Innovation Tag: Citizen Engagement

The PropTech Engagement Fund was launched in 2021 and has worked with 41 Local Authorities to date on accelerating the adoption of digital citizen engagement tools and transforming community involvement in placemaking. Our ongoing programme is the largest UK Government PropTech Programme, leading on how to work with industry, tech start ups and local governments to increase the diversity and positivity of placemaking conversations and to fast track new digital policy and local housing delivery.

Council to the street is an innovative strategy to strengthen democracy through citizen participation. It is a strategy that brings the city's institutions out to listen and respond to citizens in public spaces. Citizens identify their priority needs and requirements and in a public session the Council and the Mayor's Office respond to them. The citizens should be the overseers of the commitments reached in the space. During the process the citizenry is strengthened and accompanied.

Citizens' assemblies (CAs) were incorporated in the new Law on Municipalities in 2005. As an opportunity to strengthen participatory processes, and to improve participatory decision-making methods at local level, Participation Task Forces (PTFs) were established. The innovative nature of the PTFs is that for the first time elected municipal councillors, appointed municipal officials, and representatives of CAs worked together on developing participatory policy proposals for their municipality.

In 2017, Korea opened the online platform allowing the public to make policy suggestions, ‘Gwanghwamun 1st street’ as an effort to expand Direct Democracy. Following this lead, Gwanak-gu developed its own online platform, ‘Online Gwanak-gu Office’. ‘Online Gwanak-gu Office’, which is exclusively for Gwanak-gu citizens, utilized user participation during development, and its innovation comes from the integration of various existing public participation routes.

In an increasingly digital world, Participa.gov represents our vision for civic participation in political decision-making processes. Participa.gov is the Portuguese Public Administration's centralized, cross-cutting platform for facilitating participatory processes at all levels of government. It employs cutting-edge technology to ensure that citizens can actively participate in policy decision-making via secure and transparent mechanisms that foster trust.

Recognising the importance of artificial intelligence as well as the innovative capacity of start-ups, to support the development of innovative products and ideas, the Government of Serbia deployed a national supercomputing AI platform and offered its resources and trainings free of charge to innovative companies and startups through a public call for proposals.

Small and medium-sized companies often cannot afford investments in Artificial Intelligence technologies. Through AI Friends project, AI became more accessible, affordable, and familiar for entrepreneurs and citizens. AI festival, training, co-working spaces, and pilot solution consulting is operated through the cooperation of universities, research institutes, industries, government, and citizens over the last four years.

When planning began for a first-of-its-kind Urgent Mental Health Care Centre as an alternative to a failing emergency department experience, a new standard that centred people with lived experiences in system reform decisions was needed. People with lived experiences came together to co-create a philosophy of care for the centre that would uphold service integrity, hold implementation providers accountable, and communicate the care experience and service culture that people expect.

Yes, We Rent! has transformed the private rental market by creating a new agent working in partnership with the municipality (hybridization of public policies). Successfully established on 2/2021, “Bloc cooperatiu” is an unprecedented cooperative that gather together tenants willing to search, renovate and rent collectively scattered empty flats, as a way to (self) generate affordable and stable housing targeting low-to-medium income households. It is already managing 61 flats and 105…

The Austin Civilian Conservation Corps (ACCC) began as a pandemic response program to help residents earn income and access green careers, and has evolved into a leading model for equitable, climate-focused workforce development. The ACCC, a collaboration with 10+ City departments and multiple community partners, has provided over 125 living-wage opportunities with supportive services, training, and career pathways for Austin’s underserved residents, and is actively shaping the green economy.