Harnessing Technology for Transparency As many of you will know, one of Indigo Trust’s big passions is how modern mobile and web technologies can be harnessed to increase transparency, improve democracy and encourage citizen engagement. We have already assisted the Co-Creation Hub in Nigeria to host a ‘Tech-In Governance’ event, the first of a series of events aimed at harnessing the power of technology for development in Nigeria. Tech-In Governance produced several outstanding prototypes and products and stimulated the tech community in Lagos to think creatively about the role that technology can play in encouraging transparency and democracy. If you have ever thought about hosting a similar event or are interested in transparency and technology, but are unsure of where to start, we hope the following overview of Co-Creation Hub’s event may be of use. Tech-In Governance: A Brief Overview In a nutshell,Tech-In Governance was an event aimed at transforming citizen participation in Nigeria through technological innovation and application. It was a 48hr gathering of ideas, people and digital tools aimed at creating novel web & mobile solutions to transform citizen participation in governance in Nigeria. Over two days, the Co-Creation team brought together some of Nigeria’s top governance experts, software developers, designers, marketing communication experts and social innovators to turn six selected ideas into tools and social start-ups (with working prototypes). The top three ideas were then given seed funding (provided by Indigo) for further development after the event.

How it Works The call for ideas: This six-week call for ideas was an open call for Nigerians to think and submit creative and novel web/mobile based ideas focused on addressing the specified need (citizen participation in governance) with technology central to its delivery. An independent panel of judges then selected the six ideas, which they thought could gain most from taking part in Tech-In Governance. Pre-Seminar: Governance experts and participants explored the key issues around governance in Nigeria, with existing interventions being showcased. This was preceded by a press event, whereby Nigerian media outlets were given the opportunity to find out more about the event, the ideas and the partners. The 48hrs: With the help of a huge range of people – from software developers through to civil servants, from digital media lawyers to people with expertise in governance – the six teams worked on producing prototypes, business models and route to market strategy for each of the ideas. The event culminated in a show-and-tell, during which each of the prototypes were pitched to a panel of judges, with the top three being awarded prizes to help get their ideas off the ground. The Budget The total cost of hosting the Tech-In Governance event in Lagos was approximately £20,000. This covered venue hire, catering, a film crew to document the event, technical equipment, stationery, a project manager and support staff, admin and logistics, publicity and £4,000 in prize money. Indigo provided a grant of £5,000 to the Co-Creation Hub to cover prize money and some of the various other costs.

The Winners 33 applications and six shortlisted ideas had to be whittled down to a winning three. These are the winners, as chosen by a panel of experts. The winners received $3,000, $2,000 and $1,500 in prize money, as well as ongoing tech and business support from the Co-Creation Hub and mentorship programmes and agreements with Funmobile, Credit Registry Services, Praekelt Foundation and Indigo. 1 st Prize (Residents Report): Residents Report is a social innovation application that “puts the city in our hands, allows citizens/residents decide the destiny of their communities and gets public service agencies to do their jobs accountably”. The Residents Report platform, (to be powered by user friendly mobile and web apps) will allow people to identify the relevant public service institutions responsible for local problems, in order that these everyday issues can be solved quickly and efficiently. Residents Report believe that a problem “reported” is a problem more likely to be solved.Residents Report 2 nd Prize (BudgIT): BudgIT is a tool for citizen participation that provides easy- to-understand visualisations of Nigerian budget data, as many Nigerians with little or no literacy in accounting and public expenditure do not have the requisite understanding of what budgets entail.BudgIT 3 rd Prize (Project Watch): Project Watch is a way of involving ordinary citizens to report back on publicly-funded projects.Project Watch In addition to awarding prize money to all three products, we also decided to fund the further development of both Residents Report and BudgIT, as well as a third project which failed to win at the Tech-In Governance, Citizens Against Rigging Elections (C.A.R.E). This additional funding is indicative of the quality of applications that came out of the inaugural Tech-In event. Over the course of just 48 hours, six teams developed what we believe were high quality products with an ability to have a real impact on governance, transparency and democracy in Nigeria. If you’ve ever thought about hosting your own tech for transparency/democracy event or if you’d like to find our more, please do get in touch with either or