CTIN launches South Africa’s first civic tech database
The database is for those who are curious about the civic tech industry, the ongoing civic tech initiatives and to make the platforms easily accessible from a central location
Did you know that South Africa has more than 25 active civic tech platforms? We have built a civic tech database for those who are curious about the civic tech industry, the ongoing civic tech initiatives and to make the platforms easily accessible from a central location. The database is a living collection of civic tech initiatives in South Africa. It is managed by JamLab for the Civic Tech Innovation Network.
We hope it will serve as a centralised portal where all existing and upcoming civic tech platforms can be accessed from.
In order to make the interface as user-friendly as possible we have listed the initiatives alphabetically. For each initiative that we identified we have included information about its purpose, its creators and partners and how to access its platform. We have also included contact information to allow users of the tool to make contact with that initiatives when necessary.
Some — like Amandla.mobi — have reached hundreds of thousands of people. Others are very new — like GovChat, launched in September — so are still at a very early stage of building up a base of users. Many — including People’s Assembly and Grassroot — have been created by civil society and non profit organisations. Some — like MobiSAM — by universities. And some — like Municipal Money are the initative of government.
The database demonstrates the range of purposes that digital technologies are being applied to. GovChat and MobiSAM aim to improve public services through user feedback. People’s Assembly connects politicians with their constituents. The National Treasury’s Municipal Money aims to empower users with easy to understand data on the budgets and spending of local government.
We have tried to include available information on the scale and impact of these initiatives. Amandla.mobi has had engagement from almost a quarter of a million people. But in general there is not enough information or enough research about what effect civic technologies are having.
The database was created at the request of participants at the first Civic Tech Innovation Forum in 2017. We hope it can help build a stronger civic tech community by showing who is doing what in South Africa. Research also suggests that results would improve if we learnt from the work that came before us.
This is the first draft of a living document. We aim to update the database regularly. If you know of any other initiatives that we have not listed on the database then please comment or write to us at civictech@journalism.co.za and we will update the list.
