4-3 East and South Asia

1. Vietnam

Civic tech participants from Vietnam shared insights into three local civic tech communities and projects: TUVA Communication, Listening Vietnam, and SOS Map.

(1) TUVA Communication

“TUVA Communication” is a project that offers social project consulting and communication services. They provide services such as consulting, research, media marketingdesign, communication, and technological solutions to Vietnamese social organizations and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. In addition to these services, TUVA Communication organizes various training sessions and events, connecting relevant experts to provide communication training to social organizations and youth groups, both online and in person.

Website: https://tuva.work/

(2) Listening Vietnam

Listening Vietnam was initiated and sponsored by TUVA Communication in 2017. It primarily focuses on collecting and connecting open data and uses social listening tools to provide internet data to researchers in Vietnam. The goal is to generate more meaningful data about Vietnam to enhance further research and development. Currently, the project faces several challenges: (1) Being a non-profit organization, it lacks sufficient resources for sustainable development, and (2) the project team currently has only one developer and lacks sufficient funds to hire more engineering professionals.

Website: https://tuva.work/du-lieu-nghien-cuu/

(3) SOS Map

During the COVID-19 pandemic, SOS Map was developed due to Vietnam’s policies restricting food delivery and takeout services. It aims to connect people who can provide food to those in need. The platform also facilitates the provision of masks, protective equipment, and cash assistance.

Image from Vietnam Times

2. India

Respondents from India believe that in India, due to a lower level of trust in the government by the people, it is more challenging to execute collaborations between the public and the government, such as the public-private partnership between the g0v community and the government. Currently, India may have very few or limited civic tech communities or projects, with one example somewhat similar to civic tech projects being the “Civic Data Lab.” This project is dedicated to promoting citizen participation in public reform efforts through open knowledge. It aims to enhance the data and technology capabilities of governments, non-profit organizations, think tanks, media, universities, and others to achieve data-driven decision-making at scale.

3. Myanmar

Respondents from Myanmar stated that there was a project called “Code for Change Myanmar” in the past, which organized several hackathons. However, due to ongoing development challenges, some members of Code for Change Myanmar transitioned to establish another entity focusing on civic tech called “Phandeeyar.” They connected with the tech community and began conducting various training programs for journalists, civic participation, and related work.

In 2015, during the Myanmar elections, Phandeeyar collaborated with other NGOs, the election commission, and technologists to create APIs and to develop civic tech election projects through public-private cooperation. Up until the 2021 coup, Phandeeyar continued to develop tools that facilitated direct communication between citizens and their representatives. Besides promoting civic tech projects, Phandeeyar also sought to make these projects sustainable for use in other contexts and by individuals or groups interested in similar issues in other countries.

Website: http://phandeeyar.org/

In addition to Phandeeyar, Myanmar has another civic tech project, the Myanmar Internet Project. Established in 2022, it documents Myanmar’s internet history from its first political internet blockade in 2007 to the widespread propagation of hate speech on social media from 2012 to 2017 as well as the digital history since the 2021 coup in Myanmar. The aim is to facilitate further research through historical records.

In Myanmar, anything related to democracy is considered a threat. Many individuals working on democratic issues cannot use their real names to advocate for these causes. This makes it challenging to implement civic tech, particularly after the 2021 coup. Promoting media literacy and digital security awareness in Myanmar is not only challenging but also risky. As a result, individuals often need to leave Myanmar to work on civic tech projects related to the country in other nations, such as Melbourne, Sri Lanka, Chiang Mai, and more.

Even if the contributors try to implement civic tech projects in other countries, communication sometimes needs to be anonymous due to the high demand for digital privacy. This anonymity can hinder sustainability and further strengthen the initial drive. Even with proposed sustainable models such as creating communities, challenges related to citizen engagement and sustainable development remain significant hurdles.

Website: https://www.myanmarinternet.info/

Myanmar is currently under a military regime. One cannot use a real name to establish a community like g0v or disclose the project’s members to the public. To ensure personal safety and adherence to privacy and human rights principles, any project implementation or initiation must prioritize these principles to avoid violations of basic human rights. Establishing a civic tech community in Myanmar requires adjustment of the culture of civic tech projects to protect identities and safety. A civic tech community in Myanmar following the g0v model may be possible if these conditions are met, and participants are not targeted by government or military scrutiny. Such a community could promote social awareness, such as raising the public’s awareness of safety is not influenced by the military government. Additionally, achieving public-private cooperation may be more challenging in Myanmar to avoid potential complications.

4. China

Respondents from China believe that one could learn experiences from the early stages of g0v to run or establish a community in China. It could be difficult and potentially impossible to establish a sustainable community in China. This is because the risks of maintaining a sustainable community and ensuring its stability often require staff recruitment. Therefore, in China, it might only be possible to discreetly work on a specific project focused on a particular topic. These projects must be built, completed, and disbanded rapidly. Subsequently, they can regroup swiftly for another project related to a specific topic before dispersing again, all to safeguard the personal safety of participants.

5. Thailand

Image from ELECT.in.th

ince the coup in Thailand in 2014, civil rights, including the right to vote, were indefinitely suspended. The first post-coup Thai general election was held on March 24, 2019, and this marked an eight-year gap since the last valid election. The election gained significant attention. At the end of 2018, several private sector companies in media, technology, design, and more collaborated to develop the open-source project “ELECT.in.th.” This project aimed to interpret complex election data using data visualization, interactive content, and gamification to provide citizens with readable, credible, and useful information. It also aimed to spread the influence of democratic thinking. As the 2019 Thai general election adopted a mixed-member apportionment system, ELECT developed the open-source project “Elect Live!” to provide real-time computation of current vote counts and seats in a visual format, offering citizens the latest vote tally information.

Image from Elect Live!

Website: https://elect.in.th

Inspired by Cofacts, a g0v open-source project, Thailand established the “Cofact Thailand” project. This initiative combines civic tech and news media, allowing an editorial team and volunteers to verify information together. It provides a platform for citizens to share and exchange trustworthy information while distinguishing between facts and personal opinions. This empowers everyone to become fact-checkers to address the issue of fake news in the digital age. Additionally, Cofact Thailand provides a LINE bot for citizens to report suspicious messages. One member of Cofact Thailand shared that, due to Thailand’s political context, there is a general distrust of the media so fact-checking projects have gained more trust and usability in Thailand. However, due to Thailand’s vast territory and significant urban-rural divide, it is necessary to promote it locally in different regions, enabling more people to know and use Cofact Thailand while maintaining the community. Besides fact-checking, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Cofact Thailand collaborated with the Thai Ministry of Public Health to promote correct public health information, allowing citizens to effectively access accurate health education information.

Image from Cofact Thailand

Website: https://cofact.org/

6. Malaysia

Image from Sinar Project

Sinar Project, a civic tech project in Malaysia, systematically provides open data and policy analysis for public access. This initiative aims to make the Malaysian government and parliament more open and transparent, fostering civic participation in public affairs and supervising government policy and corruption issues.

Website: https://sinarproject.org/