Code for Romania’s “Wake Up Call”
How tragedy and protest led to the creation of Eastern Europe’s largest civic hacking community.
There is a tragic story behind Bogdan Ivanel and Olivia Vereha’s decision to form Romania’s largest civic hacking community.
“There was a fire that happened at a concert in late 2015, and for many of us, our friends were there,” said Vereha.
“This event acted like a catalyst for everybody under 35 to get out of their boxes and say ‘you need to do something for your country,’” she added.
The event in question was the Colectiv Nightclub fire in Bucharest, a disastrous blaze that saw 64 people die, and 147 injured. In the ensuing investigation, it was discovered that club management had bribed officials for the club’s required safety permits.
The accident put a spotlight on long festering corruption issues at all levels of government. Public dissatisfaction had been simmering with Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta’s over a series of corruption scandals. Protests ensued, and an estimated 30,000 people took to the streets, demanding Ponta step down. Days after the protests began, Ponta said he would assume “moral blame” for the fire, and announced his resignation.
“The protest was a tremendous event to me and people in Romania. It was a turning point in Romania’s civil society, and the idea of creating Code for Romania came,” said Ivanel.
With an election coming up in 2016, Code for Romania quickly set to work, creating a handful of apps and websites that would let Romanians have their voices heard, and ensure the next election would be free of corruption and irregularities.
Two years later, Code for Romania has recruited a staggering number of volunteers, achieved relatively-wide recognition in the local press, and produced award-winning digital tools. Better yet, the team is in a comfortable position to set parameters on what cooperation between the government and Code for Romania looks like.
But how did they make so much progress in such a short time? The secret may be the team’s approach to carrying out their work. “If you wish, you could say we’re half protesting, and half trying to work with the government, in order to drive some changes,” said Ivanel.
From protestors to civic hackers
Code for Romania’s founders came late to the civic hacking game. Bogdan Ivanel is former a human rights lawyer and was working on a PhD. He lived abroad for 11 years before coming back to Romania in 2015. Olivia Vereha is a former journalist and UX designer, and now handles communications and operations for Code for Romania.
As Romania’s general elections drew near, both Vereha and Ivanel saw an opportunity to engage citizens in the voting process, and enact change through the ballot box.
For many civic tech practitioners, finding new ways to get citizens excited about participating is already a difficult task, but in Romania, it’s doubly difficult.
Years of poor governance and corruption has severely disheartened Romanians about participating in the political process. Voter turnout has floated between 39 and 40 percent in the last three election cycles. There’s also geographic barriers. Romania has one of the globe’s highest annual diaspora growth rates. It’s estimated that 3.4 million Romanian nationals live abroad, a staggering 17 percent of the country’s population.
Code for Romania’s first projects looked to tackle these unique developments.
They first produced a website targeted at Romanian voters living abroad. “Vot Diaspora,” is a website resource that guides Romanian expats through the voting registration process, and then directs them to their closest embassy or consulate, where they can vote.
Their second project confronted election irregularities at voting stations. “Monitorizare Vot” is a mobile app for monitoring elections. On voting day on December 11th 2016, authorized election observers could use Monitorizare Vot to report any problems they saw, and report these issues in real time. Reported problems immediately appeared on a dashboard at the Monitorizare Vot website. More than 450 observers used the app, sending more than 17500 responses over the course of voting day.
The group would later win 1st prize in the “civic engagement” category at the 2017 Gala Societatii Civile — an annual celebration of civic-minded achievements — for its work creating the Monitorizare Vot app and website.
But the purpose of Code for Romania’s work isn’t simply to boost numbers in the election process. As Vereha puts it, their goal is to “facilitate how the state interacts with it’s citizens.” That’s led the group to work in opposition to the government, but also to cooperate with it.
Working (at odds) with the government
For civic hacking organizations living with corrupt governments, the prospect of cooperation can be a double-edged sword. Certainly there’s an opportunity to reach a wider audience, but there’s also the danger of one’s work being used by the government as a guise to appear more transparent to the public. That’s led Code for Romania to be very selective with who they partner with.
“People are quite against the way the country is governed right now, but we’re trying to identify those people in the government that are willing to push for change,” said Vereha.
The Code for Romania team sets a number of preconditions before considering collaboration with the government. The project must be open-source, and the team refuses to accept payment for their work. They are also conscious about their work being used as a source for “open-washing,” and clearly state that their work cannot be used for political purposes.
“It’s a safey net to make sure our project is used for the right purposes,” adds Vereha.
One partner willing to meet these conditions was Romania’s Ministry of Justice. The team created a data visualization of the ministry’s 2016–2020 National Anti-corruption Strategy, making it accessible and easy to understand for Romanians. The site also provides data sets on corruption indicators and integrity warnings.
That collaboration was fruitful enough for Code for Romania to work on a second project with the ministry. The team is now working with the National Agency for the Management of Seized Assets to create a database of seized assets from corruption-related activities. Citizens will be able to view how the assets are being handled and re-directed for resale. Any funds made from reselling goods will be converted into financial grants for local NGOs.
In the end, the team is tapping into a country-wide feeling of exasperation with where Romania is headed. In the past, a lack of government accountability and transparency led to a tragic series of events. By channeling the voices of civil society through digital tools, Code for Romania hopes to enact gradual change in the government.
First edit by Hsu Po-chun
Second edit by Aaron Wytze
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