Anowa Quarcoo leads a passionate group that’s using technology to make Toronto a better — and fairer — place to live

Anowa Quarcoo isn’t the type to sit and watch TV when there’s something–anything–you can do. The 35-year-old, who currently works in strategy and planning at Loblaws, recently earned a dual master’s degree. in Global Affairs and Business Administration – out of boredom. “For me, boredom is often a signal that it’s time to learn something or try something different,” Quarcoo says.

When she’s not busy with her day job, Quarcoo spends her time working with others to find ways to use technology to improve civic engagement in Toronto. Having grown up in Kenya and Uganda, Quarcoo says having access to a computer has been a privilege not everyone has. “I was also aware that the internet was not created for someone like me, who lives on the African continent, and has a completely different perspective and story,” she says.

Quarcoo’s own experience as well as her desire to see more representation in city issues led her to civic piracy. While “hacking” may conjure up images of ’90s action stars wearing head-to-toe leather breaking into a main computer, Quarcoo explains, civic diversity is about “using technology and human-centered design to solve problems.”

Take the city budget for example. She asks, “How wonderful it would be to understand how your money goes into public coffers.” “How does this process work? If we make a tool that allows you to do that, that is civilian hacking.”

“There’s an old saying in the civil tech community that no one’s coming, it’s up to us,” she says. So, he founded Quarcoo Civic Tech Toronto six years ago with a few like-minded individuals. Since then, it has hosted more than 300 “Hacknights,” otherwise known as meetings.

Budgetpedia, one of Civic Tech’s first large projects, aims to make municipal budgets accessible and purposefully searchable, so that citizens can engage in informed debate and advocate for change.

Inspired by Chi Hack Nights, where Chicagoans gather weekly to create, share, and learn in the service of the common good, Civic Tech Toronto meets every Tuesday night (excluding holidays). We are a combination of tech and public policy [makers], Comms, activists — people from all kinds of fields of technology, all from different points of view,” Quarcoo says. “We are not a homogeneous group.”

Quarcoo recalls a Hacknight participant in her 70s who had a passion for creating a fair city. “It was a treasure trove of information,” Quarcoo says. “So even though it didn’t understand how the technology was built, it did understand the problems and the players in a way that the developers might not.” One conversation focused on city-owned apartment buildings. “What it brought was a good understanding of the big issues, including the barriers that affected them,” Quarcoo says.

A typical Hacknight includes a guest speaker and time for proposals. Projects included modeling novel coronavirus infections, sharing shelter capacity data for the homeless and advocating for suburban cycling.

Quarcoo’s flagship project is Women and Color. Civic Tech Toronto has helped the organization build its new website so it can work to address the shortage of women and people speaking of color at tech conferences. Women and Color makes it easy for conference planners to find subject matter experts and address gender and racial underrepresentation. “Straight white men, they are not the only ones working in technology,” Quarcoo says.

When asked what’s next, in the spirit of Civic Tech, Quarcoo put the question to the community at a meeting. “In the next few months, we’re exploring ways to experiment with our hybrid event offerings, as everyone experiences a little bit of Zoom stress,” Quarcoo says. “We’re also thinking about how we can include Civic Tech Toronto in and interact with more communities outside of the physical Toronto zip code – especially since people from all over the world have been able to join our virtual events.”

As for Quarcoo, she’s still far from bored. She recently joined the CivicAction Leadership Foundation’s Emerging Leaders Network Executive Committee as Co-Chair to help keep people engaged. “People are passionate about civic issues,” she says. “They are excited about living in a city that does well for others, which is fair. At the core of people, no matter what profession you are, you want to live in a city that does well.”