demokratie, FlexiGuided GmbH Lua (programming language), PL/pgSQL Yes Deliberative Innovation MIT License
TurboVote Kathryn Peters, Seth Flaxman 2010–present For profit Democracy Works Proprietary software No Electoral Innovation
We The People Obama administration September 2011 – Present Government Agency Washington, DC, United States Democratic Party JavaScript, PHP, CSS Yes Co-governance Innovation GNU General Public License United States Government
Voatz Nimit S. Sawhney 2014–present For profit Boston, Massachusetts, United States Go No Electoral Innovation Medici Ventures
Helios Voting Ben Adida 2008–present Non profit Python, JavaScript, HTML Yes Direct Democracy Innovation Apache License
U Report UNICEF Innovation May 2011 – Present Non profit New York, United States UNICEF Python, HTML, CSS Yes Consultation Innovation GNU Affero General Public License
Maji Voice Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) 2012–present Government Agency Nairobi, Kenya Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) Open Source Yes Consultation Innovation GNU General Public License World Bank Water and Sanitation Program
Democracy 2.1 Karel Janeček 2013–present Prague Municipal District, Czech Republic Proprietary software No Direct Democracy Innovation
Secure Vote Max Kaye, Nathan Spataro 2016–present New South Wales, Australia Python, HTML, Shell, Blockchain No Direct Democracy Innovation MIT License
Brigade James Windon, Jason Putorti, John Thrall, Matt Mahan, Miche Capone Jun 11, 2014 - May 1, 2019 For profit San Francisco, California, United States Brigade Media Proprietary software No Electoral Innovation, Deliberative Innovation Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Sean Parker

See also

References

  1. Smith, Graham (2005). "Beyond the ballot: 57 democratic innovations from around the world". westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk. POWER Inquiry. Retrieved 2018-04-18.
  2. "CitizenLab". www.forbes.com. Retrieved 2018-05-14.
  3. "CitizenLab". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2018-05-12.
  4. "About us - CitizenLab". citizenlab.co. Retrieved 2018-05-14.
  5. ^ "Countable Wants To Make Politics A 'Continual Conversation'". TechCrunch. 16 July 2014. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
  6. "loomio/loomio". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  7. "loomio/loomio". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  8. "Out in the Open: Occupy Wall Street Reincarnated as Open Source Software". WIRED. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  9. "A Conversation With DemocracyOS, The YC Non-Profit That Built A Latin American Political Party – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. 17 April 2015. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  10. "DemocracyOS/democracyos". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  11. "DemocracyOS/democracyos". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  12. "Web site a pork hunting ground / It joins others aiding analysis of bills for 'earmark' signs". SFGate. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  13. "Joshua Tauberer's Homepage". razor.occams.info. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  14. "govtrack/civic-impulse-llc". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  15. "govtrack/govtrack.us-web". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  16. "Resistbot". resist.bot. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
  17. Form definitions powering Resistbot's electronic deliveries to elected officials in the United States.: resistbot/contact-officials, Resistbot, 2019-12-30, retrieved 2019-12-31
  18. "Etopia News L.A. talks with Andreas Nitsche | Interaktive Demokratie". www.interaktive-demokratie.org. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
  19. ^ "Information Kit (PDF)" (PDF).
  20. "LiquidFeedback - The democracy software". liquidfeedback.org. Retrieved 2018-04-22.
  21. "Democracy Works: Democracy Fund". www.democracyfund.org. Retrieved 2018-04-11.
  22. ^ "WhiteHouse/petitions". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  23. "Voatz". angel.co. Retrieved 2018-04-19.
  24. "blacktreebird/voatz". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-19.
  25. Adida, Marneffe, Pereira, Quisquater, Ben, Olivier, Olivier, Jean-Jacques. "Electing a University President using Open-Audit Voting: Analysis of real-world use of Helios" (PDF).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  26. ^ "benadida/helios-server". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  27. "U-Report: Ilhasoft's application for Unicef - Ilhasoft". Ilhasoft. 2016-01-12. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  28. "U-report application revolutionizes social mobilization, empowering Ugandan youth". UNICEF. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  29. ^ "rapidpro/ureport". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  30. ^ "WB Maji Voice Policy Note" (PDF).
  31. "CustomerFeedbackSystem/code". GitHub. 15 August 2015. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  32. ^ "SecureVote". Techboard. 2017-04-26. Retrieved 2018-04-19.
  33. "muminoff/securevote". GitHub. 18 May 2016. Retrieved 2018-04-19.
  34. "Sean Parker's Brigade Media Acquires Causes In Its Quest To Revitalize American Democracy". TechCrunch. 11 June 2014. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
  35. "Sean Parker's Brigade/Causes acquired by govtech app Countable". TechCrunch. May 2019. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
  36. "Follow Brigade on Index.co". Index.co. Retrieved 2018-04-02.
  37. "Brigade Media Raises $9.3M From Sean Parker To Shake Up American Democracy". TechCrunch. 14 April 2014. Retrieved 2019-12-31.
Categories: