Innovation for Democracy
Register for I4D Cafe: Unleash the Strength of Citizens’ Collaboration by Technology
Click here to register for the 3rd Ep. Of I4D Cafe on Oct. 18, 2022, 10:00-11:30am CEST! Let’s learn how teams of Hack Nackon and Disfactory use technology to unleash everyone’s strength to democracy!
In a democracy, people have the right to examine everything their government does, push it to do it better, and prevent it from infringing on people’s rights. However, not every citizen finds it easy to exercise these rights in the real world.
For example, if a citizen reports illegal waste dumping to a government agency, they may not be taken seriously. This citizen may be required to provide more data that they are not able to acquire or to fill in complicated report forms. Moreover, this citizen may also worry about whether the government will protect them as a whistle blower. All of this might deter citizens to exercise their rights.
Luckily, NGOs, civic tech communities, and activists in Thailand and Taiwan have been using technology to tackle this problem. The tool they designed for that purpose aims to invite more citizens to collaborate in a way as easy that is as fun as playing games! Curious to learn more?
In the third episode of Innovation for Democracy Café, we invite Mr. Thitiphong Luangaroonlerd, the CEO of Boonmee Lab, and Ms. Paii Lai, Officer of Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan as our speakers, to share those encouraging and influential projects!
Mr. Thitiphong Luangaroonlerd, Boonmee Lab CEO, leads Hack Nackon project. It is an app on LINE helping citizens to report problems to their city government easily, such as flood, streetlight breakdowns, dysfunction of bus stops, etc.. By only taking photos and sending them to Hack Nackon via LINE, the reporting process is done. Moreover, this app incentivizes citizens by making the report process a game. This project is co-created by FNF Thailand Office, King Prajachipok’s Institute (KPI), Boonmee Lab, and Thai Health Foundation.
Ms. Peii Lai, Campaigner of Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan has been making great contribution to “Disfactory,” a website project that invites every citizen to report illegal factories in agricultural land. Moreover, a “spot.disfactory” game is developed based on the website. By merely clicking, everyone can help improve the speed and accuracy of the project’s program to identify illegal factories from thousands of aerial photographs. The Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan and g0v have cooperated together to give birth to this brilliant project.
By listening to their stories, we hope to learn how to use technology to lower the barrier for the citizens to actively exercise their rights to supervise governments. We also look forward to learning how civil society and civic tech communities can co-create a project that benefits every citizen.
Our Guests
Mr. Thitiphong Luangaroonlerd, Boonmee Lab CEO
Thitiphong Luangaroonlerd is the CEO and Co-founder of Boonmee Lab, a human-centered design, technology, and data lab based in Bangkok, Thailand.
Thiti is an expert in bridging design, technology and data together for meaningful purposes. As a CEO and interaction designer, he is shaping the future by building things using human-centered design approaches along with sustainable and meaningful business strategies.
Aside from human-centered design and interaction design, Thiti also works on information architecture, data visualization, UX/UI design, user research, and service design.
Peii Lai, Campaigner of Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan (CET)
Peii is a campaigner of Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan (CET), a non-profit organization that aims at seeking practical and environmentally sustainable solutions to environmental justice.
Peii’s work focuses on reducing the number of illegal factories on the farmland. From her perspective, environmental protection and economic development are not in a zero-sum relationship. Yet, it’s imperative for us to build up solutions to govern the pollution and restore the order of land utilization.
Together with g0v civic tech community, Peii seeks for the assistance of open source technology and crowdsourcing, tracking down illegal factories, trying to spark changes on the current policy.
Click here to register before Oct 17.