mySociety
Founded2003 (2003)
FounderTom Steinberg
FocusGovernment transparency, civic technologies, Freedom of Information, citizen empowerment, open source
Location
  • United Kingdom
ProductsTheyWorkForYou, WriteToThem, WhatDoTheyKnow, FixMyStreet, Alaveteli, EveryPolitician & others
CEO
Mark Cridge[1]
Employees
21 (As of 2020)[2]
Websitewww.mysociety.org Edit this at Wikidata

mySociety is a UK-based registered charity,[3] previously named UK Citizens Online Democracy.[4] It began as a UK-focused organisation with the aim of making online democracy tools for UK citizens.[5] However, those tools were open source, so that the code could be (and soon was) redeployed in other countries.[6]

mySociety went on to simplify and internationalise its code[7] and through the now dormant Poplus project, encouraged others to share open source code[8] that would minimise the amount of duplication in civic tech coding.

Like many non-profits, mySociety sustains itself with a mixture of grant funding[9] and commercial work, providing software and development services to local government and other organisations.[10]

mySociety was founded by Tom Steinberg in September 2003,[11] and started activity after receiving a £250,000 grant in September 2004.[12] Steinberg says that it was inspired by a collaboration with his then-flatmate James Crabtree which spawned Crabtree's article "Civic hacking: a new agenda for e-democracy".[9][13]

In March 2015, Steinberg announced his decision to stand down as executive director of mySociety.[14] In July of that year, Mark Cridge became the organisation's new CEO.[1]

Projects

Discontinued or passed to new owners

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "mySociety filing history". Companies House. 13 July 2015. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  2. ^ "Meet the Team". mySociety. 15 March 2020. Archived from the original on 15 March 2020. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  3. ^ "Overview of UK Citizens Online Democracy". Charity Commission for England and Wales. 31 March 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  4. ^ "Citizens make society". mySociety. 22 July 2020. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  5. ^ "Of governments and geeks". The Economist. 4 February 2010.
  6. ^ "UK's mySociety Releases How-To Guides, Source Code for Open Government Activists". TechPresident. 26 March 2012.
  7. ^ "Is Civic Hacking Becoming 'Our Pieces, Loosely Joined'?". TechPresident. 25 July 2012. Archived from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 14 October 2015.
  8. ^ "PoplusCon: Lowering the Tech Barriers for Civic Startups". TechPresident. 2 May 2014.
  9. ^ a b "mySociety: Open democracy, open source". H-Online. 19 September 2008.
  10. ^ Nigel Bowles; James T. Hamilton (28 October 2013). Transparency in Politics and the Media: Accountability and Open Government. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9781780766768.
  11. ^ Robert Jaques (30 October 2003). "Calling Coders for the Greater Common Good". The Register. Retrieved 2 December 2014.
  12. ^ "Ideas for web activism sought out". BBC News Online. 5 April 2006. Retrieved 15 October 2015.
  13. ^ James Crabtree (6 March 2003). "Civic hacking: a new agenda for e-democracy". Open Democracy. Retrieved 2 December 2014.
  14. ^ "10 Top Candidates To Become Government Chief Data Officer". Computer World. 21 August 2015.
  15. ^ a b Margetts, Helen (4 May 2010). "The Internet in Political Science". In Hay, Colin (ed.). New Directions in Political Science — Responding to the Challenges of an Interdependent World. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 79. ISBN 9780230228481. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
  16. ^ "Transport for London to use MySociety's FixMyStreet". UKAuthority. 1 November 2019.
  17. ^ Becky Hogg (3 April 2008). "Information revolution". New Statesman. Archived from the original on 17 September 2008. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
  18. ^ Alex Skene (1 July 2011). "WhatDoTheyKnow's Share of Central Government FOI Requests — Q2 2011". mySociety. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
  19. ^ Alex Parsons (9 July 2019). "Public FOI: WhatDoTheyKnow and central government". mySociety. Archived from the original on 9 July 2019. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
  20. ^ "MapIt: map postcodes and geographical points to administrative areas". mySociety.
  21. ^ "Site axes MP over 'fake' e-mails". BBC News Online. 21 February 2006.
  22. ^ Tempest, Matthew (20 February 2006). "MPs show no haste to post". The Guardian.
  23. ^ "SayIt".
  24. ^ Solon, Olivia (17 January 2014). "mySociety launches SayIt, civic software for publishing 'smart' transcripts". Wired. Archived from the original on 22 January 2014. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  25. ^ "MapIt". mySociety.
  26. ^ "Gaze – the mySociety Gazetteer web service". mySociety.
  27. ^ "Poplus". Poplus. Archived from the original on 31 December 2014. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  28. ^ "Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente". Fundación Ciudadano Inteligente.
  29. ^ O'Neill, Eilís (2 May 2014). "PoplusCon: Lowering the Tech Barriers for Civic Startups". TechPresident. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  30. ^ "Three key takeaways from the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival".
  31. ^ "Poplus". Social Tech Guide.
  32. ^ "Commits to poplus/home-poplus". Poplus. 4 February 2016. Retrieved 7 April 2020 – via GitHub.
  33. ^ Hickey, Ed (12 November 2015). "These tools let you map journey times in the world's major cities". CityMetric. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
  34. ^ "Mapumental: Travel time maps". mySociety. Retrieved 6 August 2016.
  35. ^ "Mapumental". Archived from the original on 28 April 2020. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
  36. ^ Public petitions and early day motions: first report of session 2006-07, report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence. Parliament of the United Kingdom. 22 May 2007. ISBN 9780215034168 – via Google Books.
  37. ^ "mySociety". Participedia.
  38. ^ "The petition, the 'prat' and a political ideal". BBC News Online. 13 February 2007.
  39. ^ "EveryPolitician". mySociety.
  40. ^ "Pledgebank.com". mySociety. Archived from the original on 1 December 2014.
  41. ^ "Ideas for web activism sought out". BBC News Online. 5 April 2006. Retrieved 10 August 2007.
  42. ^ "The story of Pledgebank". mySociety. 24 February 2015.
  43. ^ "HassleMe". mySociety. Archived from the original on 6 April 2007.
  44. ^ "A future for HassleMe". mySociety. 16 March 2015.
  45. ^ "HearFromYourMP.com". Archived from the original on 11 April 2007.
  46. ^ "HearFromYourMP: a little piece of mySociety history". mySociety. 5 February 2015.
  47. ^ "FixMyTransport".
  48. ^ Arthur, Charles (30 August 2011). "FixMyTransport uses crowdsourcing to solve travel problems". TheGuardian.com.
  49. ^ Nixon, Myfanwy (29 January 2015). "Running a site like FixMyTransport / mySociety". mySociety. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  50. ^ "Welcome to PopIt".
  51. ^ "ScenicOrNot".
  52. ^ "A new home—and a new purpose—for ScenicOrNot / mySociety". 12 August 2015.
  53. ^ "ScenicOrNot".
  54. ^ "Groupsnearyou.com". Archived from the original on 3 November 2007. Retrieved 11 December 2007.
  55. ^ "Not Apathetic - not voting in the 2005 general election?".
  56. ^ "Placeopedia: Wikipedia Meets Google Maps". Lifehacker. 20 September 2005. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
  57. ^ "Democracy Club".
  58. ^ My Society: Democracy Club

External links

Categories