Civic Technology

Technology stands between you and making a difference in the world. It can help you reach people, share information, and provide services. Tech can likewise hold you back; it can block access to services and drain people’s time and money, among other harms. If you are trying to bring about social change via technology, PUBPOL 499: Civic Technology is for you. We’ll explore and experiment with people-centered techniques like design research, threat modelling, and consequence scanning. We’ll learn, do, and reflect on the ingredients of purpose-driven civic tech and relate core design principles to your own lived experiences. The goal of this course is to build civic tech experience in a critical, but still rare, skillset for successful policy implementation. Note: you do not need to be a tech whiz, or even particularly like technology, to have a great experience in this class! PUBPOL 499: Civic Technology is really about people and systems: why things are how they are, interesting open questions, and known ways to do tech better than the norm today.  

Elizabeth Ayer joined the UW faculty from a federal government team that aimed to transform how technology delivers for the public. She worked on government products like Direct File (tax preparation), Notify (text messaging for agencies), and the DOJ civil rights complaints portal, as well as system modernization for benefits eligibility. Before joining public service, she worked in a variety of private-sector tech roles, coaching teams at the spot closest to her heart: participatory methods to make tech serve people.