Civic Tech In Poland

The Financial Times takes a peek at how activists in Poland employ big data to connect local communities and monitor national politics. The article shows that there are plenty of Poles ready to engage in active resistance not only on the streets, like during demonstrations against the abortion ban or protests against the judicial overhaul, but also on the Web. In the words of the national anthem, it gives hope that “Poland is not yet lost", at least as far as civic tech innovation is concerned.

“A trend towards recruiting technology for civic projects has been slowly gathering pace in a country that is hard to describe as socially-engaged (…) Election turnout barely surpasses 50 per cent. Yet since the election of the rightwing Law and Justice government in 2015, which has introduced rapid and controversial reforms across all domains of public life, citizens have started to take a closer look at politicians and their actions,” writes the Financial Times.

For example, an initiative by the City is Ours (miastojestnasze.org) maps reprivatized buildings in Warsaw. The mapping was initiated in the wake of a scandal over the restitution of prime real estate seized under communism from its pre-World War II owners. Another example is a tree mapping application launched by Code for Poland (kodujdlapolski.pl) after an amended law went into effect allowing private landowners to cut down any number of trees without applying for permission or even informing authorities.

The article is part of People’s Technology, an outstanding special project consisting of seven worth-the-read articles on how grassroots communities across Europe use technologies to solve social problems and engage citizens.