TICTeC will be returning in 2025: 10 & 11 June in Mechelen (Belgium), and online.
Registration is open now.
This year we are framing our call for session proposals around ‘pro-democracy technology’. This blog post contains information about the audiences, themes, and formats for the conference – and information on how to submit proposals. Read on to discover what we’re looking for in submissions, and guides to the different formats of sessions.
What is TICTeC?
TICTeC, short for The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference, first launched in 2015 as an annual gathering. Since then, it has evolved into a programme of year-round activities through our current TICTeC Communities and previous TICTeC Labs projects.
A key tenet of the civic tech movement is the idea that the best advocacy is the demonstration of what’s possible. This is what TICTeC is all about. We’re bringing together practical people and practical thinkers to talk about the impact of our work, and learn lessons in how we can go further.
TICTeC is all about sharing research, knowledge and experiences on how digital technologies are being used to defend and advance civic and democratic values across the world. We want a future where technology strengthens democracy rather than undermines it, in order to build societies and technologies that serve the many, not just the few.
TICTeC is a place where you can learn about everything from combating corruption and misinformation to empowering communities and enhancing civic participation, and is a unique platform where attendees connect and collaborate.
Attendees are a distinctive mix of small and big tech practitioners, civil society leaders, funders, users, and academic researchers. Together we want to showcase cutting-edge pro-democracy innovations with a relentless focus on their real-world impact and effectiveness.
At previous TICTeC conferences, between 150-250 people have gathered in person and online, from more than 40 countries.
Conference themes
This year we’re shaping TICTeC around three thematic areas.
- Access to information and open data
- Democracy, people and politics
- Climate change
In these areas, we’re structuring panels around ideas of defensive and constructive democratic tech. Read our blog post on pro-democracy technology to understand more what we mean by defensive and constructive technologies (there are also examples below). Proposals may in practice cover multiple areas. If your proposal does not fit either category, you can select both or neither.
Beyond these topics, we will also have time for sessions that are interested in meta questions around ideas of civic tech and pro-democracy technology.
The examples below are not meant to be comprehensive, but give a sense of what we mean by each category.
Access to information and open data
This thematic area applies to people working with access to information/Freedom of Information laws, or open data. The tech side may be innovations in running ATI platforms, improved government efficiencies, or projects that produce subsequent analysis or tools as a result of the data.
Defensive tech
This category is looking at the use of access to information laws/platforms or open data as part of anti-corruption projects or platforms. This might include how data from ATI requests have been used as part of wider initiatives, or meta-investigation about how technology can make anti-corruption use of ATI more effective.
Constructive tech
This category is looking at how open data or access to information laws can be used to build new data and tools, and the wider social (or commercial) impact of making it easier to access information.
Democracy, people, and politics
This section covers projects concerned with mainstream democratic structures, or technical approaches to democratic processes involving people directly.
This might include democratic transparency projects, e.g. those that create/rework public information about democratic institutions/politicians to improve transparency, accountability, standards, or efficiency. This includes Parliamentary Monitoring Organisations, but also extends to projects looking at elected politicians in other contexts that are Parliaments (such as city governments), or other democratic processes such as deliberative democracy and citizens’ assemblies.
But it might also look like technology that directly involves people in democratic processes, such as toolkits of deliberative processes, consultation approaches, conditional commitment etc.
Defensive tech
This covers a range of uses of technology to safeguard and investigate democratic processes. For instance: electoral violence monitoring, political donation tracking and broader anti-corruption work.
Constructive tech
Here we are looking for empowering technologies that build democratic fibre and capacity. These approaches are less of a zero-sum game, but are looking at the potential for technology that enriches democratic life.
This covers technology that may be trying to improve processes and understanding of electoral democratic institutions. It might include new forms or innovations in PMOs applying machine learning to existing problems. It also includes innovations in new forms of technology, and the uses of technology in deliberative processes.
Climate change
The climate crisis is a massive practical issue that requires urgent action — and like all practical issues it’s a democratic question. We’re interested both in where action on this issue is being actively disrupted by anti-democrats, and where we need to build democratic capacity to solve these problems.
At TICTeC we want to explore practical approaches to facilitating and delivering democratic action on climate change.
We need to develop defensive approaches — but we also need to bring the full cognitive and relational capacity of democracy to bear on the problem, – pushing decisions away from a few big levers in the middle, to understand how to reshape our environments and communities to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.
Submissions in this category may also fit into one or both of the other two.
Defensive tech
In this area, defensive tech may take the form of anti-corruption approaches focused on the influence of fossil fuel companies and petrostates. This might include monitoring of fossil-fuel sponsored narratives repeated by politicians, or fact checking for climate conspiracy theories.
Constructive tech
Constructive tech in this area is trying to bring the cognitive and relational capacity of democracy to bear on the problem, – pushing decisions away from a few big levers in the middle, to understand how to reshape our environments and communities to respond to the effects of climate change.
This might be participatory approaches to shaping policy, directing local changes, or collaborative approaches to mixed public/private decisions home upgrades and retrofit.
Session types
This year we’re looking for three session types.
- 20 minute presentations
- 35 minute short workshops
- 90 minute long workshops/panels
For workshops, we really want to see a strong interactive element that involves the audience in working through a practical activity, sharing information and experiences.
Short workshops may (but don’t have to) take the form of a short presentation, with structured audience participation.
Long workshops may take the form of a panel (where multiple speakers are involved), but there should still be a strong interactive component. For these, we would want to see panellists from a range of expertise and backgrounds.
Structured participation doesn’t have to be complicated. When we run sessions, we tend to use the 1-2-4-all method to structure conversation around questions. Sessions in the past have used slido or similar. What we’re looking for in evaluating workshops is:
- A clear sense of the kind of discussion and questions you want to have.
- A sense that participants will have something to say, and get something out of these discussions (so being clear which subset of the TICTeC audience and themes you are talking to).
When submitting workshop proposals, the key thing to bear in mind is that we have fewer time slots and can accept fewer of these proposals.
You are allowed to submit multiple proposals if you would like to pitch a presentation and a workshop (but both are unlikely to be accepted).
We have a limited number of travel grants available to support speakers to attend, you can apply for this via the submissions form.
While we will favour speakers to be in-person, there are a limited number of slots for people who cannot travel to present remotely. Please indicate if you may need to present remotely when filling out the submission form.
Submission details
Submit your proposals via this application form by 15 Jan 2025 at the latest.
Those selected for inclusion in the conference programme will be notified by 31 Jan 2025.
Presenters will be required to register for the conference by 14 February in order to confirm their slot (the registration fee will be waived for individuals presenting; people who have already booked will be refunded).
What is a good TICTeC presentation?
TICTeC is a practical and reflective conference. We encourage presentation submissions to focus on specific impacts or usage, rather than showcase new tools that are as yet untested. We’re less interested in speculative uses of technology, but more in people’s practical experiences of working with tools and technical approaches. Technology does not have to be new, and we welcome retrospectives on long running projects.
A tool doesn’t have to have mass usage to be worth talking about – we’re equally interested in qualitative stories on the impacts of technology; their impacts on official processes; and how users have used platforms to campaign for change. We’re also interested in stories about obstacles and barriers to having impact. The main work of your organisation does not have to be technology centred: we are interested in experiences and impacts of adopting new approaches in less technical organisations.
TICTeC attendees are a mixture of practitioners and researchers. Presentations should expect audiences to include different levels of technical knowledge.
We score proposals according to their alignment to the conference themes, as discussed above.
Use of AI in writing proposals
You may use ChatGPT or similar to sharpen ideas for proposals, better highlight alignment with our themes, or improve written language. However, proposals and sessions that are entirely AI-conceived will not score well.
Last year we saw a number of proposals we suspected were AI-written because while they were at first appearance well crafted, they ultimately only spoke in vague and general terms about the themes we asked for. Because we prioritise experience and impact, such submissions will score poorly. If using these tools, ensure the result is an accurate and truthful account of your own experiences, research, or impact.
More information
The TICTeC 2025 Eventbrite page contains further information about the conference, including FAQs. If you still have any questions after reading that, please email tictec@mysociety.org.
Speaking opportunities through sponsorship
TICTeC 2025 sponsors receive a guaranteed speaking slot, with no need to participate in the open call. Find out more about sponsoring TICTeC 2025.
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You can follow updates as they are announced over on the TICTeC website. If you’d like to be the first to receive TICTeC 2025 updates, please sign up for our emails.
And in the meantime, if you’d like to see what TICTeC is all about, you can browse all the resources from previous events over on the TICTeC Knowledge Hub.
We look forward to welcoming you to TICTeC 2025!
