Civic technology promotes participation
Kao and others from Taiwan last year attended a summit in France of the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative that promotes open government. Kao shared some of g0v’s accomplishments as part of a roundtable there. One of these was that the Taipei City Government adopted g0v’s source code as a basis for its own “participatory budget,” a project that encourages citizens to participate in budget planning via a web portal, just three years after g0v’s launch of its central government budget project.
Seeing this as a very positive development, Kao has shared internationally the role of the civic-tech community in Taiwan’s model for interacting and cooperating with the government. He has also explained the follow-on applications that have grown out of that cooperation. He says that they have built their success on the foundation of mutual trust they have established between the government and the citizenry, and that their achievements offer practical examples of the usefulness of civic technology.
The vTaiwan digital platform offers another example of the citizenry and government borrowing from one another. Originally created by g0v as a means to encourage civic participation in public policy by gathering a variety of opinions and forging a consensus, it was later adopted by the government as a portal through which citizens can offer feedback that the government then takes into consideration when making policy.
The government is making use of more than just g0v projects. It’s also made g0v member Audrey Tang the Executive Yuan’s digital tsar. Tang has brought her g0v membership and experience with her into government, where she is pushing the twin goals of digitalization and open government.
Tang’s new model includes an open-government contact person called a “participation officer” (PO). Every department of the Executive Yuan is to have a PO, who will hold public discussions on a regular basis on current issues, including proposals such as allowing the formation of civil service unions, banning the sale of sharks’ fins, ending after-school study halls, and crash-testing domestically produced vehicles. POs will invite NGOs and industry representatives to participate in the discussions, and make the entire process open and transparent.
The front wall of Tang’s Executive Yuan office is covered with sticky notes that make a colorful contrast to the otherwise serious work atmosphere in the building. Once we are inside, she pulls out a tablet computer and shows us an open government project called the “sprouts dictionary.”
Originally a g0v project, the “sprouts dictionary” is an online multilingual dictionary, the entries of which were sourced from the Ministry of Education’s online Mandarin, Southern Min, and Hakka dictionaries. Internationally praised since its launch, the “sprouts dictionary” has already become a valuable tool for foreign students learning traditional Chinese characters.
Even better, the dictionary is still growing and spawning additional projects. For example, a French student familiar with open source resources but still learning Chinese has added English, German, and French content to the dictionary. Meanwhile, the UK’s Oxford University has used the dictionary’s source code to create databases for other languages, including Zulu.
The “sprouts dictionary” project has attracted the attention of linguists and educators around the world. By making the source code available to others, the project has extended its reach to other tongues, aiding in efforts to preserve and learn endangered languages.
g0v created visualizations to help the public understand the central government’s budget. (screenshot from budget.g0v.tw)