CDS Civic Tech Fellowship
The CDS Civic Tech Fellows program recognizes and amplifies the ongoing work and impact of faculty members, postdoctoral researchers, and practicing experts at the intersection of technology and the public interest. Civic Tech Fellows demonstrate a commitment to the development and evaluation of technologies that enhance engagement between individuals and governments, empower citizens to fuel social change, support evidence-based policy making, improve communal decision-making processes, deliver government services efficiently and equitably, and enable transparency and accountability in public institutions as well as circumvent abusive practices by government, corporate monopolies, and illicit underground organizations.
In the context of computing and data sciences, Civic Tech is about development of tools, software, and algorithms that are increasingly critical for a healthy civic society as well as the evaluation of these technologies in legal, regulatory, and social contexts. This includes development and evaluation of computing and data science technologies that support freedom of speech and other human/constitutional rights (e.g., through private, anonymous, and secure computation and communication), open/transparent governance (e.g., through support for verifiability, auditability, and accountability of information systems), protection from abusive practices (e.g., through anti- surveillance, blockchain, virtual currencies, and open-source software), advocacy and activism (through open data sharing and access platforms), fight bad actors (e.g., through tools to identify cyber-bullying, misinformation and disinformation, deep fakes), among others.