In Banyuwangi of Indonesia, one of the districts in East Java, 16 pregnant women died in 2015, as well as 28 babies. The largest contributing factor was a lack of data concerning the existence and whereabouts of women with high-risk pregnancies. So, in 2016, Sempu Public Healthcare Center launched an innovative solution using female vegetable sellers on motorbikes as high risk pregnancy seekers. As a result, the number of women and babies dying during and/or shortly after childbirth fell to…
Innovation Tag: Citizen Engagement
Dutch Reach Project (DRP) closes a serious gap in existing road safety efforts to prevent “dooring,” a common, feared & at times fatal crash caused when exiting motorists - using their near hand - suddenly throw open their car door into the path of a bicyclist or other vulnerable road user (VRU).
To prevent dooring, DRP promotes the Dutch Reach (DR): reaching across to the door with the far hand to open - a much safer method.
The DR project is already gaining increasing attention and being…
The Internet is a great communication tool. People use it all the time both at work and for leisure, but what about interacting with the government? Even though most of the Portuguese public services are digital, its use was below expectations. The answer was the creation of a network of Citizen Spots, which are multiservice physical counters where a “specialized mediator” assists citizens accessing online public services and teaches them how to perform them autonomously thereafter.
The Arlington Restaurant Initiative (ARI) is a voluntary accreditation program which aims to increase safety and economic viability for restaurants and special events in Arlington County, VA. The Police Department has partnered with County agencies to establish a holistic approach to nightlife management and raise standards of restaurants that serve alcohol. ARI has been successful in reducing alcohol-related violence and building mutually-beneficial relationships with stakeholders.
The iSPEX is a small attachment that can be fitted to any mobile phone to measure particulate matter in the air. The fact that this piece of technology empowers anyone to monitor air quality (citizen science) creates a raft of new possibilities to collect large volumes of data in a highly efficient and cost-effective manner. Aside from that, it raises awareness of particulate matter among the population.
The municipality of Zeist (approx. 64,000 inhabitants) faced the challenge of having to cut its spending by 6.2 million euros. A decision was made to take the innovative approach of engaging with citizens in a social discussion on possible spending cuts. Through this process of co-creation with its residents, the Zeist local authority not only managed to balance the budget, but it has also helped the local authority forge closer ties with the community and garner broader support for cutbacks.
The former municipality of Molenwaard was the Netherlands’ first local council to operate without a town hall. This innovation came about when three local authorities merged together into one municipality. Despite becoming a much larger municipality they still wanted to stay close to the community. They decided to no longer have a service desk in the traditional sense of the concept. Instead, the local authority goes out into the community and is, therefore, always nearby.
How do we create a safer river delta while at the same time ensuring an attractive living environment? This is the question that the Dutch Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat) sought to answer through its Room for the River program. With this program, the emphasis was shifted from reinforcing dikes to creating more space for the river, with an unprecedented focus on the spatial quality of the whole river delta.
The GovTech Lab is a public sector team focused on encouraging the creation and use of innovative solutions for the government. The GovTech Lab helps the public sector identify challenges that can be solved with emerging technologies, engages startups and SMEs, creating innovative solutions and accelerating startups in #GovTech and #TechForGood space.
Societal challenges such as demographic change affects rural areas in particular. The Social Foresight Lab is an innovative participatory approach towards rural development and technology transfer to address these challenges. It combines foresight, needs assessment and strategy development. Rural areas benefit, as it takes into account regional characteristics, initiates new cooperations among regional stakeholders, and integrates technological and social innovations into regional development.