How many trees are there in my city? Where is the nearest defibrillator? What is the quality of my drinking water? These questions could be answered by the local community, based on an open society where data is shared, and information is freely accessible to everyone. This is the vision of Code for All, a global network and community of practice for civic tech. The initiative develops tools and competences for the common good, supporting civic values, free information, open source principles, and the ecological sustainability of software and hardware. It has chapters in over 30 countries. The network started with the idea of connecting organisations that do work in the field of civic tech from around the world so they can learn from each other: “We believe in driving social change through digital technology, citizen participation and collaborative decision-making, while improving the relationship between governments and citizens.” (Code for all - History and Mission, 2023).
Founded in 2013, the non-profit organisation creates tech projects with added social value, for example, by programming applications that help people to answer questions as mentioned above: Apps, platforms, sensors, prototypes, and ideas are to benefit society and all code is open source and free to use. In this way, Code for All supports cities and municipalities – politicians as well as administrative staff – with digitalisation through advice and knowledge transfer. Furthermore, they emphasise civil society perspectives in publications, lectures, and public debates on technology and digitalisation, acting as a counterweight to corporate digitisation efforts and solutions. As a network of volunteers, Code for All brings together the hacker scene, committed individuals from civil society, administration and politics, as well as volunteers.
One of the chapters is Code for Germany, a network with around 20 regional groups who meet online and in local labs e.g. in Flensburg, Leipzig, Kaiserslautern, or Heilbronn. Code for Hamburg, the local initiative in the Northern German city state organises workshops about open data for transferring basic knowledge around the topic. Other projects provide homeless people with important information about their city or reveal local green space sponsorships – showcasing the diversity and benefit of civic tech and data-based projects. Code for Germany itself is part of the larger, global civic tech network Code for All. If you want to know more about Code for Germany you can read about their mission and projects on their website.
See also: Civic Tech Field Guide
(FG)
Literature:
Hamm, Andrea; Shibuya, Yuya; Cerratto Pargman, Teresa; Bendor, Roy; Hansen, Nicolai Brodersen; Raetzsch, Christoph; Shoji, Masahiko; Bieber, Christoph; Hendawy, Mennatullah; Klerks, Gwen; Schouten, Ben (2023). Failed yet successful: Learning from discontinued civic tech initiatives. Proceedings from Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Hamburg, Germany.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3544549.3573818Gordon, Eric; Mihailidis, Paul (eds.) (2016). Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice (1 ed.). Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Zuckerman, Ethan. (2020). “The Case for Digital Public Infrastructure.” https://knightcolumbia.org/content/the-case-for-digital-public-infrastructure
Raetzsch, Christoph; Hamm, Andrea; Shibuya, Yuya (2023). “Mainstreaming Civic Tech and Citizen Sensing: A Research Agenda on Co-Creation Methods, Data Interfaces, and Impact Pathways.” Frontiers in Environmental Science 11. (open access)
https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1228487
