Comparison of civic technology platforms

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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.

Contents

Platform types

Graham Smith of the University of Southampton, in his 2005 book Beyond the Ballot, used the following categorization of democratic innovations: [1]

Comparison chart

Platform NameFounderDates ActiveCorporate StructureGeographyParent CompanyParty AffiliationTechnology UsedOpen SourcePlatform TypeSoftware LicensePrimary Funders
CitizenLab Wietse Van Ransbeeck, Aline Muylaert, Koen Gremmelprez [2] September 2015 [3] - PresentFor profit[ citation needed ]Brussels, Belgium [4] Proprietary software NoE-democracy innovation, Consultation innovation
Pol.is Colin Megill, Christopher Small and Michael Bjorkegren-Present501(c)3Seattle, WAYes Deliberative Democracy AGPL v3
Countable (app) Bart Myers, Peter Arzintar [5] July 2014 – Present [5] For profitSan Francisco, California, United StatesNon-partisan
Loomio Ben Knight[ citation needed ]Nov 1, 2012[ citation needed ] - PresentFor profit[ citation needed ]Wellington, New Zealand[ citation needed ] Ruby, Javascript [6] YesDeliberative Innovation AGPL v3 [7] Crowdfunding [8]
DemocracyOS Pia Mancini, Santiago Siri[ citation needed ]2012[ citation needed ] - PresentNon profit[ citation needed ]Palo Alto, California, United States[ citation needed ]Democracy Earth Foundation Net Party [9] JavaScript [10] YesDirect Democracy Innovation GPL v3 [11] Y Combinator, Teespring [ citation needed ]
VotingWorks Ben Adida2018-Present501(c)3San Francisco, CAn/aYes Open-source voting system
GovTrack Joshua Tauberer [12] 2003 [13] - PresentWashington, District of Columbia, United States[ citation needed ]Civic Impulse, LLC [14] Django [15] YesCrowdfunding
NGP Van Mark T. Sullivan, Nathaniel Pearlman 1997–present[ citation needed ]For profit[ citation needed ]Washington, DC, United States[ citation needed ]Democratic and Progressive Campaigns[ citation needed ] Proprietary software NoE-democracy innovation
OpenGov Joe Lonsdale, Mike Rosengarten, Nate Levine, Zac Bookman[ citation needed ]2012–presentFor profit[ citation needed ]Redwood City, California, United States JavaScript, Ruby, Java, Python [ citation needed ]Yes Emerson Collective [ citation needed ]
Hustle Perry Rosenstein, Roddy Lindsay, Tyler Brock[ citation needed ]Dec 2014[ citation needed ]For profit[ citation needed ]San Francisco, California, United States[ citation needed ] Proprietary software NoElectoral Innovation Social Capital (venture capital)
Resistbot Jason Putorti, Eric Ries 2017–present 501c4 Saint Petersburg, Florida, United States [16] Resistbot Action FundNon-partisan Python, Amazon Web Services, RapidPro, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL Yes [17] Electoral innovations, Consultation innovations, Co-governance innovations, E-democracy innovations CC0
LiquidFeedback Andreas Nitsche, Jan Behrens, Axel Kistner and Bjoern Swierczek [18] November 2009 [19] Berlin, Germany [20] Public Software Group, Interaktive Demokratie, FlexiGuided GmbH [19] Lua (programming language), PL/pgSQL YesDeliberative Innovation MIT License
TurboVote Kathryn Peters, Seth Flaxman[ citation needed ]2010–present [ citation needed ]For profit[ citation needed ]Democracy Works [21] Proprietary software NoElectoral Innovation
We The People Obama administrationSeptember 2011 – PresentGovernment AgencyWashington, DC, United States Democratic Party JavaScript, PHP, CSS [22] YesCo-governance Innovation GNU General Public License [22] United States Government
Voatz Nimit S. Sawhney[ citation needed ]2014–present[ citation needed ]For profit[ citation needed ]Boston, Massachusetts, United States [23] Go [24] NoElectoral InnovationMedici Ventures[ citation needed ]
Helios Voting Ben Adida2008–present [25] Non profit Python, JavaScript, HTML [26] YesDirect Democracy Innovation Apache License [26]
U Report UNICEF Innovation [27] May 2011 – Present [28] Non profitNew York, United States UNICEF Python, HTML, CSS [29] YesConsultation Innovation GNU Affero General Public License [29]
Maji VoiceWater Services Regulatory Board (WASREB)2012–present [30] Government AgencyNairobi, KenyaWater Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) Open Source [30] YesConsultation Innovation GNU General Public License [31] World Bank Water and Sanitation Program [30]
Democracy 2.1 Karel Janeček2013–presentPrague Municipal District, Czech Republic Proprietary software NoDirect Democracy Innovation
Secure VoteMax Kaye, Nathan Spataro [32] 2016–present [32] New South Wales, Australia [32] Python, HTML, Shell, [33] Blockchain [32] NoDirect Democracy Innovation MIT License
Brigade James Windon, Jason Putorti, John Thrall, Matt Mahan, Miche Capone[ citation needed ]Jun 11, 2014 [34] - May 1, 2019 [35] For profitSan Francisco, California, United States [36] Brigade Media Proprietary software NoElectoral Innovation, Deliberative Innovation Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Sean Parker [37]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GitHub</span> Hosting service for software projects

GitHub is a developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage and share their code. It uses Git software, providing the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous integration, and wikis for every project. Headquartered in California, it has been a subsidiary of Microsoft since 2018.

Causes is a for-profit civic-technology app and website that enables users to organize grassroots and public-awareness campaigns. Causes is a website that gives summaries of breaking news, new laws, and popular topics. Users can respond, comment, share, or contact their representatives about an issue. Users can also create their own "Cause" and seek support from other users.

Andreessen Horowitz is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of April 2023, Andreessen Horowitz ranks first on the list of venture capital firms by assets under management, with $42 billion as of May 2024.

Instructure, Inc. is an educational technology company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It is the developer and publisher of Canvas, a web-based learning management system (LMS), and Mastery Connect, an assessment management system. Prior to its IPO in 2021, the company was owned by private-equity firm Thoma Bravo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LiquidFeedback</span> Software

LiquidFeedback is free software for political opinion formation and decision making, combining aspects of representative and direct democracy. Its most important feature is the implementation of a delegated voting system which is to establish a new form of political representation and participation that takes into account the knowledge disparity of its participants.

Eliademy [əlɪaˈdəmi] was a free online classroom that allowed educators and students to create, share and manage online courses with real-time discussions and task management. Eliademy was based on Moodle, Bootstrap and other open source technologies. Eliademy was unveiled to public in February 2013 by CBTec. Eliademy was available in 32 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loomio</span>

Loomio is decision-making software and web service designed to assist groups with collaborative, consensus-focused decision-making processes. It is a free software web application, where users can initiate discussions and put up proposals. As the discussions progress to initiating a proposal, the group receives feedback through an updatable pie chart or other data visualizations. Loomio is basically a web based forum with tools to facilitate conversations and decision making processes from starting and holding conversations to reaching outcome.

The OpenGov Foundation is a United States nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. It conducts research on legislatures like the United States Congress, develops software for government officials, and claims to help governments create policies and rules that support openness and effective engagement with the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atom (text editor)</span> Free and open-source text and source code editor

Atom is a free and open-source text and source-code editor for macOS, Linux, and Windows with support for plug-ins written in JavaScript, and embedded Git control. Developed by GitHub, Atom was released on June 25, 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DigitalOcean</span> American cloud infrastructure provider

DigitalOcean Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational technology company and cloud service provider. The company is headquartered in New York City, New York, US, with 15 globally distributed data centers. DigitalOcean provides developers, startups, and SMBs with cloud infrastructure-as-a-service platforms.

Civic technology, or civic tech, enhances the relationship between the people and government with software for communications, decision-making, service delivery, and political process. It includes information and communications technology supporting government with software built by community-led teams of volunteers, nonprofits, consultants, and private companies as well as embedded tech teams working within government.

GitLab Inc. is an open-core company that operates GitLab, a DevOps software package that can develop, secure, and operate software. The open-source software project was created by Ukrainian developer Dmytro Zaporozhets and Dutch developer Sytse Sijbrandij. In 2018, GitLab Inc. was considered to be the first partly-Ukrainian unicorn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matrix (protocol)</span> Networking protocol for real-time communication and data synchronization

Matrix is an open standard and communication protocol for real-time communication. It aims to make real-time communication work seamlessly between different service providers, in the way that standard Simple Mail Transfer Protocol email currently does for store-and-forward email service, by allowing users with accounts at one communications service provider to communicate with users of a different service provider via online chat, voice over IP, and videotelephony. It therefore serves a similar purpose to protocols like XMPP, but is not based on any existing communication protocol.

Co-Creation Hub, commonly referred to as Cc-HUB or the HUB, is a technology-oriented centre located in Yaba, a district of Lagos. Founded in 2010 by Bosun Tijani and Femi Longe, it provides a platform where technology-oriented people share ideas to solving social problems in Nigeria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brigade Media</span>

Brigade Media, also known as Brigade, was a civic technology platform that was formed on June 4, 2014, and founded by James Windon, Jason Putorti, John Thrall, Matt Mahan, and Miche Capone. The platform was intended to help users connect with others who share the same or similar views and to voice their opinions, create debates, or organize petitions. This process was intended to make the users' concerns more visible to and influential towards the United States policymakers. In early 2019 the engineering team at Brigade was acqui-hired by Pinterest. The remaining company assets and IP, including the Causes assets, were purchased by GovTech app Countable.

Countable Corporation is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company based in San Francisco. The company was founded in 2013 by its CEO Bart Myers.

Mattermost is an open-source, self-hostable online chat service with file sharing, search, and integrations. It is designed as an internal chat for organisations and companies, and mostly markets itself as an open-source alternative to Slack and Microsoft Teams.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PeachPie</span>

PeachPie is an open-source PHP language compiler and runtime for the .NET Framework and .NET. It is built on top of the Microsoft Roslyn compiler platform and is based on the first-generation Phalanger project. PeachPie compiles source code written in PHP to CIL byte-code. PeachPie takes advantage of the JIT compiler component of the .NET Framework in order to handle the beginning of the compilation process. Its purpose is not to generate or optimize native code, but rather to compile PHP scripts into .NET assemblies containing CIL code and meta-data. In July 2017, the project became a member of the .NET Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medialab Matadero</span>

The Medialab Matadero, formerly known as Medialab Prado, is a cultural space and citizen lab in Madrid (Spain). It was created by the Madrid City Council in 2000, growing since then into a leading center for citizen innovation. It follows a participatory approach, using collective intelligence methods and fast prototyping tools such as fab labs, to use and co-create digital commons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Mahan</span> American politician and tech entrepreneur (born 1982)

Matthew William Mahan is an American politician and tech entrepreneur, now serving his first term as the Mayor of San Jose. He previously served as the District 10 Councilmember representing the Almaden Valley, Blossom Valley, and Vista Park neighborhoods. Mahan also served as the co-founder and CEO of Brigade Media, a tech company focused on civic engagement.

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. 1 2 "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. 1 2 "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. 1 2 "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. 1 2 "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. 1 2 "rapidpro/ureport". GitHub. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  30. 1 2 3 "WB Maji Voice Policy Note" (PDF).
  31. ↑ "CustomerFeedbackSystem/code". GitHub. 15 August 2015. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  32. 1 2 3 4 "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.
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