Collaboration is key. How do we engage other stakeholders and build for and with them? What are the best practices in designing for social good, how do we map problems to solve, what is the best way to approach both Civic Tech and Gov Tech, how can we work better with civil society, how do we develop into enablers for other actors, what are the best tools and the best education models?

10:00 – 12:30

Keynote speakers

Location: Bucuresti building

Cristian Cucu (CIO Office Romanian Gov)

Olivia Vereha (Code for Romania)

Fletcher Tembo (Make All Voices Count)

Alvaro Maz (Code for Australia)

Greg Kempe (OpenUp)

12:30 – 14:00

Lunch Break

14:00 – 15:30

Working with Government: the Fellowship Model

Session type: Panel

Location: Bucuresti building

Reframing the government-to-citizen relationship, the Code for All Fellowship Programs have been bringing together citizen technologists to innovate in public services and enable the government to meet citizens where they are. Each Fellowship chapter has adapted itself to the country’s unique setting and has had a remarkable journey so far. Join us as we delve deeper into what it’s like to work with governments, the challenges encountered, the milestones achieved and the journey ahead.

Impactful and Misleading Data Visualizations: Tips and Tricks

Session type: Workshop

Location: Roma building – Space 1

This session will focus on understanding the challenges in communicating data visually. The session will provide an overview of the general flow of data analysis for communication, from gathering and preparing information, to selecting among possible visualization types. We will emphasize the need to separate the data from the analysis, the fact that even with the same data sources the choice of visualization types can tell different stories. We will be closing with several examples on how facts can be hidden in the way data is structured and how it can be visualized to deceive readers, we will provide a collection of tips to make impactful visualizations.

Civic Tech in Journalism

Session type: Topical Working Group

Location: Roma building – Space 2

Quality journalism is a foundation stone and a key component of a working civil society. The working group will explore how can civic technologists support journalists through their skills and the tools they build.

Curriculum Building

Session type: Topical Working Group

Location: Viena building – Space 1

How do you define a good learning programme? How to make sure that aside from civic apps, we can provide people with the necessary knowledge to make use of them at their maximum potential and that learning can cross barriers like language and geographical borders and that we can share it with everyone in civic tech.

Linking-Learning-Collaborations in Civic Tech for Accountability

Session type: Topical Working Group

Location: Viena building – Space 2

The purpose of this workshop is to discuss and validate a draft proposal for a pilot to design and test a set of mechanisms for organisational capacities development on effective use of tech and data for accountability advocacy, and to facilitate linking-learning-collaborations between organizations in civil society advocacy, investigative media and civic tech. The pilot will be designed based on needs of practitioners in the field, developed with an iterative approach and accompanied by adaptive learning and action research, to contribute to a better understanding of the underlying issues.

16:00 – 17:30

Design for Government

Session type: Workshop

Location: Atena building – Space 1

Governments around the world struggle with keeping up with societal trends related to ICT, such as artificial intelligence, new forms of interaction between citizens and the government, privacy and the digital divide. Then they try to talk their way out of this problem by writing grand visions of future interactions between the government and its citizens. These visions often contain semi-technical solutions such as “communication via one central portal”, “put our citizens in charge of their own data”. These are so vague and untested, that a lot of time and effort is wasted in misunderstanding, misguided or unrealistic ideas. In this workshop we’ll explore the experimental method of mass prototyping, by generating dozens of user scenarios and deducing what’s necessary to make them a reality.

15:30 – 16:00

Coffee Break

16:00 – 17:30

Civic Technologists as Enablers: Tech for Non Tech

Session type: Presentation

Location: Bucuresti building

Civic Tech is not about development. It is about its users. And another role that civic tech organisations take (be it strategic or by accident) is to bring citizens and institutions closer to useful technology so they can use it to their benefit. Bridging the gap between the “IT crowd” and the users is an activity we all do. Some faster, some better, some constantly, some occasionally. It is a good time to understand what are the best models of shrinking the digital divide. Join this session to learn about one of the most successful learning programs to date, developed by Code for Australia.

How to Solve the Right Problems: Civic Lab

Session type: Workshop

Location: Roma building – Space 1

What makes up a civic lab? A scientific method and an innovative solution driven process. Despite the “tech” in “civic tech”, development is more often than not, the least challenging aspect of delivering successful and impactful civic technology. Join to find out the methodology behind Code for Romania’s Civic Lab. Learn the methods to discover, map, validate, research, ideate, prototype and test civic tech solutions to make sure that the impact of your apps is the impact your community needs you to deliver.

Using Data in Anti-Corruption

Session type: Topical Working Group

Location: Roma building – Space 2

Corruption. Quite a common word all around the globe. A challenge many countries are facing and a debate that never seems to draw some final conclusions. Unlike three decades ago, though, we have two great allies at arm’s length: technology and data. How can we use digital tools in fighting corruption? How can we empower citizens and organizations to become more efficient in monitoring and calling out on irregularities? How can data become the amplifier of our pursuit for open and fair societies?

Civic Tech in Support of Government: Different Models of Collaboration

Session type: Topical Working Group

Location: Viena building – Space 1

One of the core missions of civic technologists is to support government in delivering better services to its citizens. The working group will map and assess the main models of cooperation between civic technologists and government, looking at the conditions of each of these models to function, with the view of putting forward some guidelines and support mechanisms.

Technology for an EU Citizenry: Code for Europe

Session type: Strategical Working Group

Location: Viena building – Space 2

European collaborations on creation and reuse of civic tech applications and infrastructure can accelerate the digital transformation both on a local and on a European scale. To do this, we need a strategy and tactical plan, to focus energy and spendings on the things that are urgent and important.

Why and How to Do Open Source in City Government

Session type: Strategical Working Group

Location: Atena building – Space 1

Using Open Source software can help with breaking vendor lock-in, having more control over IT processes, delivering better digital public services, having cheaper and more maintainable IT and many more things. However, adopting Open Source is easier said than done. This session is on explaining what Open Source means for cities and brings practical experience from cities already doing Open Source in order to help others adopt Open Source as well.

Open Cities or Smart Cities?

Session type: Workshop

Location: Atena building – Space 2

Openness has historically largely been defined by white men in the global north, and despite these being some amazing organisations and individuals, it has created problematic framing for implementing openness (especially with digital tools) in the global south. I want the session to engage with how this leads to undesirable outcomes including exclusion, lack of buy-in, and distortion when trying to implement openness in global south cities and communities.