Among the actions designed by the municipality to encourage lifelong learning, we can highlight the Cibernàrium. Cibernàrium is the training and technology outreach programme of Barcelona Activa ‐ Barcelona City Council. It features over 180 training courses for professionals and businesses, together with internet introduction activities for all citizens.
The ReHydrant Project is an innovative and creative initiative, inspired by the lack of public drinking fountains. These taps, designed by the founders of the project, transform fire hydrants quickly, easily and inexpensively into drinking fountains without affecting the original function. The ReHydrant is a product recommended especially for governments and local water utility companies to solve the problems caused by the lack of public drinking fountains. ReHydrants provides quick and easy access to drinking water in public spaces in a safe, and efficient way.
Change by Us is a new platform in Amsterdam. The platform started in New York and is known by the name of Change by Us NYC. It allows innovative partnership in the city between citizens, city leaders, welfare organizations, housing corporations and government. The 'Idee voor je buurt' website will be tested until the end of 2014 in Amsterdam Slotermeer in cooperation with the Municipality of Amsterdam, Waag Society, Eigenwijks, Code for Europe and Amsterdam Smart City. When ideas are made visible it becomes very clear for everyone what kind of things are going on in the neighbourhood.
A city is a wonderfully complex environment with a diverse set of challenges. With topics ranging from transportation to energy and from education to the environment, there is a need for a generation of creative problem solvers. By involving young citizens early on, we can benefit from their fresh perspective. We furthermore have a chance of triggering their long-lasting engagement and cooperation for the city of tomorrow. The first edition of NxtCity will be held in Amsterdam at the end of August.
As part of the European project City-zen, a Serious Game is being developed by UK Partner Clicks and Links that is to be deployed in the city of Grenoble as well as Amsterdam Nieuw-West. The goal is to engage youths in these cities to save energy by raising awareness and changing behaviour through the familiar medium of gaming. Gaming tends to have a bit of a negative reputation, but consider the opportunity of leveraging the following traits for a positive objective, such as saving energy. Games are addictive, fun and engaging which means that they can be great tools for education.
Research: To materialize Smart Projects in the city, involving residents is a crucial development, as we need to work together to build a Smarter City. Residents are often oblivious to the wide range of technological measures that can be undertaken to save both costs and environment; as well as the positive impact that they can exert in their neighbourhood. The game's purpose: The purpose of the game is to show residents the Smart Solutions already in existence, and to increase the number of bottom-up initiatives.
Forum Virium Helsinki has been exploring how digital services can open up the city, its history and even the city construction plans for the citizens. In fall 2014, pilots were run to test how augmented reality can be utilized in the urban planning of an old neighbourhood as well as in wayfinding services for the residents and tourists.
TransformCity (ZO!City) has collaborated with ModelMe 3D (Burton Hamfelt) to develop a demo for an online application called ‘Amstel 3D Pilot’. Parties both in and outside of the region can use the application to post initiatives for development into a 3D model of Amstel 3 area. For example: a beach volleyball tournament, parking space sharing or the redevelopment of an office building. This ICT tool will stimulate the development of such bottom-up initiatives and help create a strong community around them.
Mi Medellín uses platforms which implements new mechanisms to encourage citizens participation through open innovation methodologies.
Stickyworld is a stakeholder engagement platform enabling presentation and detailed discussion of maps, plans, videos and 360 virtual tours. People stick digital ‘post-it notes’ directly on slides to leave comments. This enables feedback throughout the whole project lifecycle for any building or neighbourhood, and has been used across London in Bloomsbury, Kentish Town and Haringey for community engagement, and was also used, for example by The Design Museum, who published a 360° virtual tour of their new museum to stick comments on.