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Watch out! Internet connections worldwide may have been slower past weekend! Last weekend hundreds of hackers, programmers, designers and anti-corruption experts and activists in Bogotá, Budapest, Casablanca, Jakarta, Moscow and Vilnius gathered last weekend to develop new ICT tools that can help citizens monitor government and report corruption. Websites like ipaidabribe.com in India and use of twitter in events like the Arab Spring have shown that technology can be a powerful vehicle for people power. Hacks Against Corruption (HAC) is Transparency International's first attempt to bring together technology and anti-corruption specialists to use technology to come up with some of the challenges we face in fighting corruption: visualising the cost of corruption, monitoring complex, massive public budgets and allowing citizens to safely report corruption in their life.

This week, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman launched NYOpenGovernment.com, a new website that his office touts as a means for "voters, the media and government watchdogs hold state government accountable" by providing the public online access to government data on campaign contributions, lobbying, and state contracts. "Secrecy breeds corruption, while transparency generates confidence," Attorney General Schneiderman said, in a prepared statement. "New York Open Government will help the public keep an eye on what their government is doing in order to deter corruption and increase confidence in the public sector. This site is a one-stop-shop for New Yorkers demanding up-to-date and comprehensive information about their government."

Transparency International's transparency index measures each country in the world on corruption. See how they compare by clicking on each country. Use the dropdown menu to see how scores have changed since 2008

"En Russie, les citoyens utilisent Internet pour lutter contre la corruption. Grâce au site Bribr, ils peuvent publier et géolocaliser leurs témoignages de pots-de-vin versés. Une initiative déjà expérimentée avec succès en Inde."

A project exploring openness in city development. Cities are where creativity and culture flourish. They are home to many of our proudest achievements - great libraries and hospitals, schools and parks, art and culture. Cities are synonymous with civilisation, civic governance and progress. The diversity, bustle and trade of civic life makes cities dynamic, surprising and exciting. But cities are arguably where we are also at our worst. It is in cities that our biggest challenges are to be faced - inequality, poverty, crime, violence, environmental degradation, exploitation, corruption. These all thrive in cities as much as learning and culture. In many modern cities the good and the bad live alongside one another, as neighbours. Cities encourage mass innovation as people learn new habits from one another, observing what their fellow citizens are doing. Everything propagates faster in cities: fashion, ideas, disease.