The Transparency Policy Project’s dual role as an organizer and participant at the Bridging Transparency and Technology workshop in Glen Cove, New York gave us an opportunity to reflect on this emerging field at many different levels.

Prior to the workshop, our conversations with the NGOs that participated revealed that their organizations were wrestling with similar tensions in their advocacy work. Common themes included:

• Sustaining public interest in tech-transparency projects beyond the novelty of a first website visit.
• Targeting tech-transparency projects to citizens, but finding that the media and other NGOs were the primary consumers of information.
• Weighing the strategic advantages of open data approaches versus embargoing information to generate maximum accountability outcomes.
• Linking online transparency efforts with offline accountability effects.
• Finding the right metrics to capture the impact of their work.

These themes helped us shape the “arc” of the Glen Cove event. As Allen Gunn of Aspiration Tech noted in How we are designing the agenda for our Bridging Sessions, we aimed to “match needs to knowledge”.

At the workshop we saw a lot of cross-pollination take place between the advocacy strategies of groups working in natural resources governance and the extractives industries, and all the amazing tech tools that already exist for collecting, displaying and disseminating information. We were inspired by the passion, skill and ingenuity everyone brought to the table, and we are motivated by the potential harbored in proposed collaborations between NGOs and technologists that emerged at the workshop.

Based on workshop discussions and post-event conversations with participants, we put forth three lessons to inform the Bridging effort going forward:

1. Articulate your strategy. Advocacy groups and technologists alike gained an understanding of the challenges and opportunities that exist in the growing technology for transparency space. A desire remains to delve deeper into deconstructing different types of strategies for transparency advocacy, and understanding how technology can be a lever in achieving accountability.
2. Context matters. A lot. Discussions reinforced the importance of understanding the political environment and context within which technology approaches are implemented and advocacy groups operate. A greater diversity of perspectives – particularly from the developing world – would enrich this discussion and help in evaluating the impact of technology for transparency.
3. The data exists, so hack! The hands-on opportunity to “hack” transparency projects and demonstrate how existing technology tools and approaches can be implemented quickly and effectively was a valuable experience for participants. Interactions between technologists and NGOs that lead to concrete projects and outcomes must be supported and sustained.

As we move forward with the Bridging initiative, the Transparency Policy Project will engage the Glen Cove groups in reflecting together on how to implement transparency and accountability projects. We are also keen to develop more innovative, and tailored approaches to measuring the impact that this work is having in advancing transparency and accountability. By articulating strategies, understanding context, and hacking projects, we hope to sharpen our collective understanding of how to best leverage technology tools in improving outcomes for arguably some of the most wicked problems on this planet.

Francisca Rojas, research director, Transparency Policy Project (original post)