The Open Society Institute and mySociety have teamed up to help people in Central and Eastern Europe build transparency and democracy websites suited to the needs and realities of their countries.
The Open Society Institute (OSI) and mySociety have teamed up to help people in Central and Eastern Europe build transparency and democracy websites suited to the needs and realities of their countries. The projects have to generate some kind of meaningful transparency, accountability, or democratic empowerment of another kind and must seize the unique benefits that the Internet brings with it, such as scalability, two-way communication, and easy data analysis.
Over the coming months a series of projects will be selected to fund and mentor—up to ten in total. At each of four monthly intervals, starting November 15, 2009, OSI and mySociety will convene to consider and choose from the proposals submitted so far. The shortlisted projects, and the people behind them, will then undergo a formal vetting process, during which project funding details will be requested. mySociety will work closely with the winning projects to develop specifications for the launch version of the tool, advise on technology choices and usability decisions, help hire suitable technical talent if needed, and help connect winners to the nascent but growing international network of transparency and accountability website builders.
The call is not solely for existing NGOs: the process is open to submissions from individuals or groups with no prior direct experience of working in the transparency and accountability sector.
For more information, please see mySociety's website.