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Luke Jordan

Partner Affiliate

email lukej@mit.edu

twitter @@lukesjordan

Luke Jordan is Founder and Executive Director of Grassroot (South Africa) and is a long-time partner affiliate of MIT GOV/LAB. In 2021, he was the MIT GOV/LAB practitioner-in residence (intro Q+A). At MIT, Luke launched a guide for practitioners on building civic technology (Don’t Build It) and explored different ways artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) can advance democracy. See links below to the guide and exploratory research.

Projects

  • News May 2025

    The Geography of AI Adoption: New Usage Data Offers a Glimpse on Which Economies May See Greater Impact

    Guest post by Former MIT GOV/LAB Practitioner in Residence Luke Jordan and co-authors on AI's impact on jobs and the economy.

  • Research March 2025

    Minding the Gap: Aid Effectiveness, Project Ratings and Contextualization

    Former MIT GOV/LAB Practitioner in Residence Luke Jordan and co-authors publish in The World Bank Economic Review on training a machine learning model on World Bank projects.

  • News March 2024

    [Policy Paper] AI and the Future of Government: Unexpected Effects and Critical Challenges

    Luke Jordan, MIT GOV/LAB 2021 practitioner-in-residence, shares a new policy paper from the Policy Center for the New South

  • News October 2023

    Contextualization is Key: The Importance of Tailoring Development Projects to Local Needs

    A working paper co-authored by MIT GOV/LAB partner affiliate Luke Jordan uses a machine learning model to show that development projects that are tailored to a country’s context are tied to successful development outcomes

  • Research July 2023

    Minding the Gap Aid Effectiveness, Project Ratings and Contextualization

    Former MIT GOV/LAB Practitioner in Residence Luke Jordan co-authors a paper on training a machine learning model on World Bank projects.

  • Resources April 2021

    Don't Build It. A Guide for Practitioners in Civic Tech

    This guide by practitioner-in-residence Luke Jordan aims to help you avoid bad projects, structure the team right, ship and learn quicker, and mature longer. Available in English, Spanish, and Japanese.

  • Research February 2020

    A Novel Approach to Civic Pedagogy: Training Grassroots Organizers on WhatsApp

    Research results from a collaborative project with Grassroot, a civic technology organization based in South Africa.

  • News October 2022

    [Code for Japan Summit] Why Good Ideas Fail

    A graphic illustration and video of Luke Jordan, MIT GOV/LAB 2021 practitioner-in-residence, presenting at the 2022 Code for Japan Summit on "Don't Build It. A Guide for Practitioners in Civic Tech".

  • News February 2022

    What’s Next for AI/ML in Governance? Reflections on a Year of Exploration

    Takeaways on advancing AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine learning) for democracy and governance, what is hype, what is promising, and who needs to learn some coding.

  • News December 2021

    Predicting Development Aid Outcomes with Machine Learning

    New research by Luke Jordan, MIT GOV/LAB practitioner-in-residence, explores elements of focus and contextualization as key to predicting the outcomes of development aid.

  • News November 2021

    [Nov. 17 Webinar]: Evaluating 20,000+ World Bank Development Projects: Can Machine Learning Help Predict which Projects Will Succeed or Fail?

    MIT GOV/LAB Practitioner-in-Residence Luke Jordan presents exploratory research applying machine learning to a brand new dataset scraped from the World Bank’s public archives.

  • News October 2021

    Using AI to Finance the Things That Matter

    Trying to make public infrastructure easier to fund and more accessible to the public using AI models.

  • News June 2021

    [Stack Overflow Podcast] Don’t Build It – Advice on Civic Tech

    Ben Popper at Stack Overflow chatted with Innocent Ndubuisi-Obi and Luke Jordan about the unique challenges you face when trying to solve civic problems with software.

  • News March 2021

    DeepShake: From Shakespeare to Legal Tech

    Luke Jordan, MIT GOV/LAB practitioner-in-residence, shares a new project testing machine and transfer learning, text generation applications to the law.

  • News February 2021

    A Conversation with Luke Jordan, MIT GOV/LAB’s Practitioner-in-Residence

    Jordan talks about his guide for designing civic technology and his research into ways artificial intelligence and machine learning can be used to advance democracy in the developing world.

  • News May 2020

    How to Teach Grassroots Organising and Leadership on WhatsApp

    Our work with Grassroot, teaching community organisers on WhatsApp, was featured on the Mobilisation Lab site.

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