MySociety

Social enterprise empowering people worldwide through technology. Provides online tools to help communities campaign for change.

Achieved with CookiesHQ since August 2017

10+
app downloads
5 weeks
mobile app built
2
language translations released

Giving people the power to facilitate change

In 1996, a small group of coders came together to discuss a shared passion. They wanted to explore how the internet could give everyone easier access to the political process. This group became UKCOD (UK Citizens Online Democracy). In 2003, government advisor Tom Steinberg and UKCOD came together to set up mySociety, a not-for-profit enterprise that empowers people to get things changed through technology.

In over 40 countries worldwide, mySociety’s web tools and apps are breaking down the barriers around governments. After launching their successful ‘Fix My Street’ and ‘Write to Them’ applications in the UK, their aim became to fill the gap when reporting criminal events further abroad. In the Dominican Republic, crime is prolific and incidents aren’t often reported by local citizens. This can be due to fear of police corruption, lack of belief in a resolution or difficulty to find the person or place to report an incident to.

Using their internal resources, mySociety created the web application ‘Yo Denuncio’, a web platform that allows the public to share information related to a crime anonymously with the National Police.

“Working with Cookies was really smooth and simple. The project was delivered on time with virtually no hitches, so we’re very happy!”
Jen Bramley, International Projects Manager at mySociety

Searching for a specialist

Most people now use mobile devices to take photos and create videos on the go. And most are keen to help prevent and solve crimes in their community. MySociety realised that a ‘Yo Denuncio’ mobile app could become an essential tool in collecting evidence for police investigations.

As mySociety’s internal resources were limited, they began searching for a particular type of agency to partner with. They required a team experienced with app development and release and the skills to work with their existing API.

We met with mySociety and were completely behind the app from the start. We partnered with their international project manager and lead developer and were able to quickly identify the requirements and understand their existing technologies. We developed rapid prototypes on real devices to enable swift iterations of the mobile app. With a tight time constraint for the launch, we managed to turn around a full MVP of the ‘Yo Denuncio’ mobile app and publish it to stores.

Technologies used: Android and iOS apps, Ionic 3 and Ionic Pro