HackCorruption: Fostering Innovation and Collaboration to Counter Transnational Corruption

Written by Juan Pane

Accountability Lab 's HackCorruption series brings together passionate anti-corruption activists committed to developing innovative civic tech solutions to counter corruption. The focus is primarily on four areas: 1) budget and ownership transparency, 2) open contracting and public procurement transparency, 3) digital citizenship to constrain corruption, and 4) climate finance transparency. Solutions proposed by participants are designed not only to create local impact but also to address the transnational aspects of corruption. In doing so, they highlight the need for scalable solutions and international cooperation that work across diverse legal and cultural landscapes. The United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Countering Transnational Corruption Grand Challenge for Development supported the two most recent hackathons in the HackCorruption series—one in Latin America and one in Southeast Asia.

I had the privilege of participating in the Latin American hackathon as a solver, where our team developed keyping.org, a tool designed to simplify the analysis of national and transnational information to identify potential irregularities in public procurement. Through this experience, I saw firsthand the potential for collaboration and innovation that these events offer. Subsequently, I served as a mentor for solvers during the Southeast Asia hackathon that focused on Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Drawing on my previous experience, I was able to help guide teams through the transnational challenges that they faced.

With a background in computer science, I often describe myself as having the hands of an engineer and the heart of a scientist. This means I am deeply passionate about developing and assisting in the design of practical tools that push the boundaries of innovation. I am particularly interested in expanding the ways in which science can be applied to effectively address corruption, including transnational corruption. 

HackCorruption participants come from a wide range of backgrounds, with teams that vary in composition, knowledge, experience, and skill sets. This diversity is crucial when proposing innovative solutions, particularly since cultural diversity plays a significant role when designing solutions to similar issues in different regions while taking the local context into account. For instance, differences in the types of social interactions at the local level in Latin America and Southeast Asia, as well as differences in internet penetration, are important factors to take into consideration when proposing budget transparency and civic participation tools. This diversity also fosters an enriching environment for cross-regional learning and sharing, where teams can learn how similar issues are tackled in other regions, increasing the potential effectiveness of proposed solutions.

A recurring challenge across several of the solutions proposed during the hackathons, including Caja Pública, Integrity Eyes, keyping.org, Lexicon BO, and Ojo a las Sanciones, is the issue of data collection and integration. This problem is exacerbated in transnational projects, where it is essential to identify whether the same entity—be it a person or a company—is mentioned across datasets from different countries and in different languages. Different teams across different regions could collaborate by sharing their solutions and algorithms or building their solutions on top of other teams’ services. Known as entity matching or entity disambiguation, this problem is also actively researched in academia. By fostering collaboration between teams and academia, where real-world datasets are used as examples, practical, reusable open-source tools can be developed to address these real-life corruption issues effectively.

Legal considerations are paramount in projects like Caja Pública. A deep dive into the legal contexts of different regions is necessary to mitigate the risks of wrongful accusations or by using “incorrect” legal terms, and to also identify potential legal loopholes that might unintentionally foster corruption. Incorporating direct on-the-ground evidence like photos, videos, and georeferenced data in citizen reporting mechanisms—as seen in projects like Integrity Eyes and Carbonitor—is crucial for enhancing the credibility and impact of citizen-driven anti-corruption efforts.

Another promising approach that stood out is building or enhancing projects around local civil society organizations already working on sectoral issues like construction, health, education, mining, and water management. These organizations provide invaluable local knowledge, aiding in the development of targeted strategies that are culturally and legally appropriate. Projects like Integrity Eyes are based on existing local initiatives that used the event as a platform for expanding their work while learning from their peers and mentors how to better design their interventions and scale up their work.

Scaling solutions from local to national to transnational levels introduces challenges, particularly in ensuring data availability and interoperability across diverse jurisdictions. Variations in legal and political contexts across countries impact the effectiveness of anti-corruption measures, showing the need for adaptable and carefully planned strategies. Communication barriers and language diversity also pose significant hurdles in coordinating international projects, especially in Southeast Asia, making the development of standardized communication protocols and the use of technology to bridge language gaps essential for effective implementation.

How HackCorruption Is Setting the Stage for Progress

Participation in events like HackCorruption provides innovators like myself with a very rare but much-needed playground where we can help accelerate change in crucial areas, including countering corruption at the transnational level. 

The HackCorruption series provides a critical platform, through which to offer mentorship and a learning environment where civic tech entrepreneurs can refine their designs, plan out their budgets and implementation strategies, and ultimately develop more effective solutions to the corruption challenges they aim to tackle. It also shows the importance of not only seeking out problem solvers but also strategically scaling up their efforts through established projects and coalitions. Mapping out corruption challenges, performing detailed systems analysis, and identifying crucial intervention points are vital for addressing both the symptoms and the roots of transnational corruption.

HackCorruption has set the stage for continued progress in the global fight to counter corruption, as we leverage every tool and insight at our disposal to create effective and enduring solutions.