Adi Eyal from Open Up shares a civic tech story with a message — it’s the *civic* that decides whether and how the tech will work
It never ceases to surprise me how people, technologists in particular, find solutions and then search for problems to solve. Despite knowing better, I have found myself doing the same thing. I often realise that I am developing a tool that addresses a problem that no-one really has. Programmers like to talk about premature optimisation being the root of all evil. I think that premature “solutioning” (I was assured that is this actually a real word) is a more common problem.
Having said that, it is important to accept that the world is complex, and there is often no way to anticipate how your contribution can affect it. There is a certain beauty in that. Once we concede this and design for complexity, we create a space for the emergence of something better, far beyond our initial goals.
This story was first published by the Civic Tech Innovation Network, a Wits Journalism project. Please click on the following link to read the full article: Editorial: Liberate, then let users lead
