TICTeC 2019: Paris
2019 Schedule
Tuesday 19th March
08:30 · Level 0 Foyer (Conference Centre) Conference registration & refreshments
09:45 · Room CC9, Level -1 (Conference Centre) Welcome to TICTeC 2019 Mark Cridge (mySociety, UK)
10:00 · Room CC9, Level -1 (Conference Centre) Welcome from the OECD Anthony Gooch (OECD, France) The OECD is kindly hosting TICTeC 2019 at their conference centre. A few words from their Director of Public Afairs and Communications, Anthony Gooch, on why hosting TICTeC is so important.
10:15 · Room CC9, Level -1 (Conference Centre) The Third Age of Civic Tech Dr. Rebecca Rumbul (mySociety, UK)
10:30 · Room CC9, Level -1 (Conference Centre) Fostering democractic societies to fight platform populists: the Brazilian experience Alessandra Orofino (Nossas, Brazil)
Recent years have seen the rise of platform populists gaining control of governments across the world.
They campaign on an authoritarian agenda and with little care for democratic values, yet ironically, these tyrants are elected by citizens through democratic processes.
Alessandra suggests that the best way to fight this tendency is to focus on fostering democratic societies rather than simply democratic institutions. In Brazil, the grassroots organisation that she founded, NOSSAS, has a strong background in cultivating citizen-led activism and direct engagement in political decision-making processes, while also supporting the growth of solidarity networks.
NOSSAS gives people the tools to create resilient structures that can guarantee access to basic services to the most vulnerable people in society, even when they are having their rights threatened and services are being dismantled by the state itself.
11:15 · Foyer Level -1 (Conference Centre) Refreshment break Please note that the Chateau rooms are a five minute walk away from Room CC9. Sessions will begin promptly so please allow enough time to move between locations.
11:45 · Room CC9, Level -1 11:45 · Roger Ockrent Room 11:45 · Room D (Chateau) (Conference Centre) (Chateau) Urban outfitting: Civic Evaluating the impacts of Can parliaments harness Tech for the city context voter information collective intelligence? Developing an urban campaigns Aleksandra Berditchevskaia barometer David Alzate (J-Pal Global, US), (Nesta, UK) & Theo Bass (Nesta, Eliza Keller (J-PAL Global, US), UK) Antonio Cañamas (OECD, France) (OECD Statistics Jonathan Weigel (London School The past decade has seen a proliferation & Fabrice Murtin of Economics) & Yusuf Neggers in Civic Tech for crowdsourcing, including Directorate, France) (University of Michigan) a vast array of ideation and online The OECD presents work on the deliberation tools. development of an urban barometer As the line between fact and fiction in across several suburbs of Paris. politics becomes increasingly blurred, But amid a flourishing tech landscape, the need for efective strategies to we’ve seen far fewer high-level national This project engaged with citizens to convey facts to voters and hold elected institutions that are willing to use or provide evidence on subjective aspects leaders accountable is more pressing integrate such tools into formal political of wellbeing that can guide policy than ever before. processes. makers to best address their needs. It aims to help fill the current data gap by Researchers and J-PAL staf will present Based on Nesta’s current research within collecting data on subjective well-being case studies of information campaigns the UK Parliament, and through a and service satisfaction at a very and evaluation approaches, as well as number of structured exercises, granular level. insights from multiple randomised attendees of this workshop have the evaluations testing similar approaches. chance to examine what is necessary to bring crowdsourcing into parliamentary The Open Government decision-making, and increase the Partnership Multi-Donor opportunities for civic engagement. Trust Fund: Research on the Impact of Open Government and Participatory Democracy Claire Davanne (World Bank, US) & Stephen Davenport (World Bank Group, US) As the open government agenda gains steam, relatively little systematic research has been done to examine the ways diferent types and sequences of reforms have played out in various contexts, and with what impact.
To address these knowledge gaps, and to sharpen our ways of thinking about the diference that open government processes can make, the OGP and several Development Partners (DFID, AFD, GAC) have established a funding mechanism, the OGP MDTF, to expand research activities in the areas of Open Government, public participation, and Civic Tech.
13:00 · Roger Ockrent & George Marshall Rooms (Chateau) Lunch If you have any special dietary requirements, please ask the waiters/waitresses for your meal.
14:00 · Outside Chateau on lawn Group photo We will try and get a group photo outside the Chateau on the lawn - join us to say cheese!
14:30 · Room CC9, Level -1 (Conference Centre) Welcome from Google Civics Claire Foulquier-Gazagnes (Google) Civic Tech activist and Open Data advocate for the French government turned Partnership Manager for Civics at Google, Claire Foulquier- Gazagnes will share words of welcome to TICTeC participants, on behalf of Google Civics. She will introduce the Civic Googlers present of the conference and will kick of conversations on how to have positive social impact at scale. Google has been supporting TICTeC since its inception and partners with government and civil society civic organizations in areas related to its civic products and features.
14:55 Walk to breakout rooms Please note that the Chateau rooms are a five minute walk away from Room CC9. Sessions will begin promptly so please allow enough time to move between locations.
15:00 · Room CC9, 15:00 · Roger Ockrent 15:00 · Room D 15:00 · George Marshall Level -1 (Conference Room (Chateau) (Chateau) Room (Chateau) Centre) Challenges and Social, political Engaging citizens Funding, scaling opportunities for and public on well-being: and sustainable women in Civic engagement what does it take? growth Tech Holly Richards (OECD, This session focuses on the Learning from France), Nuria Villanova setbacks: Funding impactful experiences of those who (OECD), Vincent Finat- identify as women; however, Civocracy and Civic Tech in Latin Duclos (OECD) & America all TICTeC delegates are citizen welcome to come and listen, consultations Virginie Carvalhosa Lucia Abelenda learn and participate Martins (OECD) (Fundación Benjamin Snow Casalet thoughtfully. Women are For years, the OECD has been Avina, Mexico) encouraged to share their (Civocracy, Germany) examining and promoting own experience and insights ALTEC is one of the most Civocracy is a Civic Tech wellbeing as a cornerstone of on the challenges and significant funders of Civic platform that enables local policy-making, to get us opportunities in Civic Tech, Tech in Latin America, governments to run more beyond the use of GDP as a within small discussion supporting several efective and eficient citizen sole measure. groups and with anonymity prominent projects in the consultations. However, at assured. The session will Throughout this process, region. launch, the anticipated they’ve aimed to be inclusive result in a manifesto that impact was found to be and shed light on the fact The foundation has been draws on your own disappointingly lacking. working with researchers to experiences, adding to the that wellbeing is both understand the evolution body of research already Benjamin discusses the ways personal and collective. They and impact of Civic Tech conducted to help build the in which Civocracy adapted developed the Better Life projects, to derive useful Open Heroines Guide. their technology and Index, an online tool to lessons and make business model in response engage with citizens and recommendations for similar to this setback.The results learn what matters most for initiatives. have been transformative. their quality of life in an efort to complement oficial Scaling Civic Tech Being unsocial on statistics. impact through social media: the This workshop explores ways the Open implications for to connect the public, policy Government civic and political and politics to deliver on this Partnership engagement mission. Helen Turek (Open Marko Skoric (City Government Partnership, University of Hong Kong, Germany) China) Scaling is one of the key Although early research challenges facing Civic Tech supported an optimistic view initiatives. In the seven years that social media can since its founding, members reinvigorate our social, civic of the Open Government and political lives, we are Partnership have accrued a now less optimistic about wealth of experience from their impact — the discussion literally thousands of of echo chambers and projects and reforms. Helen political polarisation seems presents key learnings from to dominate our daily OGP’s experience in discourse. replicating and scaling Why did social media projects across borders. platforms suddenly become the villains in the story of What holds technology and democracy, government back and what has the social from helping Civic impact been? Tech projects scale? Breandán Knowlton (Government Digital Service, UK) Many Civic Tech and government initiatives struggle to achieve self- sustainability when moving from pilot to full-scale deployment.
The UK government’s GovTech Catalyst innovation fund has been experimenting with new ways to support innovative local technology- enabled projects — and some interesting barriers to scaling have emerged.
16:15 · Foyers (Chateau & Level -1 in Conference Centre) Refreshment break
16:30 · Room CC9, 16:30 · Roger Ockrent 16:30 · Room D 16:30 · George Marshall Level -1 (Conference Room (Chateau) (Chateau) Room (Chateau) Centre) Together we What have we Tracking the truth: Civic Tech: the stand: created? automated French context collaborating Reflection and monitoring against division reports methods Participatory Julia Brothers (National budgeting in Paris Democratic Institute The quest for an Identifying internet that checkable claims Pauline Véron (Deputy (NDI), US) & Victoria serves us with machine Mayor of Paris) Welborn (National learning Paris has embraced the Democratic Institute, US) Kasia Odrozek (Mozilla Foundation, Germany) & Mevan Babakar (Full concept of participatory Political polarisation is on budgeting. For five years the rapid rise, and at a rate Stefan Baack (Mozilla Fact, UK) now, its citizens have voted that can be correlated with Foundation, Germany) The first step in automated on how to spend a the increasing use of What does it mean for the fact-checking is to identify proportion of the city’s technology. internet to be healthy? And which sentences in a piece of funds. text contain verifiable claims. This workshop aims to how do we measure progress Mevan builds on the history But the decision-making is explore Civic Tech’s role in and setbacks? of Full Fact’s work in arguably the simple part: combating this issue. How Kasia and Stefan share automated fact-checking to next, it’s down to the council can practitioners and findings from Mozilla’s 2018 discuss the finer details of to make those choices a activists in our field Internet Health Report, with the methodology for reality. Pauline describes collaborate with other social a teaser for the upcoming extracting such sentences what it takes, and explains movements to create 2019 edition and a discussion from the surrounding prose how the public are kept projects that combat issues about how we might use the and the annotation scheme informed on progress. arising from political concept of 'internet health' they’ve developed. polarisation? to catalyse change in our Digital democracy communities. as a response to The impact and the gilets jaunes ethics of Twitter The State of Open Wikiedit bots Paula Forteza MP (En Data: research Amanda Clarke Marche! National findings (Carleton University, Assembly of France Mor Rubinstein Canada) member, France) (360Giving, UK) & Tim Twitter Wikiedit bots report Davies (Practical The state of Civic changes to Wikipedia that Tech and Govtech Participation, UK) have been made from within in France Research report The State of a specified institution: commonly, governments. An Tatiana de Feraudy Open Data seeks to review the development of the immediate conclusion, ofen (Décider ensemble, Open Data movement over gleefully leapt upon by the France) the past decade. press, is that such edits must The French Civic Tech be partisan and politicised. Mor and Tim present the key movement started in the Amanda’s research digs more findings from the upcoming early 2010s, and has since deeply into the value and research (due to be been defined by activists, impact of such edits and the published in May 2019) and NGOs and not-for-profits — bots who report them. in particular, how they can be but also public institutions. useful for the Civic Tech Not all promises More than 40% of local community. governments have worked are equal: towards with a Civic Tech company to The Civic Tech better promise implement their platform. timeline: a recent trackers Representatives still believe history Adam Feldman Civic Tech can support (University of Warwick, transparency and Matthew Stempeck communication, but their (Civic Hall, US) & Micah UK) & Jordan Urban impact is yet to be proven. L. Sifry (Civic Hall, US) (GovTracker, UK) The Civic Tech Field Guide is Promise trackers, typically an open collection of over online tools which measure 2,000 Civic Tech entities, from politicians’ actions against apps to conferences to the pledges they make funders. during campaigns, tend to treat all commitments as of The project has collected equal importance. and mapped the founding date and, where Jordan and Adam present possible/applicable, the end research, inspired by their date of hundreds of Civic running of govtracker.co.uk, Tech initiatives. The result is which demonstrates how a comprehensive timeline weighting promises means demonstrating over a decade promise trackers can become of growth in Civic better tools for holding our Technology. governments accountable.
17:45 End of Conference Day 1
18:00 Coaches from OECD to French National Assembly Transportation will be provided to those who sign up to attend the drinks reception at the French National Assembly.
18:30 · French National Assembly Drinks reception (optional - sign up required) A chance to chat over drinks and canapés. Thanks to support from Paula Forteza, member of the French Parliament, this will take place at the French National Assembly/Parliament buildings between 18.30 and 21.00 on Tuesday 19th March 2019.
Attendance is on a first come first served basis and is restricted to TICTeC attendees only. If you'd like to attend you must sign up by filling out this form by midnight GMT on 11th March 2019
If you do not sign up here you will not be permitted entry to the National Assembly.
Transportation from the OECD conference venue to the National Assembly will be provided to those who sign up to attend.
21:00 End of Day 1
Wednesday 20th March
08:30 · Level 0 Foyer (Conference Centre) Arrival & refreshments
09:30 · Room CC9, Level -1 09:30 · Roger Ockrent Room 09:30 · Room D (Chateau) (Conference Centre) (Chateau) Unique perspectives from Getting the people Using tech and data the Civic Tech coalface engaged: what Civic Tech science to make sense of can and can't do election results The legal story of g0v BBC News Isabel Hou (g0v.tw / Open Culture Participatory budgeting: Public scrutiny and understanding of Foundation, Taiwan) the opportunities and election results is crucial in a transparent Isabel describes herself as “built-in” legal limitations of what Civic democracy. Maryam Ahmed, a Data counsel to the Taiwanese Civic Tech Tech can do Scientist at BBC News, gives a hands-on organisation g0v — she’s been with them Panthea Lee (Reboot, US) demonstration on adding context to since its very beginning. election results using data science. Share Participatory budgeting — where her experiences of the excitement of Right from the start, g0v has residents decide the priorities for local election night analysis in the newsroom, encountered many legal challenges. But governmental spending — has taken of and learn of the pitfalls when producing it’s not just a one-way street: at the same around the world as the epitome of analyses for a mass audience. time, Civic Tech and its associated citizen engagement. community have fed back into the legal system, afecting the evolution of laws. Panthea presents findings from Reboot’s research in Madagascar, Spain, Mexico, and South Korea, examining to what When Civic Tech matures: extent technology has aided the issues that arise in participatory budgeting. long-running projects Matthew Somerville (mySociety, Same process, diferent UK) outcomes: mapping Running Civic Tech websites over a long participatory budgeting in period of time brings some unique France challenges, not all of which are Gil Pradeau (University of foreseeable. Westminster, France) Matthew shares some of the history In Brazil, birthplace of participatory behind UK sites such as WriteToThem budgeting, the initiative led to a wide (first iteration launched in 2000), social discussion of local assets and the TheyWorkForYou (launched in 2004), and sources of income. FixMyStreet (2007), all of which are still running today, plus some that are not. In France, the picture is very diferent. Gil What problems arise, and how best to analyses three waves of participatory tackle them? budgeting with comparisons and case studies. The impacts of OpenSCHUFA on credit Decidim and the scoring transparency in Municipal Action Plan in Germany Barcelona: co-producing and auditing public policy Walter Palmetshofer (Open through a political Knowledge Foundation Deutschland network e.V., Germany) Pablo Aragón (Universitat Pompeu In early 2018, the project OpenSCHUFA took data donated by the public and Fabra, Spain) & Virgile Deville reverse engineered the algorithms of (Open Source Politics, Code for Germany’s credit rating system. France, Democracy Earth) It was the most successful data Decidim is free/open source sofware for crowdsourcing campaign the country participatory democracy, sponsored and had ever seen. Learn of the core used by Barcelona city council as well as elements and impact of this successful other cities and social organisations. Civic Tech campaign, and what they’re Pablo and Virgile will present some key planning next. data showing its role in the co- production and public auditing of the Municipal Action Plan in Barcelona, as well as discuss its potential and limitations.
10:45 · Room CC9, Level -1 10:45 · Roger Ockrent Room 10:45 · Room D (Chateau) (Conference Centre) (Chateau) The Impact of Civic Fighting corruption with [Design Sprint Workshop] Technology in Latin people, tech and data Engagement Metrics for America Social Impact Alessandra Orofino (Nossas, The Civic Tech Ecosystem Alisa Zomer (MIT GOV/LAB, US), Brazil), Fabro Steibel (Institute for in Nigeria Erhardt Graef (Olin College of Technology & Society (ITS), Brazil), Friday Odeh (Accountability Lab Engineering, US), Luke Jordan Lucia Abelenda Casalet Nigeria) (Grassroot / MIT GOV/LAB) & Marci (Fundación Avina, Mexico) & Stacy Accountability Lab has carried out a Harris (POPVOX, US) Donohue (Luminate) careful landscape mapping of the How can Civic Tech organisations The panel share their thoughts and organisations in the accountability and broaden their metrics for measuring experiences about the path to impact for civic tech space in Nigeria to identify social impact? Civic Technology, followed by an open strengths, weaknesses, opportunities session. and threats; and areas for possible This workshop explores how to develop collaboration and synergy. Friday will better metrics that can serve Using examples from Latin America as a present their findings. organisational missions, through a jumping of point, we then move on to a design sprint with two pioneering general discussion, aiming to arrive at Is that grant working? technology platforms for civic applicable insights and actions for Civic engagement. Technology practitioners around the Citizen monitoring in world. Nepal Each organisation will share a specific challenge they are facing. First examining Jasmina Haynes (Integrity Action, a framework on how product design can UK) be linked to social impact, we’ll then How do we check that well-meaning design a set of solutions that can be grants are doing everything they were applied to the examples in hand, and intended to? more widely to other Civic Tech projects.
Sindhupalcheck was an intervention that engaged citizens to monitor a house reconstruction programme in Sindupalchowk, Nepal. Through a mobile app, volunteers highlighted problems that were hindering the reconstruction efort — problems that otherwise would have been unknown.
Data science vs corruption Mohamed James (Directorate of Science Technology and Innovation, Government of Sierra Leone) During a recent government transition in Sierra Leone, incoming oficials had trouble accounting for all government vehicles.
A group of data scientists took data from two diferent authorities — one that tracks registrations, another than records governmental property. They found that the government was short by close to US$ 1 million in lost income — and suggested a remedy.
12:00 · Foyers (Chateau & Level -1 in Conference Centre) Refreshment break
12:15 · Room CC9, Level -1 (Conference Centre) Keynote 2: James Anderson, Bloomberg Philanthropies James Anderson (Bloomberg Philanthropies, US)
James Anderson leads the Government Innovation programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies. The programs help city leaders solve their most vexing challenges through innovation, data and evidence, and collaboration. More than 250 cities worldwide are currently supported through grants, technical expertise, and educational and networking programs.
13:00 · Roger Ockrent & George Marshall Rooms (Chateau) Lunch If you have any special dietary requirements, please ask the waiters/waitresses for your meal.
14:00 · Room CC9, Level -1 (Conference Centre) Preventing Abuse on Facebook During the 2018 US Midterm Elections Antonia Woodford (Facebook), Monica Lee (Facebook) & Samidh Chakrabarti (Facebook, US) Last year, Facebook mobilised a massive cross-company efort to protect its platforms from abuse during the 2018 US midterm elections. In this talk, Facebook will provide a behind-the-scenes look at their eforts, which included developing new graph modeling techniques to identify coordinated attempts at manipulation, new systems to combat voter suppression in real-time, and new transparency requirements to bring more authenticity to political speech. They will also outline some of the tough challenges and open research questions that remain as they take on increasingly sophisticated adversaries and try to scale these civic integrity measures to elections around the world.
14:55 Walk to breakout rooms Please note that the Chateau rooms are a five minute walk away from Room CC9. Sessions will begin promptly so please allow enough time to move between locations.
15:00 · Room CC9, Level -1 15:00 · Roger Ockrent Room 15:00 · Room D (Chateau) (Conference Centre) (Chateau) Inclusive Governance: Enquiring into the Concrete tools to improve Bringing all voices on empowerment of actionable impact board for the design and communities evaluation practices delivery of policies and David Alzate (J-Pal Global, US) & public services Impacts of discussion Eliza Keller (J-PAL Global, US) Alessandro Bellantoni (OECD), platforms for young Amanda Clarke (Carleton people This workshop provides participants with concrete tools to improve University, Canada), Barbara Miep Lenoir (RNW Media, actionable impact evaluation practices at Ubaldi (OECD, France), Claudia Netherlands) their organisation, tailored to Civic Chwalisz (OECD, France), Miriam Technology interventions. Citizens’ Voice provides online Levin (Department for Digital, communities for two million young J-PAL staf explain the pros and cons of Culture, Media and Sport, UK) & people across Yemen, Libya, Egypt, DRC, diferent methods of impact evaluation, Mor Rubinstein (360Giving, UK) Burundi, Mali and China, who can engage from randomised evaluation to lab-in- This session will explore two aspects of with each other and sharing diverse the-field and quasi-experimental inclusive governance: inclusive policy viewpoints in an alternative, online safe methods, then lead small group making and inclusive service design and civic space. exercises to enable participants to begin delivery. How to involve everyday planning their own evaluation. Miep presents results from a recent people from all walks of life in policy survey that provided a wealth of insights making, in such a way that allows them into how the platform impacts their to give constructive, informed input into users’ opinions and perspectives. public decisions? And how to enhance the reach and impact of digital public Questioning impact: what services to support inclusion in terms of if you find it lacking? design and delivery? Luke Jordan (Grassroot / MIT GOV/LAB) Luke describes how a seemingly successful initiative was forced to question its theory of change.
Grassroot, in South Africa, provides tools that enable community organising and collective action via phones with limited data.
Despite measurable successes, the organisation has found that impacts are more questionable than previously believed. Luke reflects on potential future directions for Grassroot, and for the sector as a whole.
Empowerment of women through Civic Tech in Kosovo Natalia Domagala (London School of Economics and Political Science / DCMS, UK) Improving the lives of women through ICT is a prominent feature of the global policy and Civic Tech agenda, particularly in countries with low female labour and political participation such as Kosovo.
This research looks at grassroots programmes which teach young women advanced ICT skills and the use of Open Data, exploring to what extent such programmes contribute to the empowerment of women.
16:15 · Foyers (Chateau & Level -1 in Conference Centre) Refreshment break
16:30 · Room CC9, Level -1 16:30 · Roger Ockrent Room 16:30 · Room D (Chateau) (Conference Centre) (Chateau) Civic Tech and Investing in the Future of Civic Tech Impact: What government Civic Tech doesn't work? When Civic Tech Lucia Abelenda Casalet Eric Reese (Center for Government collaborates with (Fundación Avina, Mexico), Micah L. Excellence at John Hopkins government: what works? Sifry (Civic Hall, US), Paul Lenz University, US) Krzysztof Izdebski (ePaństwo (Indigo Trust, UK) & Stacy At every TICTeC we celebrate successes Donohue (Luminate) in the Civic Tech field. This workshop Foundation, Poland) This panel discussion focuses on the provides space to explore the other side A core mission of Civic Technologists is to changing nature of impact in relation to of Civic Tech success: barriers to long- support governments in delivering Civic Tech; how funders see and fund term impact. better services to citizens. Krzysztof presents the experience of ePaństwo Civic Tech; what innovations funders Through interactive group work Foundation in both researching and would like to see coming out of the Civic reflecting key themes from TICTeC 2019, developing models of collaboration Tech field in future; and what's needed in this session focuses on participants’ between Civic Tech groups and their terms of impact measurement by ideas of what is holding us back from governmental counterparts across and funders and investors in order to having more impact, potential solutions beyond Central and Eastern Europe. support the field. to help expand impact, and how practitioners and researchers can start to implement potential solutions. How volunteers engage with government Dawn McDougall (PromptWorks, US) & Jill Bjers (Open Charlotte, US) Volunteers drive much of the Civic Tech activity around the world.
The volunteer-based community organisation eforts of Brigades within the Code for America network have exponentially increased the influence and impact of Civic Tech ideals.
To evaluate this change, Jill and Dawn look at the diferent methods of engagement employed by thousands of volunteers over the last five years.
Seeing like a state: lessons from building an Open Data support team Benjamin Seibel (Technologiestifung Berlin, Germany) In May 2018 Technologiestifung Berlin won a government grant to launch ODIS, ofering support to Berlin’s authorities in releasing quality datasets to the public.
They started with the hypothesis that the main obstacle for progress in Open Data was a lack of digital expertise in government. This turned out to be wrong, just the first in a series of changing preconceptions.
17:45 End of Conference
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