Looking back on our journey over the years, from Open Data Durban to Open Cities Lab, we have continuously evolved our approach to maximise the impact of our work. We’ve evolved from project thinking to programme thinking and now embrace product thinking. But one thing has never changed: our commitment to making a meaningful, positive impact on the lives of the people and communities we serve. 

Project Thinking in Civic Tech: The Starting Point for OCL

OCL’s origins are deeply connected to two pivotal movements in civic tech history: the Brigade movement, initiated by Code for America, and the Open Data movement, which was more prominent in Europe. Both sought to harness the power of technology by mobilising technologists, designers, and civic organisers to collaborate with communities and governments to improve public services. Inspired by these efforts, similar initiatives emerged worldwide, including our partners at Code for South Africa (now OpenUp SA) and our beginnings as Open Data Durban. 

In its early days, the civic tech movement was driven by project thinking, with organisations acting as intermediaries to deliver short-term, focused initiatives. These projects typically consisted of pro bono tech and data support to civil society and governments, addressing societal challenges like governance, human rights, and transparency. While impactful, this approach often resulted in fragmented solutions that met immediate needs but lacked long-term scalability or sustainability. 

The mid-2000s marked a transformative shift in civil society as technology evolved from maintaining basic portfolio websites to harnessing the power of open data and civic tech, inspired by milestones like Tim Berners-Lee’s The Next Web TED Talk. This shift was both technological and deeply philosophical, echoing ideas from thinkers like Plato, whose Allegory of the Cave parallels the open data movement’s journey from ignorance to enlightenment - moving society from the shadows of inaccessible data into the light of transparency and understanding. 

We embraced this mission as Open Data Durban, seeking to guide communities, governments, and civil society toward a future of connection, actionable insights, and empowered decision-making through open data. For us, this involved creating tools and platforms like Durban Answers (later rebranded as MyRepresentative) and collaborating with organisations like Media Monitoring Africa to develop Dexter, an innovative tool for data journalism. 

Program-Thinking: The Bridge Between Short-Term Wins and Long-Term Impact

However, as we evolved, we recognised that while our focused projects delivered value, they often lacked the sustainability and scalability needed to drive lasting impact. Our initial efforts centred on supply-side solutions - publishing datasets and building platforms - but we saw the need to prioritise end-user problems and how these tools could drive meaningful change. This led us to adopt a more programmatic approach and define our three guiding pillars, which remain central to our work today: 

1. Empowering communities with access to information to make better decisions.
2. Supporting government as custodians of society to act transparently and effectively.
3. Strengthening civil society, recognising that it often steps in to address government failures. 

We didn’t set out to align with funders, but it naturally happened along the way. During this period, we transitioned to Open Cities Lab and became Africa’s first city-focused civic tech lab. This shift opened the door to significant funding opportunities, leading to initiatives like Africa Data Hub. As we matured as an organisation, we placed greater emphasis on impact. One of our most impactful decisions at the time was bringing design in-house, allowing us to prioritise user-centred design and focus more intensely on creating solutions that truly meet user needs. While programmes helped streamline our efforts, we realised they didn’t fully address the sustainability challenge. To drive long-term impact, our solutions must go beyond short-term funding cycles and be designed for adaptability, scalability, and relevance in the real world. That’s when we embraced product thinking. 

Building with Purpose: The Next Phase of Our Journey

Our journey from projects to programs, shaped by significant global developments in civic tech, has taught us valuable lessons about creating sustainable change. Through this evolution, we’ve realised that impactful solutions require more than just tools or frameworks. This understanding has propelled us into the next phase of our journey, placing relevance, scalability, and the human experience at the centre of our priorities. While we may one day evolve further, the shift from projects to programmes and now to products reflects a progression that was always at the heart of our work. In many ways, we’ve been working toward the idea of a product from the very beginning. 

As we shift towards product thinking, we’re not just changing our terminology - we’re refining our approach to building tools that truly serve people and communities. But what exactly does ‘product thinking’ mean in our context? And how does it shape the way we design solutions for long-term impact? We’ll explore these questions in the next blog. Stay tuned!