DemTech: Our Blog

User Experience Testing

By Ben Lynch | Aug 30, 2018

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As anyone who has spent time in tech knows, “designing good software” is as complicated as the term is simple. It’s easy to come up with ideas and improvements for your products. But the actual implementation is full of pitfalls that…

Citizen-Centered

By Noble Ackerson | Aug 22, 2018

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“We shape our tools and, thereafter our tools shape us…”  — John Culkin (1967)

It’s amazing what humanity can do with the right tools. If you’ve ever looked up the work of …

Elections and Data Routing in Mali

By Ben Lynch | Aug 10, 2018

When my colleague Jared and I landed in Bamako, I was expecting to head to our hotel, have an early dinner, and then grab the sleep we missed out on during our plane ride over, so that…

Weekly Roundup 8/7/18

By Julia Rhodes | Aug 07, 2018

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On July 30th, six million Zimbabweans took to the polls to elect new members of parliament and a new president. Taking place less than a year after…

Weekly Roundup 7/20/18

By Julia Rhodes | Jul 20, 2018

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A six-member team of researchers published a report on the effectiveness of SMS messages to change voter perceptions in the 2016 Uganda district elections. Using…

Weekly Roundup 7/6/18

By Julia Rhodes | Jul 06, 2018

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On July 1st, Uganda’s Excise Duty (Amendment) Bill went into effect, placing taxes on electronic transactions and social media…

Weekly Roundup 6/29/18

By Julia Rhodes | Jun 29, 2018

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‘Twas the week of blockchain!

Brazil’s central bank unveiled plans to use a blockchain-powered platform for sharing…

Garbage In, Garbage Out: Tech Tools in Fighting Disinformation of Voters

By Chris Doten | Jun 26, 2018

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Credit: Dave Taylor

In technology, you often hear geeks referencing the classic “garbage in, garbage out” problem. When the inputs to a system are bad, however beautifully crafted the program itself may be, the outputs will necessarily be bad as…

Weekly Roundup 6/22/18

By Julia Rhodes | Jun 22, 2018

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This week, the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford released the annual Digital News Report, a survey of 37 countries and 74,000 participants. The report finds that respondents are…

Weekly Roundup 6/15/18

By Julia Rhodes | Jun 15, 2018

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Welcome back to our weekly roundup!

Artificial intelligence may play a role countering false news in Brazil’s general…