Luke Jordan
Research 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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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".
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.