# International Civic Tech Call (Russia-Ukraine)

The **purpose** of this resource is to track notes for calls amongst members of international #civictech communities, regarding opportunities to support those directly affected by the Ukraine-Russian conflict (with secondary purpose of disseminating info locally).

:::info
If you are reading this, then you're welcome to contribute to this doc and join any calls :hammer_and_pick:
:::

Meeting link: [`link.civictech.ca/gathertown`](https://link.civictech.ca/gathertown)

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**Table of Contents**
[TOC]

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## 2022-02-27
When? Sun, Feb 27 @ 10:30 ET / 12:30am Japan / 11:30pm Taiwan (45 min)
Who's here? bess (@taiwan), dai (@japan), patcon (@canada)
Where? https://link.civictech.ca/gathertown

**Summary**

- #decision will be communicating in `#ukraine` channel of g0v.tw Slack team. Join Slack! https://join.g0v.tw/
- members of g0v community are building a crisis resource for information and contribution opportunities around Ukraine-Russia conflict
- https://g0v.hackmd.io/@chihao/ukraine
- WIP english translation: https://g0v.hackmd.io/@xminglee/ukraine-en

**Notes**

- dai: what communities are you in?
- pc: 2-3 leading, ~20 involved
- pc: today update
- hosted polis user group call https://link.g0v.network/pug
- joined first twitter space and host is interested in piloting polis
- upcoming planning call with https://twitter.com/AkaashMaharaj (twitter space host)
- dai: goals for coming weeks?
- bess
- in g0v we always have some hackmd page for crises or events
- we always have some discussion there. lots of information. to let more TW people know the true situation
- not much true info in TV news, but most ppl watch that
- important bc china wishes to create misinfo, so important to fact-check for us
- don't know if we can support more or not
- any lessons we can learn from this war. how can TW protect itself
- ++ dai. putin becoming weaker.
- china also watching, and can learn from putin's mistakes, and make better moves
- and DAO Ukraine https://twitter.com/Ukraine_DAO
- watching anon activity: can we trust?
- bess: very different from civic tech
- don't know who they are
- pc: for me, anon just an info source (to fact check) and a source to recruit from (participants)
- dai: many speaking on social media in japan, seems ok
- diff goal in japan than taiwan?
- pc: inspired by how g0v reacts in crisis. and maybe coronovirus tech handbook effort.
- tried to create similar, but didn't push enough
- bess: had meetings for specific systems.
- meetings with covid japan to translate websites into japanese
- covid pad: https://g0v.hackmd.io/@yitzu/covid-19
- ukraine: https://g0v.hackmd.io/@chihao/ukraine
- english translation (WIP): https://g0v.hackmd.io/@xminglee/ukraine-en
- train crash: https://g0v.hackmd.io/c/20210402TarokoCrash
- bess: we have a template for these sorts of crises #todo
- heh not ACTUAL TEMPLATE
- maybe can try bilingual? can add more
- dia: what % speaks english in g0v/tw? bess: not sure. there are some. but we did it for the general people, and there are lots of immigrant labour in Taiwan.
- dia: do you spread english websites? what do you do with mandarin pages when you want to show to other countries people? are people negative about machine translation or are you ok?
- bess: have lots of ppl to translate into diff languages. but if you wish to help with ML, that's welcome too
- pc: cautious about using automation to replace low-hanging opportunities for people to become engaged. translators are also recruiters and they engage in other work after, etc etc
- dai: should we create a special channel or keep in general? bess: keep in general for now.
- japanese page for JP people. working on my own
- https://hackmd.io/@nWKaPeVFSTq39UK6ee8qLg/B1UKczFxc
- bess: create separate page
- cross-linking from each. front page g0v, and landing page for jp (also linked within g0v page)
- bess created new channel `#ukraine`
- decide no more daily calls
- interest in maybe a weekly call later (will decide later)
- #idea pc: help people get access to vkontakte (russian facebook). my old account was deleted, and accused of "suspicious activity" when i try to register again. maybe opportunity to help outsiders (civic tech, journalists, peacekeepers, activists, etc) get in and interact with russian people in their own digital home.
- pc: interested to share polis links there
- #idea matchmaking service for borrowing vkontakt accounts?

## 2022-02-26
When? Sat Feb 26 @ noon pm ET / 2am Japan (45 min)
Who's here? dai (japan), patcon (canada)

- at protest. russian nationals. stop swift. stop relations with putin. strongest action in japan.
- worried about ukraine prez
- intros
- startup. specialty math + ML. CEO of company so can control own time. peace is priority for JP. personally, grandma saw hiroshima.
- patcon. tech building power between people, instead of within people.
- missed
- daisuke: visited a town in 2014 of ppl who left russia. not happy with putin.
- what's the purpose is this war for regular russians
- intervention
- hopeful tracks
- consensus building across dividse with polis. disrupt reductions
- discussion black&white. option to action. appeal to the gov. petition. donation.
- name options.
- concrete actions are the right for you? normal citizens might be mini actions. cannot dedicate long hours to projects like this.
- maybe we could publish idea on hackmd.
- make my decision first and then publish.
- #idea create a doc hacknight
- assign
- secretary to copy-paste between
- prefer markdown
- human bridge
- don't code first, do manually
- doing
- tree structure
- toggle UI
- old email system. update. when ppl update. old g0v project
- centralize hackmd. email updates.
- hackmd, copy to gdrive.
- daisuke: universal access matters. more ppl.
- maybe PDF