We are surrounded by people who want to do things well. Engineers, mathematicians and physicists who understand that ethics, privacy and an understanding of the legal and social impact of their developments is crucial to building better tech -and are doing so. Social scientists committed to using their knowledge and tools to grasp how technological processes are impacting in our societies and mitigating negative externalities. Non-profits that fight for digital rights day in and day out. Companies, large and small, that are seeking ways to build trust with their partners and citizens by improving their data practices. Funders who want to put their resources where their mouth is and contribute to this endeavor. We want to bring all these actors together, virtually and physically, to provide visibility to the narratives and practices that are emerging.

We have established a number of general conditions to be met by organizations and initiatives selected to join the Civic Tech Lab:

• Mission: the mission of the organization or initiative must address one of the Sustainable Development Goals the United Nations and also promote research and action on the interaction between society and data .
• Values: organizations or initiatives that want to access the space must have specific measures to promote transparency and accountability, respect for labor rights and the diversity of teams, the ability to plan for the long term, guarantees of compliance with its legal obligations and mechanisms for return and social impact.
• Impact: Organizations and initiatives will need to establish explicit and measurable impact indicators, and establish a timetable for evaluating results and impact. They will need to incorporate measures to involve the communities they intend to influence and, where appropriate, they will have to carry out risk assessments and impact(covering ethical, societal, algorithmic or security aspects).
• Product: if initiatives or projects plan to develop a technology product, they should work to ensure that their idea responds to a real problem (and not the availability of technology), which incorporates measures to promote privacy, to mitigate algorithmic discrimination and make data processes transparent, that products are safe and sustainable (thus ruling out measures of programmed obsolescence), that use open source and that comply with the General Regulation Data Protection.