TICTeC – The Impacts of Civic Technology

Every year mySociety host TICTeC, a conference for those interested in how technology is changing the way we engage with society. This year’s conference was on the 19th and 20th of March, in Paris, and brought together more than 200 leaders in the Civic Tech field.

For those who weren’t able to make it, a number of highlights are now uploaded on YouTube, in the playlist below. Civic Technology is an important aspect of involving citizens better in local democracy, and will be part of what we look at with our partner councils. Hopefully these discussions provide food for thought on this topic and share some of the progress being, and questions being grappled with, around the world.

• First up you can hear a panel session with Benjamin Snow from the Civic Technology platform Civocracy, talking about how they’ve learnt from set-backs; and then Marko Skoric from City University of Hong Kong examines why social media platforms became the villains in the story of technology and democracy, and what the social impacts have been.
• In a discussion of Civic Technology in the French context, you can hear Pauline Véron, the Deputy Mayor of Paris talk about the city’s experience of Participatory Budgeting; Paula Forteza, a National Assembly member for En Marche! discuss Civic Tech as a response to the gilets jaunes, and Tatiana de Feraudy from the citizen decision-making platform Decider ensemble give an overview the state of Civic Tech in France.
• On what Civic Tech can and can’t do, you can hear Panthea Lee and Gil Pradeau examine the case for Participatory Budgeting, and Pablo Aragón discuss Barcelona’s experiences with the Decidim platform.
• And you can hear a roundtable discussion on the role of Civic Technology for making policy and designing services in an inclusive way. Panelists are Alessandro Bellantoni, Barbara Ubaldi, and Claudia Chwalisz from the OECD; Mor Rubinstein from 360 Giving and Public Square’s own technical reference group member, Miriam Levin from the Department of Culture Media and Sport.

Hopefully these videos give a flavour of some of the discussions that happened over the two days, and some of the questions being grappled with in today’s Civic Technology sector.