 Hydiwyddi, gweithiwch. Fy gynnydd i parys. Felly dyna'n fawr, dyna'r ffrind ddim yn cael eu newydd. Ond mae'n dwych arlau'r cyfwyr cydydd yn y cyfci. Mae'r adnodd Markridge. Mae'r gufynol yng Nghymru yn i'r swyddfaeth. Mae'r adnodd yn cael eu gweithio'n wedi'u gweithio'r ffynol. Mae'r ffynol 5. It was a difficult decision to come to Paris in the spring time and have the event here so it is great to see so many of you. First of all y byddwn ymgyrch ohon o'r OECD ac mae'n ôl yn ysgolfydig i'r yioedd bwysig. Mae'n bwysig o'r awdur sy'n cael eu rôl i'u oedd o'r OECD's Global Anti Corruption, violol, curffwyr sydd yn cyfnod fel gwybod felly yn bwysig i beth oedd ei wneud yma, gynnwch gwiseb i siaradu rhoi ofynig mewn Gweithliadol oherwydd mae'r oesid. Mae'n holl gwaith eich sesiwyl i'r sesai cyflwyd, o bobl 5 yma, mae hynny hwych yn rhoi bod yn bwysig i gyrraedd, ac mae hynny'n dŵr'u byddai wybod a byddai maith hynny dros cramol. Fe fryd hynny, yn dechrau fi, fe hynny'n dweud hynny, Rydw i ddim ond e'r gymhau. Felly mae'r menusydd. Yn y brin bait ymyod o'r aw переходd i'r gymhynu'r lunawg. Rydyn ni'n wahanol y 7 yma, Ysgoliant Belyn Ysgoliant. Ac rydyn ni i mi ddim yn gweithio yna. Rydyn ni wedi meddwl i'r cyfarfodd. Nad oeddwn i'n ddarpen a'n sefydlu roeddwn ni i'r chael o'r blaen o'r sefydlu. Rydyn ni'n ddweud o'r blaen o'r lyfr o'r llei. gyda gymaint i fynd i'w dweud ar gyfer ein ymrwynt. Mae gennym eu codiwn i'n myfyrdd o'r ymhlall o'r Gwgol. Mae ymddor wedi bod yn tyl unig ar y mhentau, a dyma'r amser hwnnw'n fyddi. A gwybodaeth i amddai'r llesion hyn o'r granwys yma sy'n ac mae'n meddwl am ddiweddol yn cael ei fod yn ystod. Rwy'n meddwl i'r meddwl. Rwy'n meddwl i ddweud i Llaminiu. Roedd yna'r dim i Llaminiu yng Nghymru? Roedd ystafell yn y ddechrau. Llaminiu ei bod yn gweithio i gwybod yr event y mae'r swyddi. Roedd yna'r amddol i gael bod ni'n meddwl i Llaminiu i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i gyd. Rwy'n meddwl i gydag i ddweud i gydag i gydag i ddweud i gydag. felly mae'n gwneud o'r cymdeithasol ac mae'r cymdeithasol yn y sector. Mae'n gwneud yn fwy ar gyfer y dyma'r morhoedd yn y sefyllfa y Llatyn Ameri Cymru, ac'r Stacey yn gwneud yn y sefyllfa yma ar gyfer y sefyllfa yma ar gyfer y dyma'r awdeg. A'r anodd yma, mae'n dweud o'r garfyn ychydig yw yma yw ysgrifennu arwraith yn gymryd iawn. Mae'n dweud o'r anodd yw yw'r anodd ymdweith ar gyfer y cymdeithasol, yn rhywbeth i ddysrwch, a'r 29 oes yn gallu oed i ddysgu. Yn ymdodigau, yn ymdeg, yw'r rhagol. Yn ymdegwch yn yr ysgol, yn ymdegwch yn ymddangos. Yn ymdegwch cyfnodd â'r hynny ymdegwch â'r strygiad yma, yn ymdegwch yn ymdegwch a'r ei fod yn ei fiskol. Mae'r hyn yn gweld ymdegwch yn ymdegwch ac mae'r hynny'n gynnig yn ymdegwch yn ymdegwch yn llellydd oherwydd. Felly, mae'n cwmhysydd gŵr ystod ymlaen, gyda'r cyflaen eich cyflaen y Cyflaen? Felly, ydych chi'n gweithio'r cyflaen, mae'r cyflaen eich cyflaen yw ychydig am y cyflaen, ac, rydyn ni, mae'n ddweud, y gallai cyflaen? Rydyn ni'n gallu gweithio'r cyflaen? C facechau cyflaen yw ydych chi'n gweithio'r cyflaen, mae'r cyflaen i gael ei ddweud ychydig ar gyfer y sector, a bwysig o'r ddechrau a'r bwysig, ac yn ein bod nhw'n cael eich bod yn rhoi fawr? Ac ydych chi'n credu'r gweithio'r dweud o'r camdhaffau dyma hwnnw i'r cwmjoch ei ddechrau'r gweithio. Yn siwhatihau, rydyn ni'n gwneud o'i bobl yn cael dda i fathoedd cytharffol. Felly, ac yn gwybod i'r gweithio yn fwrdd o gweithio'r cyfnodau o'r llygau mae'n diolch yn sgwpeth yn bwysig o'r cyfrorthol a'r llygau sydd ac yn rhaid o'r gwneud o'r oes excitingau. Mae'r ystyried i'r pethau gyda'r newid cyfnodd nhw'n ddifftodol, i fwy o'r cael ei wneud o'r hyn o'r Llywodraeth, mae'n dwi'n meddwl bod ydych yn siwr i'n rhoi'r cyfnodd ac yn cael eu cyfrifio i'r cyfnodd a'r cyfrifio i'r cyfrifio i'r cyfrifio sy'n ddoddol yn ymddangos eich gwirioneddau. Felly mae'r eich cwestiynau ar y cyfnodd a'r cyfnodd yn gweithredu ystafell yw'r gweithio. Mae'r cyhoedd yma yw'r cyfnod yn ffordd yn ffasor i chi'n gweithio'r gweithio'r ffordd, mae'n ymweld i gweithio'r gweithio a'r gwahau i'r dweud o'r bwysig, yn ymgylcheddu gyda'r cyfnodau yma ar y dystynodau, a mae'n credu i gweithio'r rhaglen o'r gyfnodau cyfnodol, cyfnodol ac yn ymgylcheddu'r ysgrifennu yn ymgylcheddu sydd mewn gwahodau yn ymgylcheddu i'r ffordd. Os Bec yn ymgylcheddu i'r cyfnodau, Yn ymwneud, yn y ddweud, y ddweud o ymwneud y ffrwng yw'r sylfaen, yn y dweud, yn y ddweud, y dyfodol ymlaen, o tech ddiwylliannol. Yn ydych chi'n ddiwylliannol, yn ddiweddig, felly os yw'r cyfnodolid? Yn y ddweud, yn y ddweud? Mae'r angen, os yw ychydig, sy'n ddweud yw'r cymryd ar y cyfrifol. Yn y fwyaf, mae'n gweithio byddai'n argylchedd. felly ar gyfer leiflu amweithio seronau i ymweld y ddiolch a'r ddweud yn rhywbeth fod diolch a'r dymorogi'n hollol, ac ymlaen gyda'r cyfnod yn y Deymianol i ddweud, a'n ddwy flynyddiad yw hŷ. Bydd ar ddi, mae'n cyfnod eu bod yna maen nhw rhoi 76 dda ni'n 14 oes cyfnodau newid. Mae'r unrhyw o hyn wedi'u beth amlaen o'u gael gweithio. Mae'n arw feedingo yn 30, 50 oes, 39 oes gyfnodau leihaf yma, 37 oes o mwynnol, ynghylch o gael cyrraedd platformau. Mae'r Gwun Llywodraeth yn Llywodraeth Gweinol yn y Gwun Llywodraeth. Felly, Gwun Llywodraeth wedi i yn ymgylcheddol o gyflawni gysylltu cyflawni, ac yn ymgylcheddol gyda 250 o gwyfnod yma ar y gyfer yw gwerth ymgylch. Mae'r gwyfnodol yn yn ôl yn ymgylcheddol yn dda'r lleiwyr hwn yw'r llwylliant yma. Yn ymgylcheddol, mae'r gwaith i gyd yn ymgylcheddol Mae'r cyd-dyniad i'r seisio plenu i'r seisio ar FFACEBOOK should prove to be pretty interesting, I would imagine, considering the events of the last year or two. Whilst organisations like FACEBOOK wield so much power over everyday lives, do they actually have what it takes to address the multitude problems themselves? Can the people who enable the problems be the ones who fix it? My good friend Sammy Chakrabati from FACEBOOK will be here to talk about work that we undertook in the mid-term elections in the US. So I know a lot of people in the room would be sceptical of FACEBOOK's ability to deal with that. So I'm looking forward to some good, robust discussion and some good questions, I'm sure. If over the next two days you like what you've seen and you're based in the UK, I'm glad to say we're also going to be having our next installment of Tech Tech Local, which looks to support local government. So we did that for the first time in Manchester in November last year. That's going to be in City Hall in London on November 1, so we hope many of you will be able to join us for that. We definitely will be back with Tech Tech next year. We haven't decided on a venue yet. I know Recuric in Iceland has been mentioned. We'll see if that's practical or not. We'll certainly be coming back to you with ideas in the next couple of months. I'd like to single out, as ever, Gemma and Beck. So Gemma is down the back. Let's all wave to Gemma. The Gemma is, as many of you will know, is the absolute superstar who makes all of this happen, so thank you so much. Also, there we go, yes. And she's been able to support by Holly from the OECD who's sitting down the front and looking slightly embarrassed, but she's been the Gemma equivalent at the OECD. Incredibly grateful for all the help you've given. And also support, I'm not sure if Paula Fertesa is here yet. The friend Shempi. Paula has been a huge supporter of Tech Tech over the years, and she really twisted her arm to come to Paris this year. Admittedly, we didn't need too much pushing. But she's been great. Her and her team have been fantastic in just helping gather speakers and kind of the overall support. And we're incredibly grateful for what they've done. So you'll be able to hear directly from Paula and also the Deputy Mayor of Paris, Pauline Varong, will be speaking in session, I think, just before lunch. They'll be looking at digital democracy as a response to the Gilles Jean, which is obviously quite timely for any of you who've been in Paris over the last few days or weeks. So also, for any of you who have signed up, I apologize if you haven't signed up yet, but at the end of the day, there'll be a drinks reception in the French Parliament, and I think the buses will be outside somewhere. No doubt some people better informed than me will make sure you get to the buses. So now, I think I'm okay on time. I haven't even had my five minutes yet, which is good, but I'm going to hand over to Anthony Gooch, who's our gracious host. Anthony's Director of Public Affairs and Communication at the OECD. So he's going to be telling you a little bit about the OECD's work and kind of how this overlaps, and no doubt about the integrity for them over the next couple of days. After that, Dr Rebecca Rumble, our esteemed head of research, will be giving her a take on the third age of civic tech, which is going to be fascinating, I'm sure. So enjoy the next couple of days. I really look forward to speaking to each and every one of you over the next couple of days. If I have a slightly glazed look over my face, just make sure you say, remember me, I met you last year, whatever, and I'm sure I'll be fine. So bear with me on that. Thank you so much for coming. I'll hand over to Anthony now. Thank you. So good morning and welcome to the OECD. Listening to Mark, many of the things that he has just set out and that you and we are going to be looking at for the next two days, I think they chime very strongly with the issues that we see as being front and centre as far as the work of this organisation is concerned and what we can do. So the OECD, the other acronym here. I'm delighted to welcome you to Paris. This is my first tic-tac, and in a sense you had to come to the OECD for me to get the chance to actually attend because too many members of my team are too keen to go to allow me to go, so fortunately on this occasion I managed to squeeze in. On the contrary, they've been doing a super job in the last three years I think it is in firstly identifying a tic-tac for us for the OECD and then in becoming involved in your community and it's a real honour I think for us also to see that an organisation like this wants to come to a place like the OECD. So we don't believe that we're the centre of the world. We're known for many things and at the same time we need to constantly trying to be broadening the communities that we interact with. So for us it's a pleasure but it's also really important that we've managed to entice you here as Mark said. We had to twist many arms in order to do this. Now the OECD is an acronym that holds a certain degree of mystery. Now I'd like to ask a question. Now how many of you have been to the OECD before, hands up? That's a small number of people. One or two came because they came to our forum so you don't count because we invited you. It's like the good doctor in the front row. How many of you know what the OECD does? Oh that's a lot more. That's great. But like any organisation what you know about us and certainly what I knew when I joined this organisation it tends to come from a particular angle. So this is a, I wouldn't call it a beast, it's a multi-headed organisation. It has many, many bits and attributes to it. But you may in a way, some of you be wondering why we were so keen to host this conference. Now the OECD is an international organisation. I know that that's not necessarily heavily in vogue in certain places but we have considerable convening power and perhaps the fact that TicTac has chosen to come here is a reflection of that. Now we don't just bring governments together here. The people who make public policy and shape public policy are very, very, very gated. The stakeholders involved. And if that wasn't the case before I would say certainly in the last few years the actors involved in public policy making have grown and shifted even more. We've been looking back in time here because we're celebrating 20 years of the OECD's forum. The OECD's forum was created just after the anti-globalisation movement hit in inverted commas the OECD around the multilateral agreement on investments. The demographic in this room is relatively young. I'm starting to feel my age. I will remember Seattle, 1999 or have heard of it the World Trade Organization meeting. So the OECD's forum emerged from that because the perception of the OECD was of an international organisation that was up to no good, smoke filled rooms. I have some pictures up in my office of people in the 50s and 60s and the rooms were filled of smoke. People were drinking whiskeys and it was mainly men in suits. Of course the places changed a great deal since then. When you think back to that moment in time and what was going on at that time already policy was shifting hugely for example in areas like international trade which was the preserve of the Cognoscenti and suddenly it became an issue that most people wanted to know about whether they were involved in the NGO community in a company they were working for where suddenly production was being outsourced or changed in its location. I think if we chart forward that democratisation of public policy has been a constant certainly in my professional lifetime. So we bring governments together certainly but we also bring this broader policy shaping community together to look at what policies work best. We try and provide trusted comparative data and evidence again I know that wasn't so fashionable a couple of years ago someone said that we had enough of experts I think experts are making a bit of a comeback but obviously part of that is how experts themselves operate and behave. Now our mission is better policies for better lives and that sums up what we try and do it isn't a tagline and it's quite a difficult thing to live up to and certainly in the last few years I'd say it's been a very difficult thing to live up to. So our vocation goes beyond the provision of cold dry facts we're in the business of improving people's lives and we are a partner for civil society and the people behind movements and organisations. Back in 2010 we invited representatives from the Indignados movement who were the precursor of the Occupy movement and we began in the centre of Madrid we then invited representatives from the Occupy movement to join us and we didn't do this how can I put it in a self-serving way we did it because I saw an op-ed written by the Occupy movement citing the OECD as part of a potential solution and thinking super these people have heard of us they know who we are let's have them come into our space and be able to discuss and exchange with us directly so we know that policy isn't made in a vacuum and its impacts are by no means limited to one particular element of society alone so to ensure that we deliver on our mission we have to help governments to respond to the needs of their citizens now the open government partnership who are represented here today I'm sure that they will remember our work focus on citizens public engagement for better policy and services in 2009 that helped lay the foundations for this effort our own OECD open government team is still working hard to move the needle forward from open government to open state and more inclusive governance the OGP does bring back memories to me because initially the OECD was not involved in the OGP and through a certain number of efforts that I was involved with we were involved in that process and I remember attending the side event that was organised in New York to kick that process off and delighted to see that that is going strong now you may still be asking yourselves why would we as OECD be interested in civic tech so the OECD has evolved considerably in these last 20 years as I was saying and perhaps we've learnt the hard way about the importance of placing citizens at the heart of what we do and events around the world remind us every day individuals can be vibrant agents for change holding world leaders accountable for their welfare physical safety, the protection of our planet regardless of their ethnicity and gender and taken together actions that at first appear small can become powerful forces of disruption and change who would have thought a 16 year old Swedish schoolgirl would suddenly become world famous as one of the key campaigners on climate I certainly wouldn't In the past decade civic tech has shifted from a fringe movement of hackers and coders to a more mainstream term importantly used by policy makers and policy shapers it's become part of the language in this organisation for example three years ago the OECD didn't really use the term civic tech organisations such as ours are not known for our speed and reactivity but this indeed is now part of our lexicon as well I believe that we first used the term in relation to the OECD better life index the index is an online platform for us to engage with citizens and learn what matters most for their quality of life in an effort to complement official statistics we quickly drew the link between the index and the aims of civic tech transparency, accountability, participation and citizen engagement back in 2016 I read an article in Le Monde by Catherine Vincent la civic tech sau vratel le politique is civic tech going to save politics and in it she said and some of you will be francophone in this room so I'll read it out in French first and then give you a translation on mettant, on réseau, un gran nombre de citoyen la technologie civique permette tout à la foi de les informer de les faire dialoguer ensemble et de donner leur avis bref de faire émerger une intelligence collective assurant a son tour une meilleure participation citoyenne aux instances démocratiques par a la cofni a un amddiriaeth civic tech creates a space for dialogue caring opinions ac etynau savawr If I had that mission I would be sitting up every day going wow that is something to live up to Diolch eich bydd. Nawr, mae hwn yn dweud eu bod yn eu herfodol gyda'r rhywun o'r myth yn hyn. So mae'r opadnod yw, maen nhw'n psiwch eu bod ni'n ceisio'r ifendidio y modd y Cyffredin Cymru. Mae'n rai ei ddweud eich ddweud. Mae'n amlwg, yn ffordd, yn ysgafodd ar y cyfnodau. Cysigonod, mae'n hynny. is one of those elements that we hold up as part of the solution to very complicated times. Could these elements help the OECD maintain its relevance and credibility in a rapidly changing context? After attending the OGP summit here in Paris in 2016 and watching Rebecca pitch TicTec 2017, we saw the values of civic tech as a compass for helping us navigate and improve our engagement with people. That first TicTec taught us valuable lessons about how to achieve greater impact. Even more importantly it exposed us to a community of people behind the technological solutions who are challenging their own assumptions and working on concrete projects. The OECD is committed to serving people from all parts of the globe. We were just discussing Brazil earlier, Brazil are not a member of OECD but we work very closely with people in that country and I know there are Brazilians in this room alongside people from many countries who are OECD and beyond OECD and we're trying to strive to build the bring the wealth of experience views and ideas to bear on the policy making space. This is something that crystallizes at our annual forum including more voices to help us address the world's pressing challenges in an open dynamic and creative space. So 2017 was the year when we inaugurated the civic tech hub at our forum here indeed in this conference area that you're in now. We saw it as an opportunity to get civic tech organisations and actors into the OECD bloodstream, channeling and transmitting this interest and enthusiasm to our colleagues and stakeholders. Speakers have covered a range of topics from sharing tools for empowerment, to coding the law, educating for civic innovation and the potentials and pitfalls of civic tech. What have we learnt? The real potential of these technologies probably has yet to be realised. That's number one. Two offline engagement strategies meeting people where they are is equally if not more important for the adoption and the quality of impact of civic tech. You're proof of that because you come together physically here not just in that connection that you may have on a regular basis. Thirdly, open source, decentralized collaborative peer production of software is vital for shared tools but the digital divide isn't simply erased by civic tech. And fourthly, we need to be constantly evaluating our assumptions exactly what you're going to be doing in the course of this conference. It was in part thanks to many of you that we have evolved in our thinking about the route to collective intelligence and where technology plays a role. We've continued to witness manifestations of civic tech in our government practice over the years. Our colleagues at the OECD have examined the role of GovTech, participatory budgeting, open government data and local level efforts in our reports and we're sharing this experience further and further. In fact, I believe we also featured the open heroines network in our recent open government data report. Some OECD staff members are members of that network too. So in May on the 20th and 21st of May, we'll host the 20th edition of the OECD forum focusing on a world in emotion. Reflecting a time of great societal economic and political change, upheaval and disruption amplified by the dual forces of globalization and digitalization. Recent events are indeed challenging our understanding and ability to forecast the future. What can I do? What can I do? Tell me what to do. These are some of the dilemmas we all face at times as we grapple with such complex problems on such grand scales. Each year we seek to develop an agenda that resonates with the evolution of our times and our work looks quite different in 2019. Where we used to focus on strong, sustainable economic growth, we now need inclusive growth that places people at the core of our approach and policies and critically addresses the inequalities that we amongst international organisations were the first to put our finger on back in 2008 when we diagnosed those inequalities within OECD countries. Supposedly those that were the best off. Our ambition at this year's forum will be to explore how to transform these increasing expressions of uncertainty and anger into collective commitment for positive action. And now that you have a taste of the OECD, I'd encourage you all to come back and join us here in May. The weather's even better then. The ultimate goal of gatherings like the OECD forum and Tic-Tac is to ensure that people really have a say in the issues affecting their societies and that policy agendas are responsive to their needs and aspirations. We're trying to achieve this goal looking at different but complementary policy areas that are essential to improving people's quality of life. Today and tomorrow a number of colleagues across the OECD will be sharing interesting initiatives with you, focusing on how to make public services design and delivery more inclusive and representative with or without the use of technology. Shedding light on the necessity to quantify intra-urban inequalities in subjective well-being. That's OECD parlance for how you feel. You feel good. You don't feel so good. And the implications this has for public policy are surprising as it may seem to residents here in the greater Paris areas. They can have degrees of life satisfaction as difference, as different as a Ukrainian and a Swiss, even though they may live within the same 20 kilometre radius. And last but not least, the Better Life Index team organising a workshop on how to engage citizens around the key dimensions of well-being, reflecting on our eight year journey and where we can go next with that project that will be this afternoon. So a little plug for the team there. Sharing this kaleidoscope of ideas and projects with your community is really useful for us. You provide a different and complementary vantage point and a host of potential avenues for collaboration. Whether we use technology because we want to revitalise the relationship citizens have with their cities, their communities, their representatives and governments, we understand it is the vehicle, but not the destination. Now, we're excited to work with you on this journey. We have some ideas about how we can work together to achieve greater impact and we look forward to hearing from you over the next days. Let me, in turn, just as Mark did, take a moment to thank the team who put this event together from our side and who've been following all of these initiatives. Holly, Sarah, Jan, Nouria, Virginie and Vincent, without whom this event wouldn't have happened here at our location. Many of them will be presenting the index later as well. So, please continue to share your vision, your successes, your failures and tell us where you see opportunities for us to collaborate as we go forward. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Rebecca Rumble. I'm head of research at my society and as head of research at my society and one of the founders of TicTac five years ago, I always get about 15 minutes. So, I speak to you guys at the beginning of TicTac. So, I think it's been talked up a little bit too much. This isn't going to be the fascinating talk maybe that Mark was talking about. But these may be just some observations that I've been kind of thinking about over the last year. The third age of TicTac is a bit of a gimmicky title, I know. The reason it's that is because as the speakers amongst you know, you get a hastily email from Dema months in advance of this event saying, I need your title, I need to know what you're talking about. And you say, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you don't respond. And then a week later, you get an even angrier response going, I need you to do this. So, in a panic, you kind of say, oh, this is the title, this will be fine. And then you think, oh, God, I've got to talk about this. You know that the event creeps closer and closer. And it's like, right, what, what did I really mean by that? It sounded amazing at the time. And it's really this, you know, I'm talking about the third age of TicTac because as we've already heard this morning, TicTac has changed massively and the way we think about it and the way we talk about it has changed massively. Over the last kind of 10, 15 years, TicTac has gone from not a thing to a really huge thing. Our sector has massively grown and necessarily we have all grown with it and the work we do has done so as well. But I've really noticed over the last kind of year, 18 months, a really big shift in how we talk about ourselves, in how the people talk about the work we do, how funders are approaching, supporting the work we do. A lot of things have shifted quite a lot over the last couple of years. I mean, TicTac is five years old this year, which is amazing. I know some of you in this room were the very first one in London back in 2015. And the world has changed rather a lot. I remember 2015, it was a whole different hell of a fish. The things we're talking about now, the things we're dealing with now is Mark was saying earlier, things that weren't even on the horizon for me back then. And because of the way things are changing, we really have to kind of take stock, I think. So in terms of this being a third age of Civic Tech, again, as Mark kind of alluded to earlier, 10, 15 years ago, when Civic Tech wasn't really a thing, we were just in this great innovation stage where individuals, you know, the pioneers of Civic Tech, some of whom I know are in this room, were just having an issue and they had mad coding skills and they just thought, right, I can solve this, then maybe it can help some other people as well. They wrote a snazzy bit of code, up it went on the internet, and that was awesome. And very soon other people noticed this kind of tech and thought, you know, this could help other people too. There are problems in the world, this could solve it. Let's throw money at it, let's throw resources at it, let's scale this up, let's pick this up and export it and put it down somewhere else. Why shouldn't someone somewhere else be able to benefit from this? And that was being great and, you know, for organisations like mySociety, it enabled us to grow, it enabled us to make awesome new connections, speak to and work with people all over the world. And we reached a point where we were massive and we were holding conferences like TicTac. But definitely over the last few years, I think we've reached this third age, this age where we're kind of mature. We're actually asking a lot more detailed questions about what we're doing. We're re-evaluating what we're doing, renovating, reinventing, reiterating, trying to make sure that the tools and the platforms and the tech that we're putting out there is doing what it's saying it's doing and it's doing it well and successfully and ambitiously. But that is a very kind of self-reflection phase and we can either do it by carrying on doing what we're doing and looking very minutely, you know, throwing an A B test out there every now and again to see how many plage clicks you can get or you can do it in a much more substantial way because I think even though we're in this maturing phase, we do need to still evolve. We can't just stay as we are because that language is changing, because the way we work with people is changing. We have to move forward. But in order to do that successfully, in order to do that in a meaningful way that's worthwhile for the people that we serve, we actually have to look back properly. And that's not just looking back at, oh, did this make any difference? Was there a little bit of an impact here? Was there a bit of an uptick here? We actually have to go right back to the beginning, right back to that first age and test and question those assumptions that we've built everything else on. How have we built our entire civic tech castle on quicksand? Is it enduring are those assumptions what we really, really should be basing ourselves on going forward? Because laboring, laboring a metaphor, I feel like this third age of civic tech is like the concluding part of a trilogy. It's like the third instalment of a really good trilogy because it's all about going back to the beginning and finding out what was not true to begin with. All those assumptions that we've built everything on. It's about going back and saying, really, was this actually true? Turns out Indiana Jones wasn't called Indiana. What kind of assumptions have we made just because of the information that was presented to us at the time? What have we built on based on false information? Because I'm sure we have, not purposefully, but we are probably still holding on to some assumptions just because that's how we've always done things and that's not necessarily the way forward. That's not the way to build a far more vibrant technology environment. The only way we can move forward is to really test those assumptions and really ask ourselves hard questions and make hard decisions about where we want to be and how we want to influence the way tech helps other people around the world. One of the things that we've been doing as the research team in my society, especially this last year, is really, really looking at going back to the beginning rather than just is this platform that we run or is this platform that our peers or other organisations run, is this good? We've actually been going back to the beginning and saying, is the actual fundamental point of this still valid? Is it still something that we should be championing? Is it actually doing what we want it to do and is it something that we really need to invest in going forward? Or do we actually have to make big changes? Is the assumption that you can just export this piece of technology and it'll work perfectly fine and be perfectly successful in the same way? Is that still correct? It's probably not, spoiler or not. These are just some of the reports that we've done this year and I think that these things show, this research shows that it's not just, is it making an impact? Well, yeah, I can show it's making an impact. But is that actually what we're wanting it to do? Are we being ambitious enough? Are we actually being culturally sensitive enough when we're building this tech and exporting it and expecting it to work the exact same way? So, yeah, we've done these kinds of research reports this year. They're all online if you would like to go and read them. Some of the key things that we found is that, again, reflecting on what Antony was saying earlier, we're working so much more now with institutions. Five, 10 years ago, Civic Tech was this little isolated bubble. We were all good mates and it was awesome. We were all doing exciting stuff and we were all excited about it. We were very much outside of institutions, shouting at them that they needed to do better, that they needed to listen to us. It's all very well being a critical friend to some of the bigger institutions, but meaningful change comes from within. Again, going back to that way that the language has been changing over the last 18 months, the way we see ourselves and the way we work over the last 18 months or so. That is changing because we're realising and institutions are realising that we're far better working together. Civic Tech, our values, we should totally still be pushing those forward. Openness, transparency, accountability in public institutions, we totally need to keep on at that, but we should be trying to make that change from a position of power, a position of partnership within institutions, not standing on the outside saying, well, I need to keep your arms length because I'm an NGO. We really, really need to be far, far more embedded in the institutions that we're working with to make sure that the kind of tech that we think makes a difference, that we know makes a difference, that people in this conference are going to talk about this next couple of days showing it makes a difference, that that is actually at the heart, not just of end service delivery, but how policymaking is actually done. The other thing that we've noticed is that because we are, again, in this kind of third age of Civic Tech, we're in this mature phase, we're almost taking our eye off the ball in some places, and I'm not saying everyone is guilty of this, but it's hard being a Civic Tech organisation. You're under resourced, you've not got much money, you spend loads of time chasing money, you spend loads of time just trying to maintain the things you already do well. It takes an awful lot of effort, it takes an awful lot of time just to maintain the platforms that you already have, and all the time that you're either chasing money or trying to maintain, we're not actually embracing some of the new stuff that's coming through. And whilst there are fancy terms that are bandied about by about new technology, it is true that somewhat ironically for a tech sector, there might be tech that's actually leaving us behind because we're so busy trying to maintain this thing that we think that we're good at, this thing that we have said, no, this is what's happening, this is what we should be doing, that we're actually missing opportunities elsewhere. So that's something that's again a real challenge for us. Are these things that we want to do? Are these things we should be doing? How can we do them better? Because they can be totally better. I mean, I don't know if there's a fourth age of Civic Tech, I'm not going to come back next year with the fourth age of Civic Tech presentation. I think this third age of Civic Tech is going to be around for a while. And I think we are continuing to mature, but I think the next phase might not even be Civic Tech. Maybe Civic Tech is dead after the third age. The trilogy is concluded. And the next thing is the first age of something else really cool and exciting that I don't even know what it is yet. Because everything's moving on so fast, then I think because everything is changing around us as well and we are hopefully responding to the change and changing with it. There's all sorts of possibilities. Yes, it's kind of daunting. You listen to Mark Reelof the problems of the world and I was totally depressed. There's so much opportunity in that. There's so much more and so much interesting, innovative stuff that we could be doing. So maybe we're not just this little bubble of Civic Tech that operates on our own anymore. Maybe we're kind of evolving and going out into the world. I mean, again, 10 years ago my job didn't exist. Maybe in 10 years time it won't exist either. Maybe in 10 years time it'll be something completely, completely far away from here that it's still maybe a little bit about impact or research but about a whole other level that might be daunting, but I think it's also exciting. I think there's so many people in this room doing so much amazing work, whether you're on the research side of things or the practitioner side of things, that I can't wait to see what amazing stuff comes out of the organisations and the initiatives in this room in 10 years time because I think it will be even more influential. I think we will be embedded far more in the kind of institutions and the kind of ideas that are going around a more kind of normal level rather than Civic Tech being like, ooh, this is new, this might look cool. I think it will just be kind of standard. I'm hoping it will be kind of standard because it's what we've been saying all along that it should be embedded in the kind of service delivery that we want to see. So I'm totally excited. I'm not saying Civic Tech is like dad and we should hold a funeral and make it have a great wake. I think we're just evolving. I think this next phase in what we do as organisations and as a sector is really, really exciting because there is so much more to do and there is so much out there, so much opportunity in the world that we can actually look at. So I would love for you to come and talk to me about anything I know, I know some of you, there are some of you having met. Please come tell me and my colleagues about what you're doing. Please tell me if you think what I've said is complete bollocks. I am open to opinions. Tic-tacs all about debate and kind of figuring out what we need to do as a sector to push it forward. So please do. I'm open to ideas. But the main thing is welcome. So happy to see all of you here and have a great tic-tac. Thank you.