Hi everyone! Thank you for joining my talk today
on "What Makes Civic Tech Initiatives to Last Over Time?"
My name is Andrea Hamm.
I am affiliated with the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society
and the Technical University Berlin.
So let me present to you my great colleagues.
This research has been done
with Yuya Shibuya from the University of Tokyo,
Stefan Ullrich from the Weizenbaum Institute,
and Tessy Cerratto Pargman from Stockholm University
So let's have a look at our research gap.
Civic Tech Initiatives
dedicated to social or environmental issues
have become a worldwide phenomenon
and made invaluable contributions
in terms of data, community building, and outreach
However, such technologies’ sustained use remains low
and civic initiatives are often only short-lived
So we asked:
What makes civic tech initiatives to sustain over time?
and which factors ensure the long-lasting use
of civic technologies and the evolution of the initiative?
So the first case is Luftdaten.info
which is dedicated to particulate matter pollution
and based in Stuttgart, Germany.
This initiative has mobilized
more than 8,000 volunteers from 73 countries
and installed over 13,000 sensors installed worldwide
The second initiative is Safecast
dedicated to radioactivity pollution
and particulate matter pollution
Safecast has mobilized 5,000 volunteers from 102 countries
and installed more than 5,000 sensors installed worldwide
So what did we do?
We conducted a mixed methods study
based on different types of data:
we did in-depth interviews with core team members,
and we collected the initiatives’ historical Twitter data,
and we reviewed online and public materials
for example media articles and blog posts
we conducted social network analyses
and qualitative content analysis
so for example on the right side
you see the results of our social network analysis
with the annual Twitter networks
ranging back to 2011 and 2015
and here you see how the Twitter networks of the initiatives
changed and evolved
it's also important to mention that
in contrast to previous works
we did not conduct action research
So our key findings are basically the different factors
that are connected with different phases
of the evolution process
Those factors are helping the initiatives to sustain over time
So in the emergence phase
in the beginning, there is an issue of public interest
which is tackled by a competent core team,
that designs together with their initial background network
low barrier technologies
and they publicly communicate about these technologies
and the data that is created with these technologies
Principles of openness and access to resources
allow the community to grow
and the growth phase is then marked by the data
being applied by established institutions
so there is for example
local governments or local media institutions
which make use of the data of the initiative
and this process attracts new community members
and this again, increases the data sets
the number of data sets and
sensor stations.
So then the sustaining phase
requires further networking
to ensure a continuous funding
and the initiatives took many efforts
in online and offline community building
to improve their technology and data
and to keep the community vivid
and this actually has allowed them
to adapt to changing contexts
So then you see in this figure that
all these factors
located around the phases
build upon each other
we also saw that the growth
and the sustaining phases can re-occur
during the evolution.
When there are new network partners
or new group of community members
So long story short
What makes civic tech initiatives sustain over time is
more than just the technology design
and the application,
it is the initiative’s whole ecosystem
It's the variety of
interlinked factors, actors, technologies.
In the paper, we further discuss this ecosystem
in terms of: Real-life impacts,
Openness and inclusiveness,
Public narratives,
Empowerment and power structures
Thank you very much for listening!
Take a look at our research paper if you like.
Now I am happy to take your questions!