This position paper discusses governing data assets from platform labor as a commons. It notes that digital workers currently lack power due to an inability to unionize and firms enclosing data about worker activity. The paper proposes using civic technology to facilitate collective action by workers. Specifically, it suggests converting enclosed platform data back into a common-pool resource for workers to access, in order to mitigate power asymmetries between firms and workers. Key questions discussed include learning from precedents for converting enclosed goods to commons, and how to create sustainable governance models for shared worker data through civic platforms using participatory design principles.

1. Civic Technologies:
Research, Practice
and Open Challenges
Organizers: Pablo Aragón, Adriana Alvarado Garcia, Claudia Flores-Saviaga,
Jorge Saldivar, Christopher A. Le Dantec
October 17, 2020

2. Welcome
Bienvenidos

3. SCHEDULE
Saturday,
October 17, 2020
Activity Outcome Type
60 minutes Introduction and brief remarks All together
40 minutes First Session: Civics, Infrastructure,
and Local context
Affinity Diagrams Discussion group
10 minutes Break
40 minutes Second Session: Civics, Trust, and
Government
Stakeholders map Discussion group
10 minutes Break
40 minutes Third Session: Sharing methods and
strategies
Affinity Diagrams Discussion group
10 minutes Closing remarks All together

4. WORKSHOP
MATERIALS
ADD DESCRIPTION Invitation Link:
https://join.slack.com/t/cscwworkshopcivi
ctech/shared_invite/zt-ihibj2hs-
kst1zb47iW_Nm38q_Ey3tg
Toolkit: Here
SLACK GROUP
TOOLKITS FOR EACH
SESSION
ONGOING NOTES
PER SESSION
WORKSHOP
DOCUMENTS
Link to the site: Here
Link to workshop proposals:

5. EXPECTATIONS
OFVIRTUAL
ENGAGEMENT
● We will be using Zoom. When you are not speaking,
please mute your mic to avoid background noise, etc.
● Everyone has different ‘work from home’ situations - if
you need to step away at any time, feel free to do so.
● When stepping away, please mute your mic and disable
your video so we know that you are
disengaged at that moment.

6. ZOOMINFORMATION
Zoom Link
https://acm-
org.zoom.us/j/95207316811?pwd=Q1Zkb0
RhclFUWGpZNXVQWWF0UnVjZz09
Zoom Meeting ID
952 0731 6811

7. WORKSHOP
GOALS
Governance models of civic
technologies based on
participatory principles.
Approaches to ensure project
sustainability and the
community engagement.
Local conditions that favour the
development and deployment of
civic technologies.
Challenges when adopting
existing technologies in new
socio-geographic environments.
Civics, Infrastructure,
and Local Context
Sharing Methods
and Strategies
Civics, Trust and
Government
Methods for building trust
among civic tech participants
and with government bodies.
Challenges in making
government data available to
the public

8. Meet the organizers!
Feel free to connect with us!

9. ORGANIZERS
Pablo Aragón
Affiliation: Eurecat & Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Research Interests: Computational Social Science,
Technopolitics,
Digital Democracy,
Civic Tech,
Social Network Analysis
Contact: elaragon@gmail.com | @elaragon

10. ORGANIZERS
Adriana Alvarado Garcia
Affiliation: Georgia Institute of Technology
Research Interests: Social Computing, Tech for Human Rights,
Critical Data Studies,
Online Communities
Contact: adriana.ag@gatech.edu | @ella_es_adriana

11. ORGANIZERS
Claudia Flores-Saviaga
Affiliation: West Virginia University
Research Interests: Disinformation, Artificial Intelligence
Crowdsourcing,
Social Computing
Contact: cif0001@mix.wvu.edu | @saviaga

12. ORGANIZERS
Jorge Saldivar
Affiliation: Barcelona Supercomputing Center
Research Interests: E-Participation, Crowdsourcing,
Civic
Technologies,
Collective
Intelligence
Contact: jorgesaldivar@gmail.com | @jorgesaldivar

13. ORGANIZERS
Christopher A. Le Dantec
Affiliation: Georgia Institute of Technology
Research Interests: Human-Computer Interaction
Computer-
supported cooperative work
Design research
Contact: ledantec@gatech.edu

14. Meet the participants!
Time to present the position papers!

15. PARTICIPANTS
We are excited to
have participants from
institutions covering
15 countries
Australia
Bolivia
Canada
Colombia
Finland
Hong Kong
India
Mexico
Pakistan
Paraguay
Philippines
Singapore
Spain
UK
USA

16. POSITIONPAPER
Digital Interventions in the Global
South: A Case Study from Rural India
Eric Gordon (Emerson College)
John Harlow (Emerson College)

17. Digital Interventions in the Global South:
A Case Study from Rural India
● Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) factors kill 200,000+ children every year.
● “Hygiene with Chhota Bheem” was a school-based toilet use and handwashing
intervention in Tamil Nadu, India that enrolled over 2,500 students aged 7—11.
● Participatory design with students and teachers led the research team to connect the
work to pop culture through “Chhota Bheem,” India’s most popular children’s character.
● The Engagement Lab @ Emerson College made a mobile game, and play-based
curriculum, in partnership with Chhota Bheem’s producer, the Indian Red Cross, and the
Mary Anne Charity Trust.
● 1,000+ students received a play-based intervention including that mobile game (in one of
three randomized control trial arms).

18. Digital Interventions in the Global South:
A Case Study from Rural India
● n=2,614 students across 3 arms completed pre- and post- intervention surveys, with
n=1,051 students receiving the full intervention including the mobile game.
● The mobile game was downloaded over 23,500 times (90+% in India). It was played for
12,564 hours, and had an average user rating of 4.6/5 stars.
● We tested whether mobile game immersion in a familiar story would reinforce learning
outcomes, but it did not achieve those goals on its own.
● Rather, the play-based nature of both intervention arms suggests that it was engaging
the material through play that built confidence in the students to advocate to their
families and peers.

19. POSITIONPAPER
#CivicTech For And By Citizens:
A Review And A Meta-Evaluation
Weiyu Zhang (National University of Singapore)
Gionnieve Lim (Singapore University of Technology and Design)
Ziyi Wang (National University of Singapore)
Simon T. Perrault (Singapore University of Technology and Design)

20. #CivicTech For And By Citizens:
A Review And A Meta-Evaluation
● Papers published by CSCW up to March
2020
○ research article, full text, and the
keyword “civic” in abstract
● 50 full papers
● 2 coders
● a codebook of 22 items
○ Scott’s Pi: 0.89

21. #CivicTech For And By Citizens:
A Review And A Meta-Evaluation
● citizens from non-democratic or non-Western
contexts are under-served by civic tech.
○ one paper each from China, Taiwan,
South Korea, and Mexico
● civic tech designs still target general citizens
○ minority groups may need more help
● most studies do not involve citizens in the
design phase.
● Call for a more balanced
approach to civic tech, both
developing cutting edge
technologies (AI, VR/AR) and
adapting laymen and popular
technologies (social media)
● Call for building
infrastructure to reach out to
civil society partners
● Call for joining our Civic Tech
project as expert
interviewees
weiyu.zhang@nus.edu.sg
twitter: weiyuz
website: www.weiyuzhang.net

22. POSITIONPAPER
Civic Fellowships: A Framework for
Civic Technology Innovation in Pakistan
Anam Zakaria (Code for Pakistan)
Ebtihaj (Code for Pakistan)
M.A. Ibraheem (Code for Pakistan)

23. Civic Fellowships: A Framework for
Civic Technology Innovation in Pakistan
Civic Fellowships
across the globe
Civic Fellowship by Code for Pakistan in partnership
with the provincial Government and the World Bank
Citizen Engagement
Improving Government
Processes
Innovation in Public
Services

24. Civic Fellowships: A Framework for
Civic Technology Innovation in Pakistan
Building Trust with
Govt. Departments
Finding the right
stakeholders
Ensuring maintenance
& sustainability
User adoption through
cheap technology
Encouraging Female
Participation
Adapting to
challenges
Spreading the
word/Marketing
Government Buy-In User research &
continuous testing
Approvals &
policies
791,047
Citizens facilitated
39,414
Govt hours saved
1,220
Government datasets
published
158
Government officials
trained
IMPACT STATS SO FAR ACCOMPLISHMENTS & LEARNINGS

25. POSITIONPAPER
Collaborative Commons:
Civic Tech in Toronto
Curtis McCord (University of Toronto)

26. Collaborative Commons: Civic Tech in Toronto
● research applies techniques from
systems thinking, such as Critical
Systems Practise (CSP) and Soft
Systems Methodology (SSM), as
well as techniques from STS, such
as Situational Analysis
● themes emerging from the work
are (to an extent) co-determined
with participants, and there is a
heavy focus on action research,
which has meant volunteering
with the group for a year
above: general overview of the research phases
below: SSM approach to action research
interventions

27. Collaborative Commons: Civic Tech in Toronto
● Situational Analysis is used to describes the “social worlds” of civic tech in Toronto,
revealing a varied practise with flexible boundaries and a plurality of worldviews and
theories of change
● Exploring the history of Civic Tech Toronto (CTTO) projects and hacknights, the research
documents interactions among civic tech groups, and with the state, through formal and
informal collaborations
● Understanding CTTO as a commons allows us to make sense of its decision-making
process and purpose, which draws from and contributes to other commons (especially
software commons)
● We can begin to construct an account of citizenship that fits within the voluntaristic,
media and technology based practises within the world of grassroots civic tech

28. POSITIONPAPER
Designing Open Government Data
Portals for the Universal Access and
Effective Use of Ordinary Citizens
Briane Paul V. Samson (De La Salle University)

29. Designing Open Government Data Portals for the
Universal Access and Effective Use of Ordinary Citizens
● Open government movement → promotes accountable, responsive, and inclusive
governance
Current: publish open data (proactive) & provide citizens
a way to request for data (reactive)
Current portals are designed for
experienced data works.

30. Designing Open Government Data Portals for the
Universal Access and Effective Use of Ordinary Citizens
EFFECTIVE DATA STORIES
Martini Structure Drill-Down Structure
▸Author-driven
▸Narrative is defined by author
▸Story exploration at the end
▸Reader-driven
▸Readers navigate story on their
own
▸Story exploration at the start
APPROPRIATE VISUALIZATIONS
Time series
visualizations
Multi-Line Graphs for
granular comparisons
Heatmaps for
correlations and trends
VISUALIZING MISSING DATA
Broken Lines for
missing data points
Special Points for incomplete
data in aggregations
Tooltips to provide
actual value

31. POSITIONPAPER
Diseñando Asistentes Virtuales
Inteligentes para el Gobierno Federal
Saúl Abraham Esparza Rivera (Civic Innovation Lab, UNAM)
Norma Elva Chávez (Civic Innovation Lab, UNAM)
Diego Flores (Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Fabián Medina (Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Saiph Savage (Civic Innovation Lab, UNAM)

32. Designing Virtual
Assistants for the
Government
32
● Saúl Esparza Rivera,
Norma Elva Chávez, Saiph Savage (UNAM)
● Diego Flores, Fabian Medina (Mexico’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs)

33. ● Goal: Simplify the governmental interface for obtaining a passport.
○ Conducted Interviews and surveys to understand type of
technical requirements needed for the interface.
■ Mexican Citizens value conversations:
● Designed conversational assistants.
■ Certain parts of the government process for obtaining the
passport created anxiety from citizens.
● Integrate Human in the loop approach that could
provide the human warmth that is missing.
Designing Virtual Assistants for the
Government

34. ● Example of the interface and virtual avatars we are
considering for our government interface.
34Thanks to Anqui Cao and Antonio Aranda Eggermont from UW HCDE.
Designing Virtual
Assistants for the
Government

35. POSITIONPAPER
Evidence Socialization in a Community
based Dengue Prevention initiative
Delsy Denis (Universidad Nacional de Asunción)
Sofia Rivas (Universidad Nacional de Asunción)
Julio Paciello (Universidad Nacional de Asunción)
Cristhian Parra (Universidad Católica Nuestra)
Luca Cernuzzi (Universidad Católica Nuestra)

36. Evidence Socialization in a Community based
Dengue Prevention initiative
(1) Information: about the project’s progress.
(2) Education: ways of preventing and eliminating mosquito
breeders.
(3) Motivation: for volunteers to participate of TopaDengue
project activities.

37. Evidence Socialization in a Community based
Dengue Prevention initiative
Volunteers
Message

38. POSITIONPAPER
Flattening the Curve with Civic Technologies:
A Case of Open Innovation during COVID-19
Marta Poblet (RMIT University, Melbourne)
Pompeu Casanovas (La Trobe University)
Tarik Nesh-Nash (Impact For Development)
Fatima-Ezzahra Denial (Impact For Development)
Víctor Rodríguez Doncel (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)

39. Flattening the Curve with Civic Technologies:
A Case of Open Innovation during COVID-19

40. Flattening the Curve with Civic Technologies:
A Case of Open Innovation during COVID-19
- Trust and recognition
- Multistakehoder envolvement
- Need for Open knowledge

41. POSITIONPAPER
From Passive Viewing to Active Listening:
Civic Technologies for Peace
Anna De Liddo (Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University)
Philipp Grunewald (King’s College London)

42. From Passive Viewing to Active Listening:
Civic Technologies for Peace
Democratic Reflection, is an
innovative audience feedback tool that
allows people watching a testimonial
video, to instantly express their inner
cognitive and emotional reactions to
the viewing experience.
From this personal interaction, the tool
creates a blueprint of both the
personal and collective experience
viewers are going through, which is
then used to generate a series of
analytics and visualisations to enhance
personal learning and reflection.
De Liddo, A., Pluss, B., & Ardito, A. (2020). Democratic Reflection: Nudging Citizens?
Democratic Engagement with Political Election Debates (pp. 25–29). Presented at the
Conference Companion Publication of the 2020 on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
and Social Computing, New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery.
http://doi.org/10.1145/3406865.3418562

43. User Study in Rwanda
● Democratic Reflection changed the viewing experience
from passive viewing to more active listening. Despite
people’s lack of initial interest in the technological modality of
interaction, Democratic Reflection enabled a replay experience
of the video testimonials which engaged participants in a
proactive way. In 20 minutes the group provided 2909
feedback to the video, roughly 137 feedbacks per person, at
almost a rate of 7 cards per minute.
● It developed detailed insights on the interaction and
enabled in depth understanding of the audience. For
instance, it enabled the analysis of the difference in empathic
and cognitive engagement between man/women,
younger/older people, rural/urban areas.
● It demonstrated value as video assessment technology for
NGOs that widely use storytelling for engagement purposes to
select, design and test video material which can effectively
promote their organisational/societal goal.
We engaged a small rural
community in Rwanda to
actively listen and reflect on a
testimonial video (“Ubumuntu”)
telling stories from the
Genocide in Rwanda.
In 1994 Rwanda experienced
large scale genocide. Since
then the society has
attempted to prevent new
conflicts and rebuild social
trust.
Digital storytelling tools are
commonly used to promote
empathy and to build peace

44. POSITIONPAPER
Governing the Commons of Platform
Labor Data Assets
Samantha Dalal (University of Colorado Boulder)
Brian C. Keegan (University of Colorado Boulder)

45. Governing the Commons of Platform Labor Data Assets
● Intent to scope out the issues surrounding labor organizing in the gig economy and propose ways in
which civic technology can be used to facilitate collective action
● Issues at hand:
○ Worker-firm relations of digital economy mirror those of 1940s-1960s US Industrial Sector;
however digital workers unable to unionize
○ To mitigate power asymmetry between firms and workers, workers need access to information
about their activity
○ Firms currently enclose data assets produced by workers
● Primary Questions:
○ What precedents from social and economic history exist for converting enclosed goods back to
common-pool resources?
○ How to use create sustainable governance models for data assets through civic tech platforms

46. Governing the Commons of Platform Labor Data Assets
Design
Follow participatory design model to
incorporate stakeholder priorities
Incorporate Modular Governance
Give community power to flexibly create/trial
structures of governance for their data
Scoping
Identify Possible Community Collaborators &
Governance Frameworks
Connect with Community
Understand current modalities of organizing
I am here

47. POSITIONPAPER
Improving logistic ICTs for community-
based dengue prevention
Delsy Denis (Universidad Nacional de Asunción)
Sofia Rivas (Universidad Nacional de Asunción)
Julio Paciello (Universidad Nacional de Asunción)
Cristhian Parra (Universidad Católica Nuestra)
Luca Cernuzzi (Universidad Católica Nuestra)

48. Improving logistic ICTs for community-based
dengue prevention

49. Improving logistic ICTs for community-based
dengue prevention

50. POSITIONPAPER
Inclusivity in Town Halls: Challenges,
Paradigm Shift, and Opportunities
Mahmood Jasim (University of Massachusetts)
Amy X. Zhang (University of Washington)
Ali Sarvghad (University of Massachusetts)
Narges Mahyar (University of Massachusetts)

51. Inclusivity in Town Halls: Challenges,
Paradigm Shift, and Opportunities
● Inclusive participation in town halls is often challenging
for reticent participants who prefer not to speak up
● CommunityClick modifies iClickers as a real-time
response system for reticent attendees to share their
opinions anonymously and silently
● The meeting transcript augmented with these feedback
can enable organizers to include silent opinions when
analyzing the meeting discussion

52. Inclusivity in Town Halls: Challenges,
Paradigm Shift, and Opportunities
● A town hall deployment with 20 attendees revealed CommunityClick enabled
reticent attendees to voice their opinions using iClickers instead of speaking up
● While town halls have shifted towards virtual space for the pandemic, the
challenges for reticent participants to engage the discussions persist due to the
restrictions imposed by the moderators as well as the virtual conference tools

53. POSITIONPAPER
Integrating Culture Theory and HCD to
Design Global Government Interfaces
Anqi Cao (HCDE, UW)
Antonio Aranda-Eggermont (HCDE, UW)
Mojin Yu (HCDE, UW)
Patriya Wiesmann (HCDE, UW)
Stephanie Blucker (HCDE, UW)
Shazia Ansari (Civic Innovation Lab, UNAM)
Diego Flores (Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Fabian Medina (Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Saiph Savage (Civic Innovation Lab, UNAM)

54. Integrating Culture Theory and HCD to
Design Global Government Interfaces
Anqi Cao (HCDE, UW)
Antonio Aranda-Eggermont (HCDE, UW)
Mojin Yu (HCDE, UW)
Patriya Wiesmann (HCDE, UW)
Stephanie Blucker (HCDE, UW)
Shazia Ansari (Civic Innovation Lab, UNAM)
Saiph Savage (Civic Innovation Lab, UNAM)

55. Human-Centered Design (HCD)
The Problem
Mexico’s passport renewal process can be
confusing. The government wanted to design
a bot to streamline the process, but they
needed to know more about users’ current
experiences, as well as what they wanted
from the bot.
We propose to use human-centered design
and culture theory and to resolve this
problem.
Culture Theory: Hofstede Dimensions

56. Mockup

57. POSITIONPAPER
Local Solutions with Global Reach —
Can Civic Tech Benefit from Open
Source Software Ecosystem Practises?
Antti Knutas (LUT University)
Victoria Palacin (LUT University)
Annika Wolff (LUT University)
Sami Hyrynsalmi (LUT University)

58. Local Solutions with Global Reach — Can Civic Tech
Benefit from Open Source Software Ecosystem Practises?
● Civic tech projects are often partly or fully driven by volunteers => might lack resources or
involved technologists
○ => might be tempted to use services whose values are not aligned (e.g. Facebook)
● Several civic tech groups consider Free/Libre and OSS software already aligned with their
values
Open source software ecosystem (OSSECO) definition: Network of organizations or actors with
a common interest in an open software technology, with community as keystone actor.
For discussion: Can open source software sharing practises and OSSECO perspective to be
used to better generalize and share software between civic tech groups?

59. Local Solutions with Global Reach — Can Civic Tech
Benefit from Open Source Software Ecosystem Practises?
We present a series of discussion points on potentially beneficial OSSECO practises for civic
tech.
● Can modern architectures be used to generalize and share common components or
services?
● Niche players could make deployment options easier, but still community-controlled.
● Can larger ecosystems support participants through capacity building and resilient
solutions?
● OSSECO keystone actors monitor ecosystem health and cultivate the ecosystem. Can
civic tech ecosystem flourish with similar practises?

60. POSITIONPAPER
Perceptions of News Sharing and Fake
News in Singapore
Gionnieve Lim (Singapore University of Technology and Design)
Simon T. Perrault (Singapore University of Technology and Design)

61. Perceptions of News Sharing and Fake News in Singapore
Rationale - Fake news can undermine civic effort.
Online survey in Singapore with 75 participants.
Seek to understand:
● News sharing behavior
● Motivations for sharing news
● Trust in news sources (i.e. common media items)
● Perceptions of fake news
11 media items: television, radio, word-of-mouth, local news
channels, global news channels, streaming networks, social
media, instant messaging apps, email, government
communication platforms, and work communication platforms

62. Perceptions of News Sharing and Fake News in Singapore
News sharing behavior
● 79% shared news online
● 76% came across fake news
● 26% shared news before
knowing they were fake
Trust in news sources
Motivations for sharing news
● is relevant to the receiver, is
important, is interesting
● to friends and family
● via instant messaging apps
Perceptions of fake news
● largely from instant messaging
apps and social media
● realise within the day
● use search engine to verify
High trust in government
communication platforms suggests
opportunities for top-down civic tech
amidst the issue of fake news.

63. POSITIONPAPER
A multi-modal civic
engagement platform to
revitalize an iconic public
park of Asuncion
RENOVA EL
PARQUE
CABALLERO
Jorge Saldivar (Barcelona Supercomputing)
Cristhian Parra (United Nations Development Program)
Luca Cernuzzi (Catholic University Nuestra Señora de la Asunción)
Luis Godoy (Operaciones de ciudad y Arquitectura de Asunción)

64. Multimodal participation: from face-to-face to social media to messaging to participatory platforms and back.
Facebook group and
page
Idea Workshop
Deliberation and debate workshop
WhatsApp Group
AppCivist Platform for
refinement and voting
On site voting
Ideation Debate Refinement Voting

65. Renova el Parque Caballero: Findings
● Combining and analyzing multiple input sources was challenging and labour intensive, but
it enabled a highly engaging process that outlived its initial purpose
● Use of Facebook to collect ideas and comments was key, and the role of a
communicator who actively engaged with participants
● Unstructured comments, however, introduced the need for data analysis and cleaning
before we could engage in productive deliberation and proposal development
● Messaging and groups are useful when community engagement is one of your goals
● The formation of the community and the active engagement of some of its members
is probably the only reason why this process did not end in frustration, as most others do
when participation does not influence decisions significantly

66. POSITIONPAPER
Sidewalk Accessibility in the US and
Mexico: Policies, Tools, and A
Preliminary Case Study
Jon E. Froehlich (University of Washington)
Edgar Martínez (Liga Peatonal)
Michael Saugstad (University of Washington)
Rebeca de Buen Kalman (University of Washington)

67. Sidewalk Accessibility in the US and Mexico:
Policies, Tools, and A Preliminary Case Study
In Mexico, 55% of school commuters
and 23% of workers travel by walking
or rolling; however, an alarming 44%
of traffic-related deaths are
pedestrian—often due to poor or
non-existent pedestrian
infrastructure.
The quality of sidewalks is, therefore,
crucial to ensuring people’s
accessibility and mobility rights.
Project Sidewalk SPGG, México
Project Sidewalk CDMX, México

69. POSITIONPAPER
To Pseudo-Participate or
Not to Participate?
Victoria Palacin (University of Helsinki & LUT University)

70. To Pseudo-Participate or Not to Participate?
The lack of agency in decision making and agenda-setting is a growing
phenomena in the design of digital public services

71. How is pseudo-
participation is
embedded in
democratic socio-
technical systems?
What means to be a
person in a digital
democracy?
How the introduction
of an online platform
for participation affects
the citizens, politically?
Technologists hold power to reconfigure people’ roles in
digital services.
My first step towards mapping this issue, is to document how and where pseudo-
participation takes place and the political affordances of socio-technical components
and systems.

72. POSITIONPAPER
Toward Understanding Civic Data Bias in 311
Systems: An Information Deserts Perspective
Myeong Lee (George Mason University)
Erik Johnston (Arizona State University)
Jieshu Wang (Arizona State University)
John Harlow (Emerson College)
Eric Gordon (Emerson College)
Shawn Janzen (University of Maryland)
Susan Winter (University of Maryland)

73. Toward Understanding Civic Data Bias in 311 Systems:
An Information Deserts Perspective
➔CivTech: 311 is a key link between
government & public service provision
➔Challenge: Differences in public
participation (motivation, understanding,
etc.) can create bias in 311 data
➔Problem: Most current models do not
account for this type of bias, which may
affect service delivery & equity
➔Long-term effect: may institutionalize past
inequalities into cities of the future
➔Local Information Landscape (LIL) Theory to develop
new approaches for modeling & viz: “Info deserts is a
material pre-condition of information inequality.”
➔Understanding information provision helps the creation
of information deserts of civic issues in a city.

74. Toward Understanding Civic Data Bias in 311 Systems:
An Information Deserts Perspective
➔Based on a Partnership with the City of Boston
2015 Boston Data: 311 restricted & open,
5-yr ACS demographics
➔600m hexagons as the geospatial unit of analysis
➔Analysis with & without government users
➔Early regression results show: poverty strongly associated with
territoriality (-), users (-), & reported topic diversity (+)
Next steps:
➔Additional IVs such as race/ethnicity and call type clustering by themes to better theorize info deserts.
➔Integrate models with data viz tool (e.g., BetaBlocks) that shows info deserts of civic issues
➔This is a call for collaboration (1) to understand/assess the material impact of local information shaped by
civic technology and (2) to inform information policy & civic technology design.

75. POSITIONPAPER
Interfaces for Empowering Governments to
Better Serve Latinas Experiencing Violence
Liliana Savage (Civic Innovation Lab, UNAM)
Luis F. Cervantes (Acceleration Lab, United Nations)
XueYan (Sue) Chen (HCDE, UW)
Ricardo Granados (Civic Innovation Lab, UNAM)
Saiph Savage (Civic Innovation Lab, UNAM)

76. Mexico City’s Government Creates
Centers to Help Battered Women
To help these battered women, Mexico City’s Government (Ministry of Women)
created the LUNAS Centers
Mission: assist women in the city by providing them free psychological advice
and legal advice
Problem: these centers have not been efficiently helping women due to limited
staff members and tools
Solution: we apply human centered design method to create a dashboard that
assist the directors to better visualize data
76

77. 77
Design Proposal: Hierarchical Dashboard

78. POSITIONPAPER
A Tu Servicio Bogotá (ATS)
Marea Digital
Estebán Pelaez (Modelo de Involucramiento Ciudadano
Participa+,
Movilizatorio & Fundación Corona)
Victoria Giraldo (Modelo de Involucramiento Ciudadano
Participa+,
Movilizatorio & Fundación Corona)

79. A Tu Servicio Bogotá (ATS) – Marea Digital
The Model´s Civic Tech strategy:
1. Meant to be scalable and replicable
2. Cost-effective approach to technological developments
3. Effective territorialization (prototyping and development)
4. Main variables: Advocacy and citizen participation, solution mechanism, local
capacities, local barriers, alliance for implementation.
● A tu Servicio Bogotá is an civic and public innovation platform with three main
purposes for the Bogotá health sector: 1) development of tools that promote
informed citizen participation through community-driven-data; 2) effective
interaction between citizens and the district government (Quality health services); 3)
innovations that make the public policy in the health sector more efficient in the
provision of different services.
● Marea Digital is a civic tech platform which allows citizens to identify and report
local issues that affect their communities and their quality of life, but also, to find
and report local initiatives and actions to tend towards social welfare in the city of
Buenaventura, Colombia.
● The platforms allow District Governments in Bogotá and Buenaventura, as well as
other key stakeholders to identify relevant information for design processes and
contribute to evidence-based decision making.

80. Main findings of the territorialization process that resulted in concrete strategies
for the platforms: A Tu Servicio Bogotá (ATS) – Marea Digital
Citizen Engagement:
● Engaging citizens through technological
innovations needs to combine digital and on-sight
appropriation strategies. ATS has engaged more
than 40,000 health users.
● Prototyping process with community leaders
balancing their needs with the institutional
capacities and planning /public policy priorities of
the administration (Bottom-up and Top-down
approach).
Territorialization:
● ATS BOG: From open data of public official records on
the national health sector of Uruguay, to community-
driven-data for decision-making processes in the private
and public health providers in Bogotá.
● Marea Digital: From community-mapping process of
informal settlements in Buenos Aires (Argentina) to a
civic tech - community-driven-data platform for
Buenaventura (Colombia).
Responsiveness:
● Multi Stakeholder alliance guarantees institutional
responsiveness (Public, private, civil society. Institutional
engagement in each of the agendas covered by the
initiatives guarantees the mechanism´s expected results in
policy.
● Detailed, specific and complementary information is key
for institutional responsiveness and citizen´s trust in new
participation mechanisms.
● Local legislation is needed for continued-long term
institutional support and responsiveness.
Relevant data for decision-making:
● The need to integrate - up to a certain level - a
citizen driven data civic innovation for the public
sector´s institutional decision-making mechanism.
● Community-driven-data agendas prioritized
according to public policy actionability - ATS BOG:
Quality of health services; Marea Digital: diverse set
of agendas on community needs - Humanitarian
assistance, education, health, gender, infrastructure.

81. POSITIONPAPER
Open Manifesto Project
Pablo Martín Muñoz (Political Watch)

82. Open Manifesto Project- Problemas a resolver
● Falta de homogeneidad en estructura y contenido de los programas electorales
● Dificultades de acceso y comparación por parte de la ciudadanía
● Ocultación o eliminación de los programas al terminar las elecciones

83. Open Manifesto Project- Soluciones propuestas
● Propuesta de estándar centrada en la ciudadanía
● API como infraestructura común de acceso y consulta
● Asistente virtual de voz para Google Home, con el objetivo de acercar los programas a los
votantes.
● Proyecto de código abierto
openmanifestoproject.org
github.com/open-manifesto-project
pablo.martin@politicalwatch.es

84. POSITIONPAPER
Parlamento 2030
Belén Agüero (Political Watch)
www.politicalwatch.es
www.parlamento2030.es
@CIECODE

85. Parlamento 2030
● What?
○ An open code online tool to track parliamentarian activity related to the SDGs
● Why?
○ Lack of accessibility in the Congress webpage
○ Challenge to monitor cross cutting policies related to the SDGs
○ Lack of tools to monitor parliamentary activity and advocate for better policies
● Main goals
○ Provide easy to use monitoring tools to citizenry and civil society
○ Promote transparency related to parliamentary activity
○ Promote public accountability regarding public policies

86. Parlamento 2030
● Main result
○ An online tool built by civil society that obtains and classifies thematically the
parliamentary information through a system of scrapping and automatic massive
tagging and then shows it it a free online browser
○ How?
Scrapping Phase
The software extracts the
information from the
parliament web. Then it
registers and organizes all
the data in a new database
Labeling Phase
The software compares
each initiative text with the
knowledge base (more
than 4000 keywords in 17
dictionaries) and labels the
initiatives
Final Phase
The software shows all the
labelled information in a
free access online browser
that allows users to filter
and download the results

87. FIRSTSESSION
Civics, Infrastructure,
and Local Context

88. Time for a break!
TIMEFORA
BREAK!

89. Civics, Trust,
and Government
SECONDSESSION

90. Time for a break!
TIMEFORA
BREAK!

91. THIRDSESSION
Sharing Methods
and Strategies

92. CLOSING
REMARKS

93. THANKS /
GRACIAS