 from today. Welcome to this, the Sixth Tic-Tac Labs Civic Tech Surgery, organized by my society and supported by the National Endangled for Democracy. Today's event focuses on civic tech in hostile environments. How can we thrive in challenging contexts? I'm Gavin Freeguard, a freelance consultant working with my society on the Tic-Tac Labs programme. Among other things, I'm also an associate with the Institute for Government, especially advisor at the Open Data Institute and a consultant connected by data here in the UK. And I'll be your chair, facilitator or host, whichever word you prefer to use for today's event. Again, do tell us who you are and why you're here in the chat here on Zoom. It's wonderful to have all of you with us today. Over the next couple of hours, we're going to discuss some of the common challenges and gaps in knowledge facing civic tech organisations operating in hostile environments and the support they need to carry on, collaborate and contribute productively in hostile environments. That will include looking at the use of so-called peace tech and how civic tech operates in conflict and post conflict societies. But it might also include experiences from democracies where we thought a lot of the battles around openness, transparency and the acceptance of relative civil society have been won. But governments maybe were trenching on some of that. So I'll outline first how this is all going to work for the first 10 minutes or so. I'm just going to give you a quick introduction, a bit of housekeeping and the sort of agenda for today. A little bit of background on what we're hoping to achieve with the tic-tac lab program as well, of which this event is a part. I think I may have just dropped out there for a second. Let me bring my video back in. Hopefully you can see me. We've got through all of this without all the six events so far with very few technical problems. I will, there we are, continue again, probably better than we couldn't. As long as you can hear me, I think that's the main thing. Sorry about that. So a little bit of background to tic-tac lab program as well. We'll then explore some questions about civic tech in hostile environments with help with fantastic speakers and with all of you having the chance to share your thoughts as well. And then we'll think about what might help solve some of the challenges we've surfaced with a view to commissioning, say, some of the solutions. So some quick housekeeping first. Today's event is on the record. It's being recorded and will be published online afterwards, along with minutes of today's event. You should be able to access a live transcript here on Zoom. Please let us know in the chat if you can't. You're very welcome to share details of the event on social media hashtag tic-tac. And if you'd like to contribute to today's discussion, you can use the chat here on Zoom. You can use the Padlet board that you'll soon get a link to if you've not had it already as well. If you've not used Padlet before, you'll see it has the questions we're going to discuss and space for you to add your thoughts and comments by clicking on the plus signs. Feel free to populate it throughout the event, but there will be a few opportunities for silent working as well. Depending on time, we may also be able to have some time where you can unmute your mics and tell us what we're thinking to. Now for a quick introduction to the Tic-Tac Labs program, which is run by my society with support from the National Endowment for Democracy. The aim of the program is to discuss and tackle some of the biggest challenges facing the global civic tech and digital democracy sector. We want to grow the civic tech evidence base, addressing the key issues, and enhance the effectiveness and potential impact of civic tech projects. Tic-Tac, which stands for the impact of Civic Technology Conference, started as an annual global in-person conference in 2015. For obvious reasons, that's not happened for a few years. We hope there will be another in-person event in the future. But in the meantime, we've converted the program into the year-round Tic-Tac Labs project. Our steering group, you can see them on the right-hand side of the screen, identified six big challenges common to civic tech organizations around the world. You can see those challenges on the left, as well as today's subject on hostile environments. We've so far covered public private collaboration, accessibility, access and quality information, storytelling and reach, and learning from climate action. Now for each of those six topics, we've organized a civic tech surgery, like today's, to delve into some common challenges facing civic tech practitioners on those topics and possible solutions to them. After each surgery, we convene an Action Lab, a small working group of around six people, who will commission a piece of work to help solve some of the challenges raised. If you're interested in getting involved in the Action Lab today's topic, we'll tell you how to do so at the end of today's event. By the end of the program in 2023, we hope we'll have six pieces of commissioned work, as well as increased connections and learning across the global civic tech community. This is our sixth civic tech surgery. We've already commissioned work on public private partnerships, accessibility, accessing information, and storytelling and reach. And we currently have a live proposal from the Climate Action and societal change stream that's open until the 30th of October. And you can take a look at the TicTac Labs website for more information on all of that. Today, of course, we're focusing on civic tech in hostile environments, in particular this big overarching question. How can we support the civic tech community to carry on, collaborate, and contribute productively in hostile environments? Underneath that big question, our objectives for today are to discuss the opportunities and challenges in using civic tech and in sort of hostile environments. Think about some possible solutions to the challenges that we raise, and last but definitely not least, to explore how the TicTac Action Lab that will come together after this surgery can help address one of those common challenges by commissioning a relevant piece of work. Now, this is how we'll do that. I'm going to ask our excellent speakers, we'll talk about them shortly, some questions. Those questions will be what challenges have they encountered working in hostile environments? How can we support the civic tech community to work in hostile environments? What can we learn from the use of peace tech in conflict and post-conflict societies? And what is and isn't helpful in supporting civic tech and citizens in hostile environments? I'll give each of our speakers up to five minutes to answer each of those questions. Then we'll have three minutes of silent working for everyone using the padlet board where you can add your thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Again, you can do that throughout the event as well. We'll then ask our speakers to reflect on that, and then again, there may be a chance to unmute mics and for all of you depending on time. Once we've gone through all of those questions, we'll move on to the final part of today's event. We have up to three thousand seven hundred and sixty US dollars to commission a solution to some of the challenges we've identified. So we'll be thinking about what work it could be useful to commission. And again, we'll start with some silent working using padlet and then get into some discussion. Now that's nearly it from me. Time to introduce our brilliant speakers who will share their experiences and kickstart our discussions today. They are Yolanda Buisen. She's the communications coordinator at Hurodox and NGO that helps human rights groups gather, organize and use information to create positive change in the world. Yolanda is passionate about the intersection of information technology, design and human rights. She's based in Pretoria, South Africa and has been working in the field of human rights for more than 17 years. Julie Hawke is digital peace building leader at Build Up, a global nonprofit which uses digital technologies to build peace research interventions and supporting peace innovators. She's a facilitator and process interaction designer with a decade of combined experience and education in third party conflict engagement, global education and youth development. On the Build Up team, she supports areas of community and learning, peace innovation fellowships and their US based social media and depolarization project. And we are also joined by Tiona Tomashvili, co-founder and project leader at Foresat, a created enterprise based in Tbilisi, Georgia on a mission to strengthen change makers using data, design and technology. All of their work has a keen focus on data and they work in four domains, storytelling, education, civic tech and community building. We're very grateful to all of them for joining us today and to all of you as well. So I'm going to stop sharing my screen at this point and we'll say a bit more about how you can join the Action Lab at the very end of the event as well. But we're going to start by going to our wonderful panel on our first question. So the first question we're going to discuss today is what challenges have you encountered working in hostile environments that relates to column one on the Padlet. So I'll each ask of I'll ask each of our discussants to share their thoughts for around five minutes each. Then we'll have three minutes of silent working to add to the Padlet or to the chat and then hopefully a bit of time to reflect on all of those contributions as well. So I'll go to Yolanda first then Julie then Tiana. So Yolanda over to you. Thank you Gavin and thank you to my society for having me. Hello to everyone here today. My name is Yolanda and I am the communications coordinator at YuriDocs. I'm based in Pretoria, South Africa. YuriDocs as many of you might know or not know is an acronym for human rights information and documentation systems. It's an international NGO that helps human rights groups to gather, organise and use information to create positive change in the world. Since 1982, we have developed methodologies and tools to make it easier not only to manage collections of evidence, law and research, but also to analyse them for insights. So in 2017, we have developed our flagship tool called Wazi. It is a human rights defenders tool and it helps them to manage collections of information. So it's an open source web based database application. And yeah, this is our flagship tool at the moment that we use with our partner organisations. So YuriDocs is a remote organisation. We're based in Geneva, where we have a very small office in Geneva and the rest of the team is across the globe and we all work in different contexts and different regions. So the challenges that I would like to speak to you today about I have five challenges that I'm going to mention. And these are ones that we have picked up over the course of our 40 years of existence in working with partners and especially also in hostile environments. So our first challenge is the security of our documenters and their information. So when we ever we kick off a project with our partners, one of the main concerns remains security. This includes the security of the teams working with the information as well as the security of the information they collect themselves. So some teams work directly in the field on the ground while other teams work in safer locations, you know, doing the more processing work of the information that is being collected. So our partners need to know that the tool that they use is secure and that they can securely connect and that information is kept safely. So we undergo regular independent security orders to ensure that the digital environment that our partners use is safe and secure. So apart from security, the second challenge that I can that I can talk about is disruptions to the internet and electricity outages. So this is a major concern and it is also not only in hostile environments, but it's also in other developing contexts is the access to a stable internet connection. Unreliable internet connections and electricity blackouts are really huge challenges and it makes the task of collecting and storing information immensely difficult. A common solution where these challenge challenges subsist is to use more traditional methods such as pen and paper. This makes the data collection and documentation if it's even more time consuming. Another challenge that we have in terms of hostile environments is sometimes the countries are really big or the areas are really big. So geographical distances, you know, some of the teams have to cover large distances because there is a lack of internet connectivity in some of the areas and the roads, as some of you may know, is not always the best. So it's large areas that has to be traveled and, you know, the areas that they have to travel to to do data collection and interviews and capture data. Another challenge that I can name is linguistic barriers. Some of the countries that are, you know, in a hostile situation, they have perhaps a few official languages, but there are many, many local languages. Some countries have up to almost 100 local languages. So some of the documents is in the field as to communicate with some of the victims and the and the families of the victims and interpretation and so forth. There's always a bit of a challenge. And so translation and language is really one of the one of the common challenges that we also that we also encounter was. He does provide for for different languages and the two is also translated into many languages, but just actually for the community to work in the environment, linguistic barriers and then the final barrier, which I think most of us will talk about is funding. You know, funding remains a problem, especially with documentation activities. It's a slow process and funders withdraw the support, you know, if it's that deliver faster results. So it is really something that is an ongoing effort and needs to be supported, you know, with funding as as we go along. And, you know, Martin Luther King said the arc of the model universe is long, but it bends towards justice. And that's the same with the human rights documentation. It takes long and it is very intensive. But in the long run, it can really bring positive change. So the sustainability of documentation efforts is really for us a huge challenge, especially with when funding cycles also comes to an end. Projects needs to be sustained, you dedicated efforts by staff members, and it becomes a sideline and not a focused activity. So those are just five challenges that I can talk to. Thanks. Thanks, Kevin. Brilliant. Thank you, Yolanda. A fantastic introduction slash overview of challenges. I think over to you next, Julie. Thank you both, Yolanda. I just want to echo a lot of what you have said. You listed out already. So many of the challenges. So when I first encountered this question, I feel like I can't move forward with defining what is hostile? What is it? What does it hostile environment mean? And oftentimes, a hostile environment is kind of determined based on some sort of conflict analysis that is done. Like what are the, you know, first speaking about now and in conflict settings is this conversation focuses around, I think. And we found that it filled up along with doing a more standard conflict analysis that looks at economic factors, social, cultural factors, history, relationships, suppression, etc. That is also important to include in a conflict analysis. What are the digital conflict drivers that are present in that space that both include things like structural factors like Yolanda alluded to of ICT infrastructure, digital literacy, etc. But then also have like kind of intermediate and triggering events, things like you would think of a hate speech or misinformation and those sort of things. So I think in thinking about a hostile environment, we can kind of overlay all of these issues. Technological factors like infrastructure, access, platform usage, etc. Social cultural factors like barriers to technology use by certain groups, a culture of technology use, digital literacy, along with political factors that then include surveillance, state oppression, media control, the strength or not strength of civil society and their freedom to work, etc. And overlaid on top of all of that, our digital conflict drivers, which include things like algorithmic profile targeting, manufactured consensus, misinformation, disinformation, hate speech, etc. Affect of polarization. And so once you've kind of overly overlaid all of these factors, I think you'd find that in many maybe what people would call traditionally hostile environments that think of countries that are in active conflict now where we do some of our work. There are places where it isn't so hostile and in countries where you think of are generally conflict free spaces that there are very hostile places within that once you see their overlaid. I just want to call that out that here in the U.S. We've been working on a social media project for a few years. I would say I've encountered some very hostile environments in the overlay of kind of misinformation and affective polarization on top of some of our cultural relational historical issues. As well as we've seen in places we work like Myanmar or Syria where their challenges are different. But again, it's just about the intersections of all of those factors. So I think maybe that's a good preview to my question for now of what do we mean by hostile and how can we see where these same or same or different challenges can be seen across different contexts and therefore, you know, shared in useful ways and panels like these. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks, Julie. That was great. Tiemna. Thank you all. Thank you, Juli and Yolanda, for like, over viewing general challenges and also stating that hostile environments cannot be fully generalised. It could be it could mean different things to different people. As I'm from Tbilisi, Georgia, we basically focus on our work in Georgia. So my examples and the struggles that I will be talking about, probably today would be based on those examples. So when I talk about hostile environments in Georgia's case, what I mean is we should first start to look at what is politically, what is happening in Georgia and, like, define the state of democracy there here. So, like, everything to democracy in text. Georgia is not like fully democracy. It's not even full democracy. It's like hybrid regime, which means there could be a lot of political challenges, including, I don't know, pressure placed on the media or electoral electoral fraud, etc. But, like, let's don't go into the details. What I'd like to focus more is, like, how is government making harder for us to create impactful civic tech tools? And what, what, like, what I've learned from my examples is, first, there is this lack of political will to help you in any way possible, even though that means, like, they are breaking the law. Like, if the participants like, no, I'm sure they all know my society and what do they know platform, I'd like to mention that we are also working on the similar tool in Georgia and the lack of the political will from, like, public agencies to share the information, not because they, not because it's like a sensitive information, not because they are required, like they've been told not to share just the lack of, like, political will to share because, like, they don't care. That makes it very, very difficult for us to, I don't know, collect data, like collect open, open data sources and then do something with it. So we have a very limited data available for us to create the tools itself. Another challenge that's, that that crossed my mind is the fact that the government itself will not help you to solve an issue that they are partially the reason that the issue exists, for instance, in Georgia, there is worldwide, I would say there is like a huge issue when it comes to this information. And in Georgia, there is a two pillar of this information, like the internal one and the external one. Well, the external one usually comes from Russia. The internal one, though, usually comes from the ruling political party. So when we try to build the truth and that's actually what happened. So when we try to build the tools for kids, like games, et cetera, to make sure that they are not exposed very easily to the to the disinformation that they that they see daily on Internet, like we had challenges to distribute to the schools because, again, like why would government help you to do so because like they are the one like feeling the disinformation. So I just to sum up and just to add the role of the government in like not fully functioning democracies, that's like they will make it harder, harder for like civic tech organizations or civil society organizations in general to like create tools and like to to bring the positive impact. Excellent. Thank you, Tiana. So we're now going to throw that question open to everybody with three minutes of silent working using the Padlet Board. You will see that the question is in the first column. That question again is what challenges have you encountered working in hostile environments? So three minutes to add your experiences to that Padlet Board, which will start as soon as the timer starts ticking down. And again, do feel free to use the chat here on Zoom as well, if for some reason you can't access the Padlet just over a minute left to add your the challenges that you've encountered working hostile environments to the Padlet or here in the chat. Doesn't seem like anybody's had any challenges so far, as far as I can see, maybe we should be encouraged by that. We've got just just under a minute to add any challenges that you encountered in hostile environments. And again, as Julie was saying, there are various different ways of defining that as well. Time is up for the silent working. If anyone does have anything they would like to add to that column or indeed any of the others on the Padlet, please do feel free to keep populating it or start populating it through the best of the event as well. Or again, you can use the chat here on Zoom. It's now time for our second question and I'll go to Julie then to Yolanda for this one. And our next question is how can we support the civic tech community to carry on, collaborate and contribute productively in hostile environments? So Julie, over to you first for this one. OK, thanks. Again, this one I start by looking at the question and I would answer it in two ways, one as someone who has who is doing work, you know, myself in my own context and the other as, you know, with a hat on of an organization that supports others and other places doing their work. So maybe I'll start with that first one. I think the first thing is just recognizing and supporting where it's already happening in any of these environments. There are technologists with social goals. There are activists, organizers, peace builders, et cetera, who are, you know, doing that work as well, but want to enhance their work with technology or perhaps. And so one thing that we have done with our peace innovators program, which is a year long fellowship where people sort of bring an idea for civic tech or peace tech, if you will, either from idea to a pilot, a development stage. So in that, what we found is just connecting with people's goals. There's people there already doing work, having those goals. And so it's sort of recognizing the assets that exist already and connecting with what they want to achieve and then supporting them through that longer accompaniment process. I think as a part of that, so one sort of recognizing where it's already happening is establishing relationships that to the best of our ability, I know this is tricky working within kind of an international NGO economy, et cetera, to the best of our ability, making those relationships non-extractive and mutually supportive and ones that are sort of true and not based on I have priorities, how can you fit into my boxes? And then just listening to what needs are. Do people need new software, new hardware, training in a certain area, connections to certain people, et cetera. And so I think like that listening is really important. And then finally, I think just be willing to keep that relationship over the long term. Even you might, you know, we often only have funding for six months or a year or whatever. But find it really important to not have relationships be funding base and just to maintain those over time because any innovation takes much longer than that. And all of our favorite civic tech tools, if you will, that we use in our daily lives have been years and years and years in the making. I mean, gone through several iterations and, you know, that whole process itself. And so I think maintaining that relationship is really important. And yeah, I think I'll maybe stop there and let others contribute. Thanks. Fantastic. Thanks, Julie. Tiana. So I start by saying what actually Julie said, like when we talk about hostile environments, like what do we actually mean with that? So what I was like when I hear and then I mean this in my original context, like when I hear strong civic society, the first thing that comes from my mind in Georgia's neighborhood is Belarus. And then I was thinking, actually, how did they manage to create such a strong civil, like civic tech community as opposed to Georgia where I would say there is like civic tech community is almost non-existent. And here are my findings. So you might know a little bit about Belarus, like they are like their president is ruling over like 30 years. It has been like a lot of persecutions, like the media is not free, like everyone is in jail, who opposes leadership. So, you know, it is very clear that there is a dictatorship, right? So for civil society, for civil activists, for them, the first thing that they did was they went to online because it was the safest space to continue their like activism work. But when you think about like Georgia's and I think there will be a lot of cases similar to Georgia's case is the democracy has been gradually declining. So we never noticed when like there hasn't been one huge horrible thing that happened that united like a private sector like great, great technologists from Georgia or like civil society, like we never came together to work on those issues because we've never had this one lightning moment. So it actually depends who we are, like what kind of hostile environment we're trying to strengthen. If we talk about Georgia and the countries like Georgia, the first thing would be to actually start building the community like to to talk to activists and developers like to come together to create a civil. So that would be like the code for all initiative. For instance, it has been like in more than 20 countries worldwide, that would be a great thing to start in Georgia. But when when we come to countries like Belarus, where it's more hostile environment, that could be more challenging to deal with. Like, what are their needs? How to make like their work sustainable when there is like the internet problem, like they are in hostile or like, etc. So depends actually on what kind of hostile environments we're talking when we talk about strengthening the community. Fascinating. Thank you, Tiana. Yolanda, over to you. Thanks, Gavin. And just to echo what Tiana and Julie had said about what exactly does hostile environments mean? We operate in environments that are both at peace and at war. So I think in the context of the traditional sense of a hostile environment, especially like where there is a war, we employ or want to employ tactics that are more emergency rapid response. But it is very difficult and it is a very quick thing on your feet type of approach. Usually we have longer time that we spend to build on methodologies and approaches. So I think defining the context is different. You know, you have the war context and then you have maybe a peaceful society. But the government is perhaps the hostile role player in that in that country. So it depends definitely on on the context and the environment. But one thing that we've that we've really, you know, focused on and what Julie also said is work with the user or with the community in mind, build with them, find out what type of solutions would help them. And something that we have noticed, especially with the challenge I named previously about the Internet connection. This is really for us a huge, huge challenge. And we have worked with an organisation, a nonprofit called Horizontal, and they've built an app called Teller. It is a mobile app that you can use to document violations. And it is a very safe and secure app. It has all kinds of settings and authentication issues and the app can hide itself. There's all kinds of things, which is great. And it now connects to our wazi. So what challenge this has now fixed or tries to tries to, you know, tries to alleviate is to document offline. So users or the community can go into the field. They can use the mobile phones. They can enter the data, but whenever they are at an Internet connection, they can just, you know, upload it. So it's saved on the phone. So having solutions like that, that is actually practical that someone can use in the field is something that we really feel strongly about. And we are really, really thankful for the help of Horizontal for the fact that they are now connecting to wazi. And it is an absolute free mobile app. Anyone can use it. You can use it as a journalist. You know, we're talking about misinformation and disinformation. It is something that you can use to document any type of injustices that you see around you. And for instance, in wazi, we have forms that make it easier for the community to enter information. And it works with teller as well. So that is definitely, I think, a way that we have collaborated with another organization and then having users and the community to contribute and to say what it is that they need. Their challenge is Internet connectivity. And how are we going to alleviate that? So I think, you know, working with the community itself and getting their perspective on what they really need really can go a long way. Great. Thank you, Yolanda. It's amazing those sort of common themes that we see across these six very different civic tech, surgery topics as well. So I think a lot of these points came up in our second event, which is all around accessibility and inclusivity of the sort of tech. So listening to people and thinking about the sort of user experience from the ground up. So I'm really interested to see those things coming through here as well. We're now going to take three minutes of silent working again. So I do turn to the Padlet and it's the second column where this question is, how can we support the civic tech community to carry on, collaborate and contribute to productively, contribute to productively in hostile environments? So everyone else's experience or thoughts on that. We've got three minutes and click on the plus sign to add things and of course to use the chat here as well if you can't access the public. So how can we support the civic tech community in hostile environments? Go. Just under a minute left, how can we support civic tech community to carry on, collaborate and contribute to productively in hostile environments? We've got some things going in on the Padlet board but there was still time to add more and time is up. Again though, please do feel free to add things to the Padlet or in the chat here on Zoom throughout the event if other ideas come to you. We've got building networks, local communities to enhance capacities and visibility to their struggles as well as a couple of tools that people can make use of as well around human rights documentation. But again, do feel free to keep adding to that. We're gonna move now to question three and I'll go to Tiona, then Yolanda, then Julie on this one. And question three is, point three on the Padlet, what can we learn from the use of piece tech in conflict and post-conflict societies to tackle common challenges? And then we talk a lot about civic tech, fintech, law tech, regulatory tech, but piece tech might be a new one on a lot of people. So Tiona, I'm gonna go to you first for this one. What can we learn from the use of piece tech? So let me state the fact that I actually myself haven't worked on piece tech per se, although I have been developing tech for good tools, and also I've been like a part, like I've experienced more myself. Also I'm very close to watching Ukraine-Russia war. So, and then I wanted to start with the fact that in order to like be able to know the answers of this question, we also know like what are the common challenges? Like are there common challenges? Like the conflict is, yeah, more or less like it has its similarities, but it's also very different. And like we need to know what challenges we are trying to solve per se. So for instance, and then like this actually would go towards more of international organizations who are now looking at conflict in different regions and are like trying to come up with the solutions. My advice, number one advice would be to work on grassroots level. And I think Yolanda mentioned the earlier that the needs to talk to people when starting a new project. And that could like we could like lost losing translation if we do not work with the grassroots level. So that would be actually my advice. Like if we would like to help with a peace tech, for instance in Ukraine, like make sure to work with like Ukrainian grassroots organization and like find out what are their needs. And then like come up together with them, come up with solutions. Thank you. Yolanda, you next, what can we use for peace tech? Thanks, Gavin and Tiona. Once again, we are so much in agreement. Grassroots organizations, exactly. That is our aim and our focus. They are the heart of the movement. That is what we believe. And our aim is to help grassroots organizations because they are the people on the ground and they can actually join their forces and work together. And it's really interesting, our board member, Alexandra Matvechik, she is the head of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine. They have just been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for their work that they are doing in Ukraine in terms of documenting the war crimes. And they work with a network of grassroots organizations. And it is absolutely incredible to see that that is actually working with the people on the ground. And she herself, when they gave, announced that they are winning the war, she said, ordinary people have much more influence than they think. The mass mobilization of ordinary people in different countries of the world and their joint voices can change world history faster than the intervention of the United Nations. And that is exactly supporting the grassroots organizations, the actual people on the ground. So yeah, I completely agree. Thank you. Great, thank you. And Julie. Yes, to both of you. And I think one thing we learned from some of the failures of PeaceTech, if you will, or at least the initial excitement about it. And I imagine this comes with other kind of tech hyphens, civic tech, et cetera, because tools can't come first. And I think that this even still often happens where people are like, oh, like blockchain, it's so shiny AI, it's so shiny. I'm gonna, how can I use this? You know, but some of the most impactful work that we've seen have been with things like chatbots or frontline SMSs or phone trees, radio dramas. So just, I think that's the first thing is that PeaceTech should be defined as the strategic use of tech to achieve peace-building objectives. And so that means that the peace-building objectives come first and then the tool has to be based on that. It can't just be based on like, excitement over innovation. Though that is a great way to get buy-in because people are excited about innovation. So I think, you know, in that way, if that is the strategic tool that you're using is that people can buy into that, you know, that's something different. And I think another lesson learned is that we shouldn't or can't, and I don't know if this is a word, technocratize. What I mean is that there is a tendency to have technocratic priorities or processes wherein PeaceTech, if you will, is seen as an, or seen and funded as kind of an unattainable skill that one needs a special degree in or, yeah, a skill set that goes beyond maybe what an average everyday grassroots organization or organizer would have. And I think that that damages the field at large because then we're saying, this is an unattainable tool for you to use when the promise of tech is actually the complete opposite. It's the thing that could enable the mass movements that Yolanda is talking about. And so I think that's another thing that we should learn from and tread lightly about. I would say third is that, you know, just what Tiona said, not all people doing what I would call PeaceTech would call themselves PeaceTech by any means, just like Yolanda said, I mean, just like Tiona said, when I would say, of course what she's doing is PeaceTech. It contributes to XYZ objectives or whatever. And so I think there's a lot of value in just recognizing what existing approaches are there, specifically in kind of conflict and post-conflict settings, there's all kinds of different tools and initiatives for digital archiving for remembrance and memorialization, clearly a post-conflict activity. There's online safety resourcing about how to, you know, keep yourself and the data that you've collected safe, like Yolanda is doing, like clearly a conflict activity, you know, that's important, online dialogue, virtual exchange, et cetera. And so I think there's a big piece about not reinventing the wheel and seeing what other approaches are being used, sort of within and without people defining themselves as PeaceTech or not. There's a lot of approaches there that can be kind of, you know, not copied and pasted because that doesn't often work, but at least used to kind of gain inspiration from and not feeling like every time you're starting an innovation development process, you're starting from zero because this isn't the case, there's so many existing resources now, so maybe not off the shelf that we can use to kind of innovate or do things in a different way in our own context. So those are the three points I would make. Brilliant, thank you, Julie. When I learned to throw that one open to everybody as well. So this is column three on the Padlet. What can we learn from the use of PeaceTech in conflict and post-conflict societies to tackle common challenges? Time will go up on screen at any moment now. Feel free to add your thoughts there or again, use the chat here on Zoom as well. One minute left. What can we learn from the use of PeaceTech in conflict and post-conflict societies to tackle common challenges? Add your thoughts to the Padlet or here on Zoom now. Excellent, and we've got what looks like a very useful digital peace builders guide that's been put on the Padlet, some people that should start everyone having to reinvent the wheel each time as we're hearing. So we now move to our next question. This tallies with column four on the Padlet. Let's say again, we've sort of touched on quite a few of these issues already. I'll go to Yolanda, then Julie, then to Yona for this one. And the question is, what is and what isn't helpful in supporting civic tech and citizens in hostile environments? Yolanda, let's start with you this time. Thanks, Kevin. I think one of the first things that I would say is to show solidarity. That is something that we really feel is important. And I think, you know, with conversations with the team at your Redox, it's sometimes difficult to show solidarity because you're in a safe space and you have to work with someone who is not in a safe space and how do you approach that? I think, you know, it is very difficult, but to show solidarity, I think is the first step. So I think that is really important to note. And then from a working perspective, we usually work with methodologies that take a long time to be defined and we work in discovery methods and we try to understand the user as best as possible so that the sustainability of a project, you know, is run to its full. But in especially emergency and rapid response environments, we have to find simple solutions. There is no time to have long meetings and long discoveries. We're in a safe environment that is completely, you know, doable and understandable. But in an environment where we need a rapid response, we need to act fast and our partners need to act fast. So I think simple solutions that can be utilized very quickly is really important. And then what I think is helpful, and I suppose this goes both ways, from us who supports the community and to the community itself is some psychological support and guidelines. I think the toll of working in a hostile environment and working with those in a hostile environment, understanding, have a common language. I think it's really difficult. And I mean, people are exposed to trauma and loss and uncertainty. It is really a tough environment. And how do we show that solidarity? But also the people working in that environment, what type of support can they get on a psychological level? I mean, because it has an influence on everyone. So I think having psychological support and some kind of guidelines on how to deal and how to work in hostile environments would be great. And even in hostile environments, people still have a sense of humor, which is great. And I think having a sense of humor, brings in as a common humanity. And at times, maybe that can be the only thing that can just be a bit of a light in the dark tunnel. So, remembering our humanity and trying to have a sense of humor, even though it is dark days, I think that is something that some of our partners have shown, that they still have a sense of humor, even though they are in incredibly hostile and conflicting environments. Thank you. Brilliant. Thank you, Gelanda. And again, setting us up quite nicely already. For the final section, this will all start to think about the sorts of things that we might want to commission some really good ideas already there. Julie, let's go to you next. What is helpful in supporting civic tech and citizens in hostile environments? Yeah, I'd say a lot of this that comes to mind is kind of the usual stuff of what does it mean to just support citizens in, you know, difficult environments, not necessarily tech as a part of that, but in kind of peacebuilding practice more generally. And so I'd say some of that usual stuff is being extractive when applied to tech. I think this both includes kind of people's data, but also, you know, their voice, et cetera, taking credit for work they've done, you know, all of that that happens in an extractive relationship that I think we're prone to in kind of the NGO economy. Prioritizing international priorities over local ownership and leadership. So pre-defining sort of what those needs and goals should be. And then forcing those on the ground to kind of work them, you know, tie themselves into that. I think that that also, you know, connected to that is tying up local resources in things like admin and requirements and et cetera, just like Yolanda was saying, there's a need for kind of rapid response and flexibility that can sometimes be difficult to find. And we find that us ourselves and a lot of our partners too are, you know, just don't have the staff time or resources to deal with kind of the requirements that can come along with some of those heavy admin needs. And then I think finally is only funneling money through usual suspects. So there's kind of like a safety element or a risk averse element to this that I think larger funding organizations can fall into of, well, let's just go with this organization because they're well-known and, you know, they can sub-grant and deal with all that stuff. But I think that that, you know, as we know just lessens the actual resources to get to those who are doing the work. I mean, so I think that there's needed for some like flexibility and an ability to take on a little bit of risk in being more creative in who you're funneling resources to. So I think I kind of blended what's useful and not useful. I think on the what's useful side, I would also say like some of the usual things that we know are useful in peace building but then adapted, like ensuring the safety and security of whoever you're working with, you know, if that's a role that you can play. And the tech side that includes like the digital safety and security, protection against surveillance, managing expectations about anonymity, et cetera, things like managing expectations that arise from the process but applied again to the tech. So manage expectations of innovation activities. So not kind of promising the world or whatever with innovation, which as we know isn't true, respecting privacy and gaining consent, you know, again, that applies to the tech side and all of these could sort of have a flip. And then I think finally where the promise of tech comes in is that we're able to have a broader level of inclusion. And so just making sure in whatever process you're taking part of that we're ensuring a broad participation if that is your strategic goal again. That means, you know, and if you're applying that in practical terms to tech like ensuring connectivity, literacy, that access don't limit participation. And so just thinking through these things beforehand I think are some that I would add. Thanks. Excellent. Thanks, Julie. And Tiona. Thank you both like before covering mainly the solutions that would be like quite useful during very hostile environments. What I would just like to add coming from a hostile environment but not like a conflict environment per se. And also coming from not an international organization but rather than local non-for-profit would be to state an emphasis of the importance of collaboration. Like we mentioned, of course if you're an international organization and you would like to support some like Ukraine, for instance, you would go with grassroots organizations, right? But if you are working within your country there's no amount of support that you will have against the government. So it is like important to collaborate with other organizations as well. For instance, I mentioned that we launch the freedom of information request tool. So we are dealing with that like with technical things we're building the community, et cetera. But we also teamed up with other organization who is filing complaints in the courts for us because we do not have that capacity. So it's like you never have enough resources when you are like a civil society. So it is like against the government because they have a lot of resources compared to you. So it is very important to like collaborate with one another and fight this together. Thank you, Tiona. So we're now going to go to three minutes of silent working again. So this is Padlet, this is column four on the Padlet. What is and isn't helpful in supporting civic tech and systems and hostile environments? Do you add your thoughts to that now? Do you use the chat here on Zoom if you'd like as well? So yes, three minutes. Just under one minute left and time is up. Just a reminder, you can continue to add things to that column on the Padlet and indeed any of the others throughout the event and we will open after the event for a short while as well. Now, shortly we will go to the sort of final part of this event. In fact, we've just had something pop up which is donors should support quick response but also long-term investment in communities is needed to develop highly trained people who care about their issues. Running behind grants is very time consuming. Again, it's been a really common theme through all of our select tech surgeries the importance of funding and the incentives that created by different funding methods as a really important point. And again, don't do feel free to add more to that column and to others. So we will soon be moving to the final part of this event which is starting to think on the subject of funding about things that we might be able to fund in order to solve some of the problems that we've heard already today. But before we do that, we do have a bit of time. If anybody who's joined us on the call that isn't one of our speakers has anything they'd like to say about any of the questions that we've asked so far or any of the things that you've heard please do use the raise hand tool now on Zoom or tell us on the chat that you'd like to come in and we do have some time if anybody else would like to share any of their thoughts or experiences. So again, if you are on the call and would like to say anything about anything we've discussed so far do tell us in the chat or do use the raise hand tool which should be done I think from reactions at the bottom of your screen on Zoom. No, I'll let everyone have a think about that because we may have some time at the end to go to people as well. But in the meantime, let's move on to that sort of final bit of the event. We've heard from our brilliant speakers fantastic contributions about some of the challenges that we face when it comes to civic tech in hostile environments defined in various different ways and some of the ways that we've seen people try to overcome them already. So in this final section of the event we're going to start from very practically about some of the solutions to some of those problems. So the action lab or working group that will follow today's surgery will have up to $3,760 US dollars to commission a project that aims to solve one of the problems we've highlighted today. So in the remaining time we're hoping to answer the question what sort of things might help to address the common challenges discussed so far. So we're going to start with five minutes of silent working on the padlock board. And again, do you feel free to use the chat here in Zoom as well as five minutes. Just any ideas for things that we might be able to commission that we can put to the action lab that they might be able to look at and discuss that could lead to a call for proposals that has $3,760 US dollars attached to it. So ideas of things that we can commission five minutes silent working on the padlock go. And once we've done that, I'll come back to our discussants as well to see what they think of all of the ideas that people add and any other things that they would like to throw into the mix as well. Two minutes left. What could we commission with $3,760 US dollars to solve some of the challenges that we've heard today? Half a minute, just 30 seconds left. Any more ideas? And time is up. Again, do feel free to keep adding ideas to the padlock or to the chat here on Zoom. We will keep this open because our action lab, when they meet, when they've been appointed in a few weeks time, we'll discuss various possible solutions including the ones that have been suggested. We've got a few on the board. So it's suggested so far we've got support guidelines. So developing guidelines on how to support those who are in the hostile environments. For example, what to say, what not to say, how to really listen, what really helps and how we can show tangible support and solidarity in quite a few of the themes that we've heard already today. And a community dynamization tooling which would be resources to engage with local communities and discover grassroots activism like a sociologist or an anthropologist would do but using open social networks. So interesting ideas there already. Again, do feel free to keep adding to that. And in the meantime, and again, if anybody, anyone on the call has anything they'd like to say about any of this, do feel free to use the raise hand tool to tell us. Otherwise, I will go to Julie and Tiola, then Yolanda for any thoughts that they've got on this topic and indeed any general reflections on all of the discussion so far. So Julie, I will come to you first for that. Well, thanks Gavin. I can't help but wanna be a little bit cheeky here and say don't commission, don't do a call for proposals for this amount of money. I think this is an example of where resources are tied in, tied up like local resources are tied up in admin and reporting needs that are unnecessary for this amount of money. I understand that process for 15, 20 above K, but I think this amount of money is best directed to one organization where there's a preexisting relationship ideally to resource them, they know what they need that might be software for a year. That's what that amount of money would subscribe to. It could be a new laptop, it could be video editing. They know what they need and I think that amount of money just allows them to do concrete spending for that. You could even think about ad credits or a travel budget or something. So I think this amount of money is best directed as kind of a gift and what do you need by with it. I would say and directed at one, unless, unless, unless at the beginning of the pandemic and we collaborated on a micro grant scheme within a network and the average request for those micro grants were around $80 to $100. And it was generally people, you know asking for like an Adobe subscription for a month or whatever and so it was quite small but I would say the only, like the only reason to do that or the only justification for that would be if you have an existing network that enough people would request micro grants for. So and have that be super simple. Like a three question form or something not a call for proposals. So I think that's my reaction to the prompt interested in what others have to say. That's a really helpful reaction. Thank you. Not cheeky at all and exactly the source thing that we want to get from these sessions. And I should say as well when I say call proposals with the other ones that we've done we've tried to keep it as small and light as possible because as you say it's not a huge amount of money it's not into sort of a 20,000 plus thing but I very much hope our action lab will listen to that and see what they think. I'll come to Tiana next. Well, I was going to share of the guidebook idea on what you mean for cell environments and we also talked a lot about what is cell environment and that could be different kinds of things. So just in order to have the sense of that there is different kind of environments and like how to like work with them like, you know at least like what we've discussed like what mistakes to try to avoid like with not working with grassroots or like not to start a team project with data driven evidence rather than assume that there is something that needs to be done. Although when I heard Julie and how practical her response and how simple like we people usually always overthink the solutions but like, yes, if we could do the simple thing then like if there is an organization in a cell environment and then they know what they need I think that would be the best solution actually. So I'm right here with you. Excellent. Thank you. And Tiana. Thanks, Gavin. Yeah, I think Julie's suggestion and the one that Tiana echoes is very interesting and actually very practical. I'm also thinking that can build a website for an organization who doesn't have a website yet. You know, something that can really, really be helpful. So maybe that can be a suggestion, you know but on the padlet Julie, you know if you can add your suggestion there I think it would be good. But I think all in all, I mentioned it earlier maybe not in terms of just the small grant but just in terms of guidelines I think in going forward it would be good and I'm sure some of them exist but it would be good to have some guidelines of partners and organizations and grassroots organizations working in hostile environments to have a kind of a discussion with them and you know, find out what they really need. You know, we talk the whole time about what they need and you know, we are sitting on the other end and we want to provide but we really need to listen and I think that is somehow that this can also be taken forward is to really sit with the communities and say what is it that would be helpful and what is not helpful from your perspective and I do think that would be great in going forward is to have some kind of discussion like that and to really get to the bottom of what is really needed and especially as Julie also mentioned we're trying to tailor, you know, funding the funding is available and we try to have projects that fit with that it must be the other way around. So, you know, I think having a more collaborative discussion would be great and to hear what people in hostile environments really actually need. Thank you. Fantastic, thank you. Paldo, yes, would you like to come in? Yeah, hello. I might point something that maybe for people that is native speaking in English or have the resources to learn that second language is hard to assume, but English is mostly not well spoken as in my case in the global south. For example, for me is and for the people that I have close to me, it's hard to produce a grant request for example in English because this is twice or even a cube of the time that it will take for you and usually you are working a volunteering basis for example, and then to ask for the grant for scaling up the things is really hard. So maybe to jump to their language is the of the people that it's working in the kind of environments to make companionship so the people not just publish the grant but to be sure that the people has someone to ask and who is guiding them through this process will be helpful because most of the time perhaps a lot of grants that could be useful for my case or my collective, my grassroots community but because we are not sure of how to do things and we don't know where to ask where we don't have no one contact a close contact of people, a person that will solve us in our language, we don't request. So that will be something to do. Thank you. Thank you, it's a really, really good point. And again, something that's come up in a few a few other discussions particularly the one that we had on accessibility and inclusion. Does anybody else on the call have anything they'd like to add to anything that we've heard today? Do signal in the chat if you'd like to or raise your virtual hand if so. Otherwise, I'll start to draw us to a close. First of all, by telling you about what happens next which will hopefully, which will definitely take account of all of the things that we've just heard as well so hopefully you can see a final slide which says all about action lab six. So we've had a very valuable discussion today which surfaced some of the challenges and surfaced some possible solutions that could support people working in hostile environments. What will happen next is that an action lab or working group will be convened after the surgery around five or six people. They will meet in a few weeks time and they'll be able to listen back to this event, they'll be able to look at the minutes, they'll be able to look at the padlet, look at everything that was discussed and think about what work they could commission to help address some of the challenges that have been discussed. Anybody, those of you on this call or people who may be watching this back, anyone can apply to join the action lab to sign up to the TicTac mailing list which will tell you when applications open. We'd love as many of you as possible to sign up for that and join the action lab. And then as we've sort of said, there is $3,760 US dollars available to do some work and obviously the action lab will decide how that work is commissioned and indeed what that might be spent on, again drawing on what we've heard today. Does anyone have any sort of final questions or anything else they'd like to add before I say a few final words? No. In which case, I just want to say a huge thank you to our three brilliant speakers today, Tiana, Yelanda and Julia. I've certainly learned a lot and I hope everyone else has as well. A big thank you to National Endowment for Democracy for supporting my society to be able to run this project. And this is actually the last of the civic tech surgeries as part of the TicTac Labs program. So do you have a look on the TicTac Labs website to catch up on the previous things that have happened? We're starting to get some of the early commissioned work coming through from some of the other work streams. So do look out for that. And again, there is currently an active call until the 30th of October for a piece of work around climate action and societal change. But thank you to our speakers and thank you to all of you for coming on today as well. I really enjoyed it. I hope you have too. Thank you very much indeed.