Code for Japan
Code for Japan is the Japanese node of the international Code for All network, bringing the civic-tech model — citizens using technology to solve local problems in partnership with government — to Japan. The organisation runs an open community on Slack and Notion where anyone can participate in projects spanning open data, disaster response technology, and digital government transformation.
A landmark project is the co-development of Kakogawa City's Civic Participation Decision-Making Platform, which enables citizens to participate directly in municipal policy decisions through digital tools — one of the more developed examples of government-adopted civic tech in Japan. Code for Japan also runs regular development events, talk events, and a "Civic Tech Fun! Fun! Report!" monthly newsletter (running through July 2026).
Japan's civic-tech scene is less dense than equivalents in Taiwan (g0v, vTaiwan) or Korea, but Code for Japan is the established institutional anchor. The emergence of Team Mirai as a parliamentary party advocating e-democracy creates a potential new pathway for civic-tech infrastructure to connect with formal political power — an unusual configuration globally.
Links
- Website: code4japan.org
See also
History
- 2013-10-25 Founded as the Japanese node of Code for All, bringing civic tech to JapanFounding of the organisation
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2020-03-03
Built and launched Tokyo's official COVID-19 data dashboard for the metropolitan government in 5 daysWidely-replicated flagship civic-tech product
Sourcing: High
the Tokyo Metropolitan Government commissioned a non-government organization, Code for Japan (CfJ), to build a website to display their open-data ... on COVID-19 on February 26. CfJ developed and launched the website ... on March 3 after only five days.
Peer-reviewed source (Frontiers in Public Health, via PMC/NCBI). The dashboard's open-source code was widely forked — 30+ regional adaptations by other Japanese prefectures and by Taiwan — and translated into 8 languages.
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