At its core, civic tech is the process of using technology to advance the relationship between the people and governments. Civic tech solutions can be built by essentially anyone who has the objective to support government projects in terms of communications, data management, service facilities and political processes. The idea of creating more citizen-centered services has produced the emergence of “smart” cities, where communication, problem solving, data tracking and safety is regulated impeccably via apps and handheld devices.
In the spirit of civic tech, civic hacking is the process of co-creating tech driven solutions by bringing together programmemers, coding specialists, data scientists, organizers, entrepreneurs, government employees and communicators within the community. The work may be funded by the global leading giants in civic tech, such as the Open Government Partnership (OGP) organization.
The OGP is associated with 76 countries and 78 local governments, and has members in Asia, including Indonesia, Philippines, Mongolia, South Korea, Papua New Guinea, and Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s active partnership as a member of OGP since 2016, was halted on March 5, 2022, because of, according to CIVICUS Asia Pacific, lack of the government to deliver an action plan, to curb human rights violations and to safeguard citizens’ right of access to information.
While the developmental projects with the OGP are on the back-burner currently, let’s hope that new national policies regarding civic technology will help Pakistan regain its international status as a ‘pro’ civic tech nation in Asia.
Meanwhile, we must uplift and support the local civic tech hubs, working with the government for technological progress in the country, despite challenges. In my search for organizations that are doing things a little differently in Pakistan, I came across Code for Pakistan, a nonprofit, based in Islamabad.
Founded by Sheba Najmi and led by Samina Rizwan, Code for Pakistan’s mission is to “harness the power of people and technology to build a better, citizen-centered ecosystem of governance for everyone.” In the eight years since Code for Pakistan has been around, it has been the organization’s sole mission to advance the relationship between the government and citizens through a number of programmemes and initiatives that are focused on improving public service delivery. For example, Code for Pakistan advised on KP’s open data strategy, worked with Digital Pakistan to create Pakistan’s first Covid dashboard, and sustained a long-running KP Government Innovation Fellowship Programme and expanded upon it to create a Women Civic Internship Programme.
The fellowship programme, which has proved its mettle in the last few years, pairs young professionals with government officers to create technology that better serves citizens. The programme also has a 99 percent job placement rate once the fellows graduate. Additionally, Code for Pakistan raises the voice of average citizens. The first Karachi Civic Hackathon offered no incentives besides the opportunity to work alongside others in the community on “tech for good.” In total, Code for Pakistan has produced 12 hackathons to date, from which nearly 300 solutions have been created.
Here, Code for Pakistan’s Director of Communications, Community & Partnerships, Mahwish Khan, talks on the lesser known facts about Code for Pakistan and what more is in the pipeline.
Code for Pakistan (CfP) is a nonprofit organization that pairs technologists with the government to help make public service more citizen-centered. What makes CfP unique? How is it empowering women in Pakistan?
I like to think that CfP really spearheaded a movement in Pakistan. If you take a look at our history, we were the first group to work on civic tech in Pakistan, and raised the banner for digital transformation of government services eight years ago. We’re also part of a global community and a member organization of Code for All, which is a network of organizations that drive change through technology. We have a small team, but we’re all eager to learn how others are uplifting their communities. We’re also incredibly geeky about civic hacking – the fact that anyone can do something to make things a little bit better for everyone else. We’re firm believers in the fact that you don’t need to be a coder or a technologist to make a difference. In fact, our fellowship and internship programmes don't recruit only technologists. We’ve got a good mix of content writers, graphic designers, and digital marketers who play as important a role as the coders.
The other thing that we do really well is bring together a diverse group of volunteers who can work on and advise on some of the projects that come our way, and we have a wonderful group of mentors who come back time and again to conduct sessions, and are there to guide and encourage our CfP team, Hackathon participants, fellows, and interns.
The KP Civic Women Internship Programme is achieving commendable outcomes. KP Government Innovation Fellowship Programme just successfully completed its seventh cycle. How can participants from other provinces be part of these programmes? Are there plans to launch such programmes at the federal level?
Potential is abundant, but opportunity is not – and that’s why we’ve designed programmes to help put some of our most underserved communities on more equal footing. Our women internship programme is a paid internship programme where women from remote areas of KP, such as Bajaur, Mohmand and Charsadda, work alongside our fellows on e-gov projects. Keeping in mind the usual constraints that women in our country face, we offers this as a remote opportunity. In the pilot cohort, we were able to train nine women interns, of which seven are now gainfully employed or freelancing. Separately, because we’ve been working on the fellowship for so long, we’ve fine-tuned the curriculum to a point where it’s fairly easy to replicate in other areas (as long as we stay true to its design), and we’re also lucky to work with partners that trust our process and allow us to run the programme with valuable oversight and guidance but no interference. And that’s key – both the fellowship and internship programmes could not have been possible without support from some incredible partners; because Code for Pakistan is a nonprofit, we could not take on the costs of such a programme had it not been for the support of KP IT Board, World Bank, and Helvetas, who generously funded the programme, and continue to champion it. This year, we were also incredibly lucky to work with PTCL/UFone, which donated 5G Blaze devices to women in our programme when they heard that some were not able to fully participate because of connectivity issues. We’re eager to continue with the Women Internship Programme, but we’re also aiming to expand the fellowship programme to other provinces. Several government agencies and provincial governments have shown interest, and we’d be happy to partner with any organization that wants to one, deliver and improve public services; and two, is searching to create a competent team that can design and create tools that will resonate with and be used by the average citizen.
First cohort of TECH-NIH fellowship successfully ended in December. Researchers, designers and developers worked together on digital health initiatives. When is the second cohort expected? Can it be extended to hospitals and academic settings?
Code for Pakistan was incredibly thrilled to work with TECH-NIH. After creating Pakistan’s first Covid Dashboard, we helped structure a three-month pilot fellowship programme for them. I won’t rule out the possibility of another programme at TECH-NIH, but for now, we’re focused on a few other tech initiatives. CfP is currently working with the international agency focused on healthcare to create an application that helps hospital staff monitor the occurrences of HCAIs in hospitals. HCAIs are essentially infections that are picked up within the hospital, and one in every 17 infections is fatal. Surveillance of HCAIs is a much-needed control measure taken to avoid infection spread, and thanks to our team and one very dedicated volunteer, that’s now possible. Also, the application is open source, so once it is launched, any hospital in Pakistan (or globally) can modify the application to fit its needs.
What are some of your challenges? Do you perceive any weaknesses in your model and performance?
There are many challenges, but the biggest by far is finding funding for our work as we strategize to scale; there is a definite need and such demand for our help that we’re often spread too thin. The civic tech space is very niche and new and organizations are not channeling CSR funds to it. In thinking about technology as a process, where the citizen is front and center, we've found a model that works for everyone.
In the spirit of civic tech, civic hacking is the process of co-creating tech driven solutions by bringing together programmemers, coding specialists, data scientists, organizers, entrepreneurs, government employees and communicators within the community. The work may be funded by the global leading giants in civic tech, such as the Open Government Partnership (OGP) organization.
The OGP is associated with 76 countries and 78 local governments, and has members in Asia, including Indonesia, Philippines, Mongolia, South Korea, Papua New Guinea, and Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s active partnership as a member of OGP since 2016, was halted on March 5, 2022, because of, according to CIVICUS Asia Pacific, lack of the government to deliver an action plan, to curb human rights violations and to safeguard citizens’ right of access to information.
While the developmental projects with the OGP are on the back-burner currently, let’s hope that new national policies regarding civic technology will help Pakistan regain its international status as a ‘pro’ civic tech nation in Asia.
Meanwhile, we must uplift and support the local civic tech hubs, working with the government for technological progress in the country, despite challenges. In my search for organizations that are doing things a little differently in Pakistan, I came across Code for Pakistan, a nonprofit, based in Islamabad.
Code for Pakistan’s mission is to “harness the power of people and technology to build a better, citizen-centered ecosystem of governance for everyone.”
Founded by Sheba Najmi and led by Samina Rizwan, Code for Pakistan’s mission is to “harness the power of people and technology to build a better, citizen-centered ecosystem of governance for everyone.” In the eight years since Code for Pakistan has been around, it has been the organization’s sole mission to advance the relationship between the government and citizens through a number of programmemes and initiatives that are focused on improving public service delivery. For example, Code for Pakistan advised on KP’s open data strategy, worked with Digital Pakistan to create Pakistan’s first Covid dashboard, and sustained a long-running KP Government Innovation Fellowship Programme and expanded upon it to create a Women Civic Internship Programme.
The fellowship programme, which has proved its mettle in the last few years, pairs young professionals with government officers to create technology that better serves citizens. The programme also has a 99 percent job placement rate once the fellows graduate. Additionally, Code for Pakistan raises the voice of average citizens. The first Karachi Civic Hackathon offered no incentives besides the opportunity to work alongside others in the community on “tech for good.” In total, Code for Pakistan has produced 12 hackathons to date, from which nearly 300 solutions have been created.
Here, Code for Pakistan’s Director of Communications, Community & Partnerships, Mahwish Khan, talks on the lesser known facts about Code for Pakistan and what more is in the pipeline.
Code for Pakistan (CfP) is a nonprofit organization that pairs technologists with the government to help make public service more citizen-centered. What makes CfP unique? How is it empowering women in Pakistan?
I like to think that CfP really spearheaded a movement in Pakistan. If you take a look at our history, we were the first group to work on civic tech in Pakistan, and raised the banner for digital transformation of government services eight years ago. We’re also part of a global community and a member organization of Code for All, which is a network of organizations that drive change through technology. We have a small team, but we’re all eager to learn how others are uplifting their communities. We’re also incredibly geeky about civic hacking – the fact that anyone can do something to make things a little bit better for everyone else. We’re firm believers in the fact that you don’t need to be a coder or a technologist to make a difference. In fact, our fellowship and internship programmes don't recruit only technologists. We’ve got a good mix of content writers, graphic designers, and digital marketers who play as important a role as the coders.
The other thing that we do really well is bring together a diverse group of volunteers who can work on and advise on some of the projects that come our way, and we have a wonderful group of mentors who come back time and again to conduct sessions, and are there to guide and encourage our CfP team, Hackathon participants, fellows, and interns.
The KP Civic Women Internship Programme is achieving commendable outcomes. KP Government Innovation Fellowship Programme just successfully completed its seventh cycle. How can participants from other provinces be part of these programmes? Are there plans to launch such programmes at the federal level?
Potential is abundant, but opportunity is not – and that’s why we’ve designed programmes to help put some of our most underserved communities on more equal footing. Our women internship programme is a paid internship programme where women from remote areas of KP, such as Bajaur, Mohmand and Charsadda, work alongside our fellows on e-gov projects. Keeping in mind the usual constraints that women in our country face, we offers this as a remote opportunity. In the pilot cohort, we were able to train nine women interns, of which seven are now gainfully employed or freelancing. Separately, because we’ve been working on the fellowship for so long, we’ve fine-tuned the curriculum to a point where it’s fairly easy to replicate in other areas (as long as we stay true to its design), and we’re also lucky to work with partners that trust our process and allow us to run the programme with valuable oversight and guidance but no interference. And that’s key – both the fellowship and internship programmes could not have been possible without support from some incredible partners; because Code for Pakistan is a nonprofit, we could not take on the costs of such a programme had it not been for the support of KP IT Board, World Bank, and Helvetas, who generously funded the programme, and continue to champion it. This year, we were also incredibly lucky to work with PTCL/UFone, which donated 5G Blaze devices to women in our programme when they heard that some were not able to fully participate because of connectivity issues. We’re eager to continue with the Women Internship Programme, but we’re also aiming to expand the fellowship programme to other provinces. Several government agencies and provincial governments have shown interest, and we’d be happy to partner with any organization that wants to one, deliver and improve public services; and two, is searching to create a competent team that can design and create tools that will resonate with and be used by the average citizen.
“The civic tech space is very niche and new and organizations are not channeling CSR funds to it. In thinking about technology as a process, where the citizen is front and center, we've found a model that works for everyone.”
First cohort of TECH-NIH fellowship successfully ended in December. Researchers, designers and developers worked together on digital health initiatives. When is the second cohort expected? Can it be extended to hospitals and academic settings?
Code for Pakistan was incredibly thrilled to work with TECH-NIH. After creating Pakistan’s first Covid Dashboard, we helped structure a three-month pilot fellowship programme for them. I won’t rule out the possibility of another programme at TECH-NIH, but for now, we’re focused on a few other tech initiatives. CfP is currently working with the international agency focused on healthcare to create an application that helps hospital staff monitor the occurrences of HCAIs in hospitals. HCAIs are essentially infections that are picked up within the hospital, and one in every 17 infections is fatal. Surveillance of HCAIs is a much-needed control measure taken to avoid infection spread, and thanks to our team and one very dedicated volunteer, that’s now possible. Also, the application is open source, so once it is launched, any hospital in Pakistan (or globally) can modify the application to fit its needs.
What are some of your challenges? Do you perceive any weaknesses in your model and performance?
There are many challenges, but the biggest by far is finding funding for our work as we strategize to scale; there is a definite need and such demand for our help that we’re often spread too thin. The civic tech space is very niche and new and organizations are not channeling CSR funds to it. In thinking about technology as a process, where the citizen is front and center, we've found a model that works for everyone.