Connecting Citizens and their Government

February 1, 2013
Jorge Soto | CitiVox

Society shapes technology but, equally, its use is determined by the conditions in which a society lives. In Mexico, Twitter is a tool for alerting citizens of daily drug-violence related risks. The internet has a democratization effect and is opening up spaces for participation, transparency and accountability. The use of technology is key to creating stronger links within communities and to enhancing the delivery of crucial government services. CitiVox has helped track and monitor elections in Mexico, Venezuela, Yemen, Benin and Ukraine. It helps NGOs and civic organizations track and document violence against journalists in Mexico and Central America, violence against children, community building and citizen reports in the north of Mexico and Bogota, congress transparency and accountability in Mexico, Peru and Argentina, among other civic innovation projects.

Speaker Details

Jorge Soto has been involved in the design and implementation of projects that uses technology to empower citizens and institutions in Mexico, Latinamerica and Africa. In 2010 he founded CitiVox, a start-up that uses technology to enhance the communication between citizens and their institutions. From helping NGOs in Benin, Yemen or Venezuela track elections to enabling policemen in Honduras or citizens in the north of Mexico to build a state-of-the-art real time crime database, CitiVox empowers citizens, community leaders and government officials to turn citizen reports into actionable information. At 27, he is the youngest Endeavor global entrepreneur in the world and was selected as one of the top 10 Mexican entrepreneurs by Time-Warner magazine. In late 2011 he was selected Young Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum and invited, together with other 30 Global Shapers in the Americas, to represent the millennial generation in Davos during the World Economic Forum in 2012. In early 2012 he was selected as part of the Sandbox Network and in May 2012 he received the TR35 recognition from MIT and Technology Review as one of the top 10 innovators under 35 years old in Mexico. He is currently an Ashoka Fellow candidate.