Built for people who need to see clearly.
A volunteer 501(c)(3) nonprofit building open tools for witnessing, civic participation, public accountability, and data ownership. We started with livestreams in 2020. The mission has grown; the principle hasn't — technology should help people understand the world without asking permission first.
Technology should widen the field of view. It should make the record easier to check, the ballot easier to understand, and personal data easier to keep close.
We build open-source tools that do that work in public. Some help people witness events as they happen. Some help voters see what's on the ballot. Some preserve the record so power can be questioned with receipts. Some help people bring their own data home.
We give these tools away because control over information shouldn't depend on platform access, budget, or institutional permission.
Three pillars guide the work.
These names have been with TOPEYE from the beginning. They still describe how we build: solve the concrete problem, strengthen the people around it, and leave more possibilities open than we found.
Compile solutions
TOPEYE projects start with a real need: watch many livestreams at once, know what's on a ballot, search the public record, or understand personal data without surrendering it to someone else.
We prefer sturdy, useful software over grand theory. If a tool helps people see more clearly and act with more freedom, we write the code in the open.
Upgrade community
A tool is never just a tool. It shapes who can participate, who can be heard, and who can keep going when the usual systems fail.
We build for streamers, voters, organizers, researchers, developers, and neighbors. The work is stronger when the people closest to the problem can inspect it, improve it, and make it their own.
Expand possibilities
Perspective changes what people believe is possible. A livestream can make a distant event immediate. A ballot lookup can turn confusion into action. A searchable record can make accountability harder to avoid. A self-hosted data tool can turn extraction into ownership.
We build for those moments when better information opens a wider path.
Open from the beginning.
TOPEYE began in 2020, during the protests, when people needed better ways to see what was happening on the ground in real time. Livestreamers were documenting public life from street level — often faster and more clearly than institutions could. Our first work helped amplify and preserve those streams.
The name is a nod to that instinct. Top eye comes from an 1851 abolitionist broadside in Boston, which urged people to stay watchful when the authorities meant to protect them could not be trusted — to "have top eye open." In 2020, that is what people in the streets were doing: watching, recording, and looking out for one another.
That work became WOKE Network, and it taught us a larger lesson: the same pattern appears everywhere. People need tools to see for themselves, compare sources, ask better questions, and keep control of their own information. TOPEYE now builds across that wider field — still with open code, volunteer effort, and a belief that public tools should serve the public.