Build for Public in practice.
Building for the public starts with the many initiatives and technologies already out there — built with the same values we share here. Technologies, collectives, programmes, and initiatives: working on the public interest can take many forms.
A necessarily short, subjective, and totally incomplete list.
🌍 Global
OpenStreetMap
↗A free, editable map of the world built by volunteers. The gold standard for community-owned infrastructure — open data, forever.
🌍 Global
Signal
↗Private messaging built by a nonprofit. Proved that a small team with the right values can out-ship Big Tech on privacy — and forced the industry to follow.
🌍 Global
Wikipedia
↗Free knowledge for every human on the planet. The largest collaborative knowledge project ever built — run by a nonprofit, edited by volunteers.
🌍 GlobalKhan Academy
↗Free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. Built as a nonprofit to serve the students that private capital ignores.
🌍 Global
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
↗Crisis mapping that saves lives. Volunteers map disaster zones in real time so aid workers know where to go.
🌍 GlobalLet's Encrypt
↗Free TLS certificates for everyone. Turned HTTPS from a paid luxury into the default for the entire web by removing a structural barrier.
🌍 GlobalTor Project
↗Anonymous internet access for journalists, activists, and anyone who needs it. Privacy as a public good, not a premium feature.
🌍 GlobalPublic Lab
↗Community science tools for environmental monitoring. Puts air and water quality research in the hands of residents — not just labs.
🇲🇾 MalaysiaMyMP
↗Track Malaysian Members of Parliament — voting records, attendance, and accountability data. Open-source civic transparency.
🇲🇾 Malaysia
Sedekah.je
↗Open-source donation directory connecting donors to verified causes across Malaysia. Community-maintained, no middlemen.
🇲🇾 MalaysiaLepak Masjid
↗Find mosques, prayer times, and community events near you. Built for Malaysian Muslim communities.
🇲🇾 Malaysia
Pasar Malam
↗Crowdsourced night market directory mapping locations and schedules across Malaysia. Open data, volunteer-maintained.
🇲🇾 MalaysiaMesolitica / malaysia-ai
↗Malaysian AI lab building open multimodal models, Bahasa Malaysia LLMs (MaLLaM), and local datasets. Making state-of-the-art AI accessible in Malaysian languages.
🇲🇾 Malaysia
data.gov.my
↗Malaysia's official open data portal — government datasets on economy, health, education, demographics, and more. Public data as a public good.
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