Civic Technology Companies

Civic Technology Companies are companies that promote platforms, products, and services that facilitate civic engagement. Nowadays, civic technology communities are focusing on "building solutions that are needs-responsive and community-driven", and making Immense ProgresS in the civic tech space.

Definition

Civic technology encompasses any type of technology that enables greater participation in government affairs, or "assists government in delivering citizen services and strengthening ties with the public". The phrase can essentially be used to describe any company that is concerned with improving the quality, access, and efficiency of government services within the political system through technological means.

Civic Technology in the United States

Civic hacking companies like Code For America work towards addressing the gap between the government and citizens, pledging to create "government services that are simple, effective, and easy to use, for everyone". Similarly, websites like OpenGov focus on streamlining the government budgeting process and making political data easily accessible and analyzable. Investment in civic tech has been on the rise, with the U.S. government spending $6.4 billion on the industry in 2015. With new entrepreneurs joining the industry and political offices, like ex-Googler Megan Smith becoming the country’s chief technology officer in 2014 and former Twitter and Medium exec DJ Patil becoming the country’s first Chief Data Scientist of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, money is expected to flow into civic technology for the years to come.

Civic Technology in France

Many different types of companies around the world classify as civic technology companies. In France, for example, many civic tech platforms, most notably LaPrimaire.org, emerged after citizens expressed "disgust" at the word 'politics' itself. La Primaire is ambitiously aiming to organize an open primary election, select a suitable Presidential candidate, and allow the candidate to run in the 2017 elections. Although the candidate would then need to be backed by a major political party and have 500 political officials sign off to endorse him/her, 78% of the French electorate has reported feeling comfortable voting for an independent candidate

Civic Technology in the United Kingdom

Many companies in the UK are turning towards improving civic engagement and technology, too. mySociety, an e-democracy project of the UK Citizens Online Democracy charity, works to make online democracy tools for UK citizens. With their open source tools, mySociety's code can be deployed to many other platforms and countries across the world. mySociety has many different tools, like parliamentary monitering ones, that work in many countries for different types of governance. When such tools are integrated into government systems, citizens can not only understand the inner workings of their now transparent government, but also have the means to "exert influence over the people in power".