This was presented by Justin Arenstein from Code for Africa at the Impacts of Civic Technology Conference (TICTeC2016) in Barcelona on 27th April. You can find out more information about the conference here: https://www.mysociety.org/research/tictec-2016/

1. @JustinArenstein
GIVING CITIZENS ACTIONABLE INFORMATION

2. Pan-African
Federation
Independent country-based journalism
tech labs in: Cameroon, Ethiopia,
Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa,
Tanzania, and Uganda.

3. https://github.com/CodeForAfrica
https://github.com/Code4SA
https://github.com/ANCIR
http://icfjknight-toolkit.silk.co/

4. Citizen Focused:
We build engagement tools, to give
ordinary citizens actionable data with
personalised + localised information,
along with strong feedback loops.

5. Demand Driven:
What keeps people awake at night?
Civic engagement needs to be more
than just rhetoric. It needs to tackle the
real-world challenges facing citizens.

6. Outcomes-Based:
We aim for outcomes not just outputs.
Our metric for success is lasting
change. We also aim for scalability
and/or replication in all our initiatives.

7. 90+ Projects
From camera drones & air/water sensors,
to citizen reporter apps, fact-checking &
forensic data analysis tools, data
visualization & geo-narrative platforms.

8. Actionable Data
Use underlying data to augment
reportage, by creating tools to help
audiences understand the local impact
by personalising / localising.

9. Actionable Data
Use underlying data to augment
reportage, by creating tools to help
audiences understand the local impact
by personalising / localising.

10. Simple Backend
Each of our news tools is powered by a
simple spreadsheet that is hosted on
the free Google Fusion Table platform.

11. Crowd Verification
Government data is often ‘dirty’. So,
we allow doctors to check & correct /
update their own records, feeding the
new data then fed back to KMPDB -
creating a virtuous circle.

12. Data-Driven
Storytelling
Data on its own boring or confusing.
The easiest way to get people to care
is to give data a human face, or to find
a compelling story in the data.

13. Tools That
Personalise
Stories are good for catching attention
… but are quickly overtaken by new
stories. People only really remember
the hyper-personal or hyper-local.

14. Robust
Methodology
The public is sceptical. For good
reason. So, we are transparent about
our data sources and methodologies,
plus our assumptions.

15. Feed The
Trolls
Strike a nerve, & will you unleash the
trolls. #LivingWage sparked 1,000s of
comments. Our team engaged, turning
hate-speech into public discource

16. Design To
Go Viral
Want to kickstart a national discourse?
Deliberately build your project / story to
be ‘stolen’ or syndicated by your
competitors. Make the data available.

17. Harness The
Feedback
One-off projects are poor
investments. Design feedback-loops
(like surveys) into projects. #LivingWage
is now the largest database of
domestic salaries.

18. Focus on
What Matters
Media is weak, with limited reach. The
important challenges are complex and
transnational. Build tools that capitalise
on content across newsrooms.

19. Investigative
Technologies
Combine big data & civic technology
for deep investigative analysis of the
big challenges that face our societies.

20. Building Blocks
We try lower the barrier for adoption
by newsrooms by building ‘lego’-like
components to power the backend of
projects.

21. Proof of
Concept
Our backend workflow tools, such as
Grano.

22. David &
Goliath
The best way to prove #CivicTech’s
potential is to slay giants. We
deliberately take on the world’s largest
transnational corporations / industries.

23. @Code4Africa
@AfricanCIR
CALL US.
Our #CivicTech Community: http://bit.ly/HHAfrica
Our #InvestigativeTech Community: http://bit.ly/AfricaCIR

24. Low-Cost
High Impact
A data-driven tool for citizens to find
election registration centers + check
registration details, + track polling
results, + send 'peace SMS’ messages.

25. Scaling /
Replication
Since Kenya, GotToVote has been
used by 100,000s of citizens in 5
additional counties … including by 2
governments who adopted it as an
‘official’ solution.