Sustaining and Scaling Civic and Government Technology Initiatives

About This Course

The course on Sustaining and Scaling Civic and GovTech Initiatives is intended to upskill civil society and grassroots actors actively working to use technology to advance democracy. The goal of this course is to build the capacity of participants to be better able to sustain or scale their initiatives in the longer term. The course intends to equip participants with best practices to overcome challenges such as financial limitations to sustainabilit; challenges developing comprehensive communication plans; guidance for generating political buy-in; and best practices for localizing existing digital tools, and more.

The course is fully virtual and is approximately six weeks in length, beginning April 18 and closing May 31. During this time period there will be two synchronous training sessions per week - totaling 12 trainings - each dedicated to a sharing best practice and guidance for a specific challenge civic and govtech teams and initiatives may face. Each live training session - held at 10:00am ET/3:00pm GMT - will have an accompanying online module on this site including suggested reading materials, take-home exercises and useful templates to put guidance into action.

Requirements

Participants are expected to already be familiar with the basics of designing and managing a digital democracy tool and/or managing a project that seeks to use technology to strengthen democracy in their locality, country or region. Participants are expected to attend as many of the live, synchronous trainings as possible in addition to completing all course work uploaded in these modules. Anticipated time required to complete this course is approximately three hours a week, which includes the time required to attend the live virtual training sessions. Upon course completion, you will receive a certificate of completion and will be invited to apply for a funding opportunity to scale or entrench an existing digital democracy initiative.

Illustrative Course Trainers

Anca Mantioc

Anca is the founder and director of La Sobremesa, a collective aiming to support civil society organizations in Latin America in becoming stronger and more resilient, and has been working with civil society organizations in Latin America and the global south for over a decade as a designer and facilitator of change processes. Previously, Anca worked at The Engine Room, as well Ciudadania Inteligente and helped to co-found AbreLatAm, a regional conference to discuss and innovate in the opening of data and governments. She has deep experience support civil society teams in strengthening their institutions, structures and teams.

Carmen Malena

Carmena is a lead consultant at the World Bank and is an expert in social accountability, governance, participation and civil society. She has authored key research papers and guides on topics such as lessons learned in strengthening citizen engagement, building political buy-in and building support for participatory governance. In addition to the World Bank, she has worked with organizations such as Civicus, Coady International Institute, the Trasparency and Accountability Initiative, UNDP and more.

Frequently Asked Questions

What web browser should I use?

The Open edX platform works best with current versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari.

See our list of supported browsers for the most up-to-date information.

Who should I contact if I have questions about this course, including technical difficulties or content related questions?

Please reach out to Amanda Zink (azink@iri.org) and Diana Kurth (dkurth@iri.org) for assistance.

What platform will be used to host the live, synchronous training sessions?

Zoom will be used to host each live session. Zoom links will be imbedded in this LMS in advance of each session and will additionally be emailed to each participant to ensure you have access. Please contact Amanda Zink at azink@iri.org if you have issues accessing Zoom.