Organisations

Aiddata .org provides over 1 million data points of information on aid flows from a large range of donors, creating an unprecedented level of transparency about international aid. The information covers most official aid bodies (e.g. DFID, USAID, et al) and the latest version (3.0) also includes data on private charity organizations in the US and flow of remittances. The data can be downloaded in full or visualized online. There is also a robust API system to build apps on top of the rich database. Based on a quick review of the datasets, I feel that it would be a […]

Aiddata.org: Open data for international development

UReport Uganda is an initiative to do SMS-based polling among a large number of Ugandan citizens on different topics weekly. The service boasts an impressive subscriber base of over 2,50,000 people as of Oct 2014. While the base is large, the poll data on the website indicates that SMS polls are sent to a smaller subset of participants each week with responses ranging from 20-50% in the polls I reviewed. The website provides a word cloud on the basis of responses and it also provides charts in case the question of the week had multiple choice responses. Samples of text […]

UReport Uganda

Witness is an organization dedicated to promoting the effective use of videos for human rights. The organization trains people to use videos, protect the content and the people in it – and also build effective campaigns to prevent human rights abuses. Witness was created after a video surfaced on the police brutality against Rodney King that made the founders recognize the power of videos in such situations. Apart from trainings, they also create apps and engage in policy advocacy with large internet companies to create a safe space for human rights activists working in dangerous conditions. Their blog is also an interesting space for articles on the […]

National Democratic Institute | NDI: NDI is a “nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government”. NDI has several leading projects in the intersection of technology and democracy.

Electronic Frontier Foundation | Defending Freedom in the Digital World: EFF is the leading civil liberties group defending your rights in the digital world. A group working on various aspects of internet regulation and their impact on civil, political and other rights.

Omidyar Network: A philanthropic firm that invests on market based efforts to social and political change. They have also invested in a number of initiatives to extend transparency by the use of technology.

Center for Democracy & Technology: It is “a non-profit public interest organization working to keep the Internet open, innovative, and free”.

Global Network Initiative: GNI is a network for protecting and advancing freedom of expression and privacy in information and communications technologies

Information Technologies & International Development: Multi-disciplinary journal focusing on the relationship between ICT and development. Published by USC’s Annenburg school.

Edward Tufte and Graphics Press: Edward Tufte is a well known political scientist who specialises in communicating information in creative ways using data visualization.

Apps4Africa: A contest to build mobile based technologies that could be used for social purposes in Africa

I paid a bribe: The innovative crowd sourcing platform by Janaagraha to crowd source reports on demands for bribes in India. The website has inspired many such initatives internationally.

Climate Collaboratorium: Seeks to use the collective intelligence of people to develop a plan on climate change. It’s a project of center for collective intelligence at MIT.

Sunlight Foundation: The foundation is, “a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for open government globally and uses technology to make government more accountable to all. We do so by creating tools, open data, policy recommendations, journalism and grant opportunities to dramatically expand access to vital government information to create accountability of our public officials”. The website is a great source of information on open data policy, political financing and a range of other topics in the intersection of technology and transparency.

Journal of E-Government: It is “a new professional journal focusing on the application and practice of e-government in its broadest sense

Electronic Journal of E-Government: Publishes research on topics relevant to the design, evaluation, implementation and management of e-Government/e-Governance, e-Democracy, e-Participation and other dimension of this field of study