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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".

Jordan Greenhall

Jordan Greenhall is an American angel investor and entrepreneur working in the internet and digital media sector. As an advocate for “efficient, collaborative, open” information models, Greenhall was the Vice President of MP3.com and co-founded digital media company DivX Inc in 2000, serving as the giant's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman through 2007. Currently, Greenhall serves as a senior member of the Neurohacker Collective, having co-founded the company in 2015.

Education

Greenhall earned his Bachelor's degree in Philosophy and Political Science from Texas A&M University in 1994, and graduated summa cum laude. He went on to Harvard Law School, where he played on the university's ice hockey team.

Career

After working as a lawyer for a year, Greenhall served as one of the first employees of MP3.com, eventually becoming the company's Senior Vice President of Strategy, where he was responsible for developing and implementing the website's business and content development model . He served on the Board of Trustees for the Santa Fe Institute and is currently involved with numerous other institutions. Greenhall served as a participant with The Aspen Institute, and is the "co-founder, former CEO, and current chairman of the Board of DivX Inc., the San Diego company behind the digital data compression application DivX that enabled reasonable quality video transmission over the Internet".

Investments

Greenhall served as an angel investor for many companies, including venture capital fund Lowercase Capital, financial information company BrightScope, and app distribution platform SweetLabs.

Innovative Politicians

Innovative Politicians are US candidates for public office and/or current incumbents who have embraced social media and innovative platforms during the election season of while in office.

Howard Dean

Politician Howard Dean's famous use of Meetup.com for his upstart presidential campaign in 2002 made it easy for people "with a common interest to find each other and arrange to meet, face to face". Howard Dean listened to technology and the people using it, and altered speeches and stances after getting feedback from his supporters and critics Many of Howard Dean's followers used Meetup.com, with the number of people coming out to Dean's Meetups in 600 location across the country ultimately reaching about 143,000. The website was revolutionary, as engagement in face-to-face local groups "dramatically affected how involved volunteers got with the campaign. The more Meetups people attended, the higher their average donation to the campaign". Dean's campaign's pickup of the emerging platform encouraged future candidates to look for unconventional methods of voter tracking and interaction, especially since Meetup.com propelled Dean to a viable spot in the presidential race.

David Cole

28-year-old software developer David Cole ran for Congress in 2016 to represent his home district in New Jersey. He announced his campaign in a Medium post reading, “I’m a coder running for Congress,” and aimed to bring a startup’s "sensibility, systems—and, naïveté—to the campaign". Cole's experience in the coding world was instrumental in his integration of software development site Github to his political platform. Cole employed Github in the hopes that constituents would collaborate on political policies, commenting on and editing his stance on issues straight on the website like they would on software. Although Cole lost the election, his innovative use of Github can be utilized in campaigns to come.

Barack Obama

President Barack Obama has revolutionized how current politicians use social media, with the White House expanding the President and First Lady's use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. While "critics [may] worry that governance by social media will cheapen the power of the presidency by substituting hashtag activism for serious policymaking," Obama has successfully "leveraged the opportunities of the digital age to maximum political advantage". The Administration has capitalized on micro-targetting, the identification of the desired audience and aiming of messages to the target directly, as it is much more engaging for audiences to have an online experience tailored just for smaller audiences.

Donald Trump

President-elect Donald Trump utilized Twitter frequently both during and after the 2016 presidential election, and said himself that social media helped him win the primary and general elections even though his opponents spent "much more money than [he] spent". With social media acting as free media and publicity, Trump was able to harness Twitter as a platform to respond quickly to his opponents and tweet about his stance on various issues. While Slate explains that Trump succeeded because he retained his "vulgar vigor and translated it into the political arena", the Washington Post has called his Twitter account "prolific, populist, and self-obsessed".