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We Proudly Supported TICTeC 2025, Where 212 Technology for Democracy Advocates from 37 Countries Inspired Each Other.

This year, we supported mySociety in hosting their annual The Impacts of Civic Technology (TICTeC) conference in Mechelen, Belgium, from June 10 to 11, 2025. The conference brought together 212 experts and advocates of pro-democracy technology who showcased their innovative digital initiatives for safeguarding and promoting democracy. They also shared their perspectives on addressing the current democracy crisis. As a hub for innovation for democracy, we were glad to support TICTeC because it shares our goal of serving as a platform where people can share, exchange, and collaborate on innovative technology initiatives for democracy.

The conference covered a wide range of topics that need to be addressed in the current crisis of democracy, freedom, human rights, and sustainability. Innovators, experts, and practitioners were invited to seek for solutions to these issues. Some of the panels showcased how to apply technological innovations to solve long-standing problems of democracy. For example, a country's constitution is the most fundamental legislation that protects citizens' rights and freedoms. However, many citizens still find it difficult to understand, feel that it is far from their daily lives, or considered that it does not cover all the rights of citizens. Digital initiatives such as Numainda, an AI-powered bot developed by Code for Pakistan, and Dream Con, created by WeVis in Thailand, were developed to encourage citizen participation in creating a better constitution.

Some of the panels discussed how to shape technology development with democracy in order to prevent its negative impact. For instance, Felix Sieker from Bertelsmann Stiftung introduced the concept of public AI. He explained that commercial AI has brought a negative impact, but citizens are often not allowed to oversee it or hold it accountable. Developing public AI that fulfills the principles of transparency and accountability, and that allows citizens of every demographic to access and use it for democracy or any public good, could be a possible approach to balancing the negative impact of commercial AI.

The concept of deliberative and community AI audit was introduced by the Civic Tech Field Guide team during TICTeC. AI is used everywhere in our lives and in public service systems, such as the social welfare system, crime detection system, and transportation system. However, bias may exist in these systems and cause discrimination or negative impacts on people or communities. The Civic Tech Field Guide introduced the deliberative and community AI audit to address this problem by designing a framework for citizens and community residents to participate in the auditing process instead of merely engineers or coders.

In addition to supporting the conference, FNF and our partners were honoured to present our pro-democracy technology projects to a global audience at TICTeC. In addition to Dream Con, a project previously introduced by WeVis, a partner of the FNF Thailand Office, Billy Lin, director of our partner Tainan Sprout, presented the Tainan City Council Watchbot. This project was co-developed with FNF and aims to help citizens oversee their city council.

Isabel Hou, co-founder of g0v sch001, Billion Lee, co-founder of Cofacts, and we co-led the Connect, Collaborate, Create workshop using the Civic Tech Project and Communities Handbook, which was co-developed by g0v Jothon, contributors, and us. Around 20 civic tech practitioners from across the globe joined us in brainstorming ways to preserve, transform, and pass on the experience of civic tech community to inspire more citizens. Hou shared g0v's know-how on reaching out to more citizens and becoming an important helping force whenever Taiwan faces a crisis. Lee introduced Cofacts, a participatory, open-source fact-checking social media bot, as an example of how g0v nurtures inspiring initiatives. We are happy to see that some participants plan to use the handbook to develop their own civic tech educational modules in their countries. Lastly, our program manager, Ya-wei Chou, was invited to speak at Defend Democracy with/from Technology panel.

After the TICTeC conference, we held a panel discussion at the FNF Europe office. Lee discussed how Taiwan’s civil society uses participatory, bottom-up methods to counter information operations from authoritarian regimes. Then, we invited the participants to assess the environment in their own countries and identify actions to take if they wanted to start their own civic tech community.

We are grateful to TICTeC for providing us with the opportunity to play a more active role in democratic innovation on a global scale!

mySociety has uploaded all the video recordings of TICTeC 2025. Click here to watch them.