Chris Spence, Chief Technology Officer of the National Democratic Institute, shared the National Democratic Institute's approach to the question of how technology can best be used for creating and advancing democracy in closed societies. There have been many recent developments in this space, including the publication of Blogs and Bullets (a report on new media in contentious politics), the closing of Haystack, and the occurrence of Google's Internet at Liberty conference in Budapest. However, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) has been working in this area for several years, and today works in more than 70 countries across the world.

 So how does NDI integrate technology into its programming? The "practitioner's perspective" on how to leverage technological tools most effectively in closed societies has four essential components.

 First, practitioners must think strategically and adopt a rights-based approach. NDI's work focuses on increasing political space in order to promote and advance peaceful political reform. The long-term goal is for all people to have the opportunity to enjoy human rights, freedom of expression, and other rights laid out in the UN Human Rights Declaration. To give an example of this approach, if a NDI partner's plan is to document the abuse around an election, the strategic steps taken might include:

• 1. Seizing the data. How to collect information? Perhaps a low technology solution might be best.
• 2. Analyze, digest, prepare the data for messaging. Aggregate info and crunch numbers. Edit media content.
• 3. Get the word out through a holistic communications strategy that incorporates both online and offline outreach.

Second, programming must be technology enabled, not technology-driven. The goal is to use technology as a multiplier to increase impact, rather than to allow the type of technology selected to drive program design. In NDI's view, the most successful technology-enabled democracy programs have three key characteristics:

• 1. Strong organizations.
• 2. Good enabling technology.
• 3. Well-planned actions.

Spence terms this combination the "Golden Triangle," and suggests that NDI's work with Zimbabwean civic groups in 2008 represents an illustration of how effective it can be. During the 2008 presidential elections, a strong civic group called the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, or ZESN, used parallel vote tabulation as a monitoring strategy. They also employed mobile communication technologies to gather information from across the country and project the result of the election before the official results were reported. ZESN projected that Morgan Tsvangarai of the opposition party had won the election, which ultimately led to the formation of a unity government. This approach was highly successful at least in part because the ruling party, which is known as ZANU-PF, lacked the technical sophistication necessary to anticipate ZESN's effectiveness.

Third, security is a major consideration in NDI's work. The fact is that working in closed regimes entails risks, and every effort must be taken to educate citizens and activists about the risks that they face. Although technological sophistication varies in closed societies, some states (like China) have a very strong grip on technology, and many have a technological edge on activist civic groups. Utilizing technology to advance activists' struggle can be "a risky business," since an individual's security cannot be guaranteed in these contexts. NDI does risk assessments of technology and local knowledge in order to minimize activists' risks.

Fourth, fragile democracies offer big opportunities. Spence emphasized that fragile democracies need attention, as well as closed societies and authoritarian regimes. Since NDI only works in response to requests for assistance from civil groups within countries, most of NDI's work is done in more established democracies where there is at least some space for political activity. The problem of fragile and regressive democracies is a widespread one; 14 of 17 post-Soviet Union countries became more repressive in 2009. Since fragile democracies have a little bit of political space and civil freedoms, these spaces offer "windows of opportunity" for change.

Even in very unstable circumstances, however, NDI can offer various examples of how technology can make gains for democracy. Although Afghanistan's government had released election information in a print format, as required by new transparency laws, this 2,500 page document was not very accessible. NDI and its partners created a website to translate this 2,500 page pdf document into an interactive mapping tool. By making election information both available and accessible, AfghanistanElectionData.org represents one interesting example of how NDI and its partners are working to use technology-enabled programming to advance democratic values.