Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente (Smart Citizen Foundation) is a pioneer of Latin American civic-tech/transparency NGOs, launched in 2009 in Santiago, Chile, by Felipe Heusser and others. It came just after Chile's freedom-of-information law took effect—but the procedure was complex and citizens barely used it. They first built Acceso Inteligente, letting people file information requests to multiple ministries anonymously from one site and publishing the responses. In under five years, over 5,000 requests were filed, and when the government itself opened a transparency portal in 2013, they closed their own site as its job was done—'we help democratic institutions mature through tools.' Since then it has run Vota Inteligente (comparing candidates' policies, replicated across the region), Del Dicho Al Hecho ('from what was said to what was done,' tracking presidential promises from bill to implementation; last year it had 2 million unique visitors from Chile—about a tenth of the population), ¿Quién te financia? (political-finance transparency prompted by the Pentagate scandal), and citizen proposals to the 2022 constitutional convention (15,000 signatures triggered mandatory debate). Its tools are open source, and it has trained activists in 14 countries.
●●○ medium
There is no confirmed −; independently verified + decide the position (B). No unreachable strike-through.= non-additive meter
Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente: Campaign promises won't be left as mere words. The letter is B; certainty is medium. Unconfirmed concerns are placed under “Watching.” (As of 2026-Q3; estimate based on public information.)
Main narrative
One person’s story (N1)
+ A single story
A +N1 (one person’s story) will be added once an independent source is confirmed.
Positive / negative effects
+ effects
- Founded in 2009. Just after the freedom-of-information law took effect, it built Acceso Inteligente centralizing requests to multiple ministries (over 5,000 in five years). When the government itself opened a transparency portal in 2013, it closed the site, its job done. 'Through these tools we help democratic institutions mature' (executive director Collada). In the Pentagate scandal it advanced political-finance transparency.P2 Independent (reporting) / Americas Quarterly
- The promise-tracker Del Dicho Al Hecho (from 2011) makes government's official proposals visible from bill introduction to implementation. Last year 2 million unique visitors from within Chile—nearly one in ten citizens—used it to check in real time whether leaders were keeping their promises. It is frequently cited on national news.P2 Independent (third-party) / Tech To The Rescue
− effects (confirmed)
- No confirmed −.
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- Measuring effect on trust/corruption; overcoming the capital/connectivity bias; quality of regional replication; implementation into institutional reform (elections, political finance); responding to disinformation and digital violence.
A second look
The plus is for citizens (People)—accountability of power, access to information, and making visible the distance between promise and reality—the very same work as this database's 'measuring the distance between story and reality'—with promise-tracking used by about a tenth of the population, a precedent of prompting government institutionalization and then stepping back, and regional replication. Caveats: the effect on democracy/transparency is inherently indirect, hard to measure as reduced corruption or restored trust; use tends to skew toward the capital and high-connectivity groups (research notes this); and the current director himself admits the limit that 'digital tools alone can't reach political and institutional inequality.' Recognizing the honest, pioneering plus but noting the indirectness, B/medium.
Sources
How to read this assessment
- Reachable upper bound (ceiling): a confirmed − sets the ceiling, and independently verified + decide the position within it. + do not cancel out −.
- The weight of evidence is not symmetric: only confirmed − are counted; the volume of disputes or allegations goes under “Watching.” + are counted from independent evidence, while an organization’s own PR is treated as “reference.”
- Size is not value: scale is not used in the assessment. Matters that stay within money or competition—investors, shareholders, sanctions, trade secrets—are also excluded.
- The letter (assessment) and certainty (how reliable the information is) are separate axes.
This is a translation; the Japanese version is authoritative. The assessments here are generated automatically by AI based on published criteria. The operator does not alter individual results. Because they are AI-generated they may contain errors, and they are opinion and commentary, not statements of fact. Where evidence is insufficient, the entry is marked “On hold.” Requests for correction are accepted via the form.
Terms: Narrative Value = an assessment (A–G) of the distance between the narrative an organization tells and its reality / Ceiling meter = a visualization of the reachable upper bound / Watching = unconfirmed matters not counted / Protected stakeholders = people, animals, nature, and future generations. | Generated by: AI | As of: 2026-Q3 | Back to top