Civic Meetup #545: Smol Gardens: Accountable AI for Civic Tech
Ready to join in on the fun?
Topic: Smol Gardens: Accountable AI for Civic Tech
The Smol Gardens project is an approach to building civic tech grounded in continuous accountability to affected communities, transparency about tradeoffs, and openness to critique to strengthen community agency and democratic self-governance. In the presentation, we'll share the current state of AI-enabled web design, a self-auditing impact framework, and small language models as a good alternative to LLMs.
In the hands-on breakout workshop, participants will apply the framework by vibecoding a simple AI application using a small language model and evaluating its impact in three core areas: human and societal impact, future systems, and environmental responsibility. This workshop is for designers, builders and civic technologists who are already using AI tools in their work but feel caught between the pressure to move fast and the need to build responsibly.
Smol Gardens is an initiative by the Femmecubator team, introduced at BetaNYC's UnSchool of Data 2026 conference, and pitched as part of the Open Civic Tech initiative.
Speakers: Krizia Fernando & Kris Rubiano
Krizia Fernando is a product design lead at Evernorth. She's worked in education, nonprofits and IoT, building toolkits and systems that help product teams work more inclusively. As co-founder of Femmecubator, a nonprofit supporting BIPOC Women in Tech, Krizia designs open source products and teaches workshops on emerging technologies.
Kris Rubiano is a project manager specializing in civic technology and machine learning. From design to data, they guide the evolution of LLM platforms and community initiatives to ensure technology remains an inclusive resource rather than a barrier.
Agenda:
7:00-7:20 Welcome and Introductions
7:20-7:50 Presentation and Q&A/discussion
7:50-9:00 Breakout groups
Code of Conduct:
Check in with us on the Civic Tech Toronto Slack:
https://link.civictech.ca/chat
About Us:
Our weekly civic meetups bring together Torontonians (designers, coders, urban planners, government staff, mappers, policy-makers, students, communications strategists, community organizers, and more) who share an interest in making Toronto more responsive, prosperous, sustainable, and equitable through design, tech, and data.
Interested in speaking at a future event, or know someone who'd be a great speaker? We'd love to hear from you:
https://link.civictech.ca/speaker-suggestions
Have a space that could host up to 80 civic-minded folks for an evening? Consider recommending your venue:
https://link.civictech.ca/venue-suggestions
Come and be part of it!
For more info:
Platform Sponsors
Torc is a community-first platform bringing together remote-first software engineer and developer opportunities from across the globe. Join a network that’s all about connection, collaboration, and finding your next big move — together.
Join our community today!
Don't let broken lines of code, busted API calls, and crashes ruin your app. Join the 4M developers and 90K organizations who consider Sentry “not bad” when it comes to application monitoring. Use code “guild” for 3 free months of the team plan.
https://sentry.io
Ready to join in on the fun?
Platform Sponsors
Torc is a community-first platform bringing together remote-first software engineer and developer opportunities from across the globe. Join a network that’s all about connection, collaboration, and finding your next big move — together.
Join our community today!
Don't let broken lines of code, busted API calls, and crashes ruin your app. Join the 4M developers and 90K organizations who consider Sentry “not bad” when it comes to application monitoring. Use code “guild” for 3 free months of the team plan.
https://sentry.io
Civic Meetup #545: Smol Gardens: Accountable AI for Civic Tech
Topic: Smol Gardens: Accountable AI for Civic Tech
The Smol Gardens project is an approach to building civic tech grounded in continuous accountability to affected communities, transparency about tradeoffs, and openness to critique to strengthen community agency and democratic self-governance. In the presentation, we'll share the current state of AI-enabled web design, a self-auditing impact framework, and small language models as a good alternative to LLMs.
In the hands-on breakout workshop, participants will apply the framework by vibecoding a simple AI application using a small language model and evaluating its impact in three core areas: human and societal impact, future systems, and environmental responsibility. This workshop is for designers, builders and civic technologists who are already using AI tools in their work but feel caught between the pressure to move fast and the need to build responsibly.
Smol Gardens is an initiative by the Femmecubator team, introduced at BetaNYC's UnSchool of Data 2026 conference, and pitched as part of the Open Civic Tech initiative.
Speakers: Krizia Fernando & Kris Rubiano
Krizia Fernando is a product design lead at Evernorth. She's worked in education, nonprofits and IoT, building toolkits and systems that help product teams work more inclusively. As co-founder of Femmecubator, a nonprofit supporting BIPOC Women in Tech, Krizia designs open source products and teaches workshops on emerging technologies.
Kris Rubiano is a project manager specializing in civic technology and machine learning. From design to data, they guide the evolution of LLM platforms and community initiatives to ensure technology remains an inclusive resource rather than a barrier.
Agenda:
7:00-7:20 Welcome and Introductions
7:20-7:50 Presentation and Q&A/discussion
7:50-9:00 Breakout groups
Code of Conduct:
Check in with us on the Civic Tech Toronto Slack:
https://link.civictech.ca/chat
About Us:
Our weekly civic meetups bring together Torontonians (designers, coders, urban planners, government staff, mappers, policy-makers, students, communications strategists, community organizers, and more) who share an interest in making Toronto more responsive, prosperous, sustainable, and equitable through design, tech, and data.
Interested in speaking at a future event, or know someone who'd be a great speaker? We'd love to hear from you:
https://link.civictech.ca/speaker-suggestions
Have a space that could host up to 80 civic-minded folks for an evening? Consider recommending your venue:
https://link.civictech.ca/venue-suggestions
Come and be part of it!
For more info:
Get in touch!
hi@guild.host