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.
Graham Smith of the University of Southampton, in his book Beyond the Ballot, used the following categorization of democratic innovations:[1]
Platform Name | Founder | Dates Active | Corporate Structure | Geography | Parent Company | Party Affiliation | Technology Used | Open Source | Platform Type | Software License | Primary Funders |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Brigade | James Windon, Jason Putorti, John Thrall, Matt Mahan, Miche Capone[citation needed] | Jun 11, 2014[2] - May 1, 2019[3] | For profit | San Francisco, California, United States[4] | Brigade Media | Proprietary software | No | Electoral Innovation, Deliberative Innovation | Marc Benioff, Ron Conway, Sean Parker[5] | ||
CitizenLab | Wietse Van Ransbeeck, Aline Muylaert, Koen Gremmelprez[6] | September 2015[7] - Present | For profit[citation needed] | Brussels, Belgium[8] | Proprietary software | No | E-democracy innovation, Consultation innovation | ||||
Civocracy | Chloe Pahud, Benjamin Snow | 2015–present | For profit | Berlin, Germany | Proprietary software | No | Participation
Consultation Innovation Data Insights |
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CONSUL | Miguel Arana Catania[9] | September 2015[9] - Present | Government Agency[9] | Madrid, Spain[9] | Ruby on Rails[10] | Yes | AGPL v3[11] | Public | |||
Countable (app) | Bart Myers, Peter Arzintar[12] | July 2014 – Present[12] | For profit | San Francisco, California, United States | Non-partisan | ||||||
Loomio | Ben Knight[citation needed] | Nov 1, 2012[citation needed] - Present | For profit[citation needed] | Wellington, New Zealand[citation needed] | Ruby, Javascript[13] | Yes | Deliberative Innovation | AGPL v3[14] | Crowdfunding[15] | ||
DemocracyOS | Pia Mancini, Santiago Siri[citation needed] | 2012[citation needed] - Present | Non profit[citation needed] | Palo Alto, California, United States[citation needed] | Democracy Earth Foundation | Net Party[16] | JavaScript[17] | Yes | Direct Democracy Innovation | GPL v3[18] | Y Combinator, Teespring[citation needed] |
GovTrack | Joshua Tauberer[19] | 2003[20] - Present | Washington, District of Columbia, United States[citation needed] | Civic Impulse, LLC[21] | Django[22] | Yes | Crowdfunding | ||||
Fluicity | Julie de Pimodan, Jonathan Meiss, Nicolas de Briey[23] | July 2015[24] - Present | For profit[citation needed] | Paris, France[23] | Proprietary software | No | Consultation Innovation | ||||
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 | No | Electoral Innovation | Social Capital (venture capital) | |||
Capitol Bells | Ted Henderson[citation needed] | 2013[citation needed] - Present | For profit[citation needed] | Washington, DC, United States[citation needed] | Proprietary software | No | Consultation Innovation | ||||
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 | No | E-democracy innovation | |||
LiquidFeedback | Andreas Nitsche, Jan Behrens, Axel Kistner and Bjoern Swierczek[25] | November 2009[26] | Berlin, Germany[27] | Public Software Group, Interaktive Demokratie, FlexiGuided GmbH[26] | Lua (programming language), PL/pgSQL | Yes | Deliberative Innovation | MIT License | |||
OpenGov | Joe Lonsdale, Mike Rosengarten, Nate Levine, Zac Bookman[citation needed] | 2012–present | For profit[citation needed] | Redwood City, California, United States | JavaScript, Ruby, Java, Python[citation needed] | Yes | Emerson Collective[citation needed] | ||||
Resistbot | Jason Putorti, Eric Ries | 2017–present | 501c4 | Saint Petersburg, Florida, United States[28] | Resistbot Action Fund | Non-partisan | Python, Amazon Web Services, RapidPro, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL | Yes[29] | Electoral innovations, Consultation innovations, Co-governance innovations, E-democracy innovations | CC0 | |
TurboVote | Kathryn Peters, Seth Flaxman[citation needed] | 2010–present[citation needed] | For profit[citation needed] | Democracy Works[30] | Proprietary software | No | Electoral Innovation | ||||
iSideWith | Taylor Peck, Nick Boutelier[31] | March 2012 – Present[31] | Los Angeles, California, United States[31] | Non-partisan[31] | Amazon AWS, Facebook API, Twitter API, PHP, PostgreSQL, Postgis, Perl, Ubuntu Server, Apache, HTML, CSS, SVG, JQuery, GeoIP, Google Analytics[32] | No | Electoral Innovation | ||||
We The People | Obama administration | September 2011 – Present | Government Agency | Washington, DC, United States | Democratic Party | JavaScript, PHP, CSS[33] | Yes | Co-governance Innovation | GNU General Public License[33] | United States Government | |
Voatz | Nimit S. Sawhney[citation needed] | 2014–present[citation needed] | For profit[citation needed] | Boston, Massachusetts, United States[34] | Go[35] | No | Electoral Innovation | Medici Ventures[citation needed] | |||
Helios Voting | Ben Adida | 2008–present[36] | Non profit | Python, JavaScript, HTML[37] | Yes | Direct Democracy Innovation | Apache License[37] | ||||
U Report | UNICEF Innovation[38] | May 2011 – Present[39] | Non profit | New York, United States | UNICEF | Python, HTML, CSS[40] | Yes | Consultation Innovation | GNU Affero General Public License[40] | ||
Maji Voice | Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) | 2012–present[41] | Government Agency | Nairobi, Kenya | Water Services Regulatory Board (WASREB) | Open Source[41] | Yes | Consultation Innovation | GNU General Public License[42] | World Bank Water and Sanitation Program[41] | |
Democracy 2.1 | Karel Janeček | 2013–present | Prague Municipal District, Czech Republic | Proprietary software | No | Direct Democracy Innovation | |||||
Secure Vote | Max Kaye, Nathan Spataro[43] | 2016–present[43] | New South Wales, Australia[43] | Python, HTML, Shell,[44] Blockchain[43] | No | Direct Democracy Innovation | MIT License | ||||
Together | ''SCIENCE FOR YOU'' N.G.O. - SciFY | 2018–present | Non profit | Greece | ''SCIENCE FOR YOU'' N.G.O. - SciFY | Open Source:[41] JavaScript, PHP, CSS[33] | Yes | Citizen participation | Apache License[37] | ||
Spilno | Oleh Chsalvskyi, Alexander Shepetko, Serhey Zakapko | 2018–present | Non profit | Ukraine | Ukrmedia | Python, HTML, CSS | No | Digital Democracy Ecosystem, E-democracy social network |