Restart Romania

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ReStart Romania is a partnership between the U.S. Embassy and TechSoup Romania, which began in 2010 with a grant of $80,000 to support transparency and promote grass roots efforts to fight corruption in Romania.

TechSoup Romania, which developed the site ReStart Romania, aims to bring together Romanians from across the country to find technology-based solutions to common, social justice problems – and it has succeeded. In the first ReStart Romania challenge, 144 people posted proposals for using social media to tackle corruption and improve governance, ideas to ReStart Romania. From mid-July through mid-September the ideas were developed, debated on-line, gained constituencies, and then went through an on-line vote where nearly a 1,000 Romanians cast their votes for the best proposals. A jury made up of civic activists, business leaders, diplomats representing the American, Austrian, British, Canadian German and Spanish embassies and the media selected ten of the proposals as finalists on October 1st. The finalist ideas were as diverse as the problems they are trying to solve, and included proposals for programs to support citizen efforts to combat petty corruption; hold politicians accountable for campaign promises and performance in office; monitor public spending and participate in the legislative process. The ideas are being developed into websites so that the online discussion leads to offline change.

On November 5, 2011, more than 200 people participated in a live SMS text messaging vote to select the winners of the ReStart Romania challenge. The 5 winners each received grants of $5000 to support the continuation of their projects.

The five winning ideas included projects to:

• Report corruption in the health system through a mobile app and an SMS service.
• Collect information on an Internet platform on all politicians’ promises in times of campaigns and estimate the cost of the pledges.
• Map deforestation in Romania made by analyzing satellite images.
• Centralize all public financial information of projects with public funding.
• Enable citizens to report how much they paid for an ostensibly free public service.

In just over three months, the ReStart Romania website received more than 200,000 hits from 75,000 unique individuals and brought together more than 40 programmers from across Romania and 30 private sector partners, such as Microsoft and Google, and local companies like PRAS Consulting and NextRoot. More than 2000 people established profiles on the site. The media partners were equally diverse, from Internet bloggers to traditional print media like the Wall Street Journal. Bogdan Șerban of Radio Guerrilla said: "This is the most courageous initiative in the Romanian online.”

Based on the success of ReStart Romania, US and British Embassies, TechSoup Romania and the Central and Eastern European Trust for Civil Society will again partner with major IT brands to build on the momentum of the first ReStart, sourcing and building new ideas to engage Romanians offline in participatory democracy initiatives. Additionally, ReStart has provided a model for others and the campaign will cover six countries in 2012/2013, leading to a regional network and awareness about the ability for the Internet to mobilize citizens for positive change.

In 2012, more partners are joining ReStart Romania, and a bigger campaign will gather ideas from all over the country. The program will be launched in September, in a kick-off event that will bring together programmers, civic activists, journalists, representatives of the diplomatic community and social entrepreneurs.

Meet the 2011 Finalists

Who Promised What
http://www.cineceapromis.ro
launched on 22nd of March 2012

A site collecting and publishing electoral promises, evaluates costs and publishes to help citizens make informed decisions while encouraging citizens to give input and debate on community priorities. Citizens can submit proof of the politicians’ promises and debate fulfillment during electoral mandate. Hopes to encourage citizen monitoring and to hold politicians accountable while in office.

As of June 2012, the platform had over 3745 unique visitors, and partner with www.alegericorecte.ro and www.hartapoliticii.ro (2 other elections monitoring platforms) to offer a wide range of information for Romanian citizens. But cineceapromis.ro organizes offline activities too: for the Romanian local elections in June, they have organized 2 offline debates between citizens and local candidates: in Bucharest, but also in small town in Arges county in Romania – and managed 7 lively discussion forums between candidates and online visitors of the website.

MedAlert
http://www.medalert.ro
launched on 10th of May 2012

SMS and online reporting systems automatically sending reports to authorities after having been validated by the admin team. Regularly updating the media ensures public attention to encourage and assist relevant authorities to regain control over their system.

As of June 2012, MedAlert had over 4000 unique visitors, over 20000 hits, and struggling to process more than 800 reports (in queue) filled by citizens on issues like corruption or poor medical services.

Deforestation Map
http://harta.plantamfaptebune.ro
launched on 16th of May 2012

A map of deforestation, based on satellite images and citizen mobile reporting, sheds light on the problems proportion, directs environmental organizations to areas most in need, and could put pressure on authorities who allow the abuse. The map is part of an ongoing effort of the idea leaders to replant Romania’s forest, under the name of “We plant good deeds”

More than 242 forest cuts reports were validated on the platform until June 2012.

The “We plant good deeds” project won a first prize in the annual Romania Civil Society Award Gala in June 2012.

Lost Money
http://www.banipierduti.ro
launched on 23rd of May 2012

A platform to centralize all public financial information (public budgets, annual balance sheets) about publicly funded projects. The aim is to make authorities more aware of the way they spend public money and generate a map of public spending. Shedding light on the flow of public funding, authorities may be encouraged to be more responsible and transparent.

Almost 6500 citizens visited the website until June 2012.

Bribery Market
http://www.piatadespaga.ro
to be launched in September

One in three Romanians admit to having offered a bribe. Information about the “price” of a certain “service,” is transferred in a secretive, informal manner, allowing those who ask for bribe to adjust and modify value depending on the victim.

By building a map where the “prices” are disclosed, people will choose the “cheapest” services and perhaps in time market economics combined with enforcement may lead to the elimination of bribery. The platform enables citizens to report where they did or did not have to pay a bribe. Citizens may compare bribe amounts and rank ‘satisfaction’ with the amount paid.

Orasul meu 2020
http://www.orasulmeu2020.ro
launched in June 2012

Razvan and Monica, two tech-savvy citizen decided to build a unique instrument of reporting the abusive occupation of sidewalks by illegally parked cars.

67 reports were logged in the first month of the project and more the 3000 people visited the website.