single Category Archives civic renewal

Finding Examples of People-Centered Process

The AI era’s call for greater inclusivity in governance and design decisions is not new. Many of us in civic tech still quote the phrase “Build With, Not For” that Cuán McCann popularized in 2014. I also learned this week that “Nothing About Us Without Us” entered the contemporary policy lexicon via disability rights activists in South Africa and Eastern Europe in the 1990s—and that they were referencing a 16th century Polish law.

Two expert friends released valuable resources on participation in AI governance and design recently: Tim Davies and his colleagues at Connected by Data posted findings from the People’s Panel on AI, a citizen consultation held “to address the glaring absence of public voice” at the 2023 UK AI Safety Summit and Lina Srivastava published an introduction to “Building Community Governance for AI,” based on principles to center community leaders and narrative power ...

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White Help, Glass Hearts

I don’t have a biting analysis to sum up the 2016 election or the handful of days since then. And I especially can’t speak with the voice of an immigrant, or a person of color, or a woman, or a member of the LGBTQ community, since I belong to none of those groups.

But seeing the acute anger and fear among my loved ones and colleagues in communities targeted during the campaign—people facing political threats, verbal assaults and most of all physical violence even as you read this—I’ve felt grief-stricken and confused. I’m writing not to tell you about my grief (which isn’t that interesting and has the luxury of being felt from comparative safety) but about my confusion.

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Can We Tell a Truer Story about Civic Tech?

The Personal Democracy Forum conference has always been a celebration of technology’s role transforming politics and redefining democracy. But this year’s celebration included particularly strong notes of caution, like danah boyd’s talk on the unintended consequences of code, Mark Surman’s warning that internet freedom is shrinking and Mariana Ruiz Firmat’s reminder that equity within our organizations is a design imperative, not just a good hiring practice.

The chorus of realistic voices was my second favorite thing about PDF16. My favorite was our own cautionary panel, “Is the Civic Tech Story Broken?”, which I presented with panelists Sam Dorman, Elizabeth Eagen and Shaifali Puri.

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