Innovation Tag: Social Innovation

With a citizen-centric approach and a strong focus on co-creation, SIMPLEX is a simplification and modernization program focused on improving public service efficiency and designed to facilitate the citizens and businesses everyday life, and their interaction with the public administration. Launched in 2006, it had several editions since then and resulted in the implementation of hundreds of initiatives that cut red tape, reduced context costs and used ICT to deliver better public services.

The prolonged economic crisis in Europe has led to a growing feeling of alienation among citizens from the main decision-making centres. The co-creation research methodology for co-operative governance is an innovative approach to stakeholder engagement in which policymakers and researchers work as a team in dialogue spaces configured to address different territorial challenges. A participative, open and collaborative governance for the economic development of Gipuzkoa is therefore being built.

Originally conceived as a planning tool, HeritageMaps.ie is a user-driven, web-based mapviewer focusing on the built, cultural and natural heritage around Ireland and offshore. Its potential for use by the general public was quickly realised and users can now access 700+ up-to-date heritage datasets in map-form, originally provided across many Govt. platforms. HeritageMaps.ie a free ‘one-stop-shop’ for heritage data and acts as a discovery portal, providing direct links to promote research.

The Louisville Metro Badge Program rewards employees for tasks like creating an open dataset, crowdsourcing information from citizens or collaborating with other departments on projects. There’s a tiered reward system for civil servants who participate, with prizes ranging from LinkedIn recommendations to recognition at a city-wide awards ceremony.  

EUIPO studies show that young people are lacking information on intellectual property, and the available information is presented in an ineffective way for the specific age group. Starting the new 2018/2019 school year in Latvia, general education, academic secondary education and vocational secondary education teachers will have the opportunity to integrate intellectual property issues in their lessons, thus contributing to the formation of a responsible and innovative new generation.

In the event of a life or health emergency, the most important thing is to quickly call professional services: the police, fire brigade or emergency medical services. However, people with impaired hearing or who are deaf cannot make phone calls in the event of an emergency. The mobile application Deaf Help aids a deaf person to independently inform the services that he or she needs help.

The United Nations Development Programme Lebanon used WhatsApp to conduct qualitiative surveys to listen to Syrian refugees in Lebanon dealing with conflicts with the local Lebanese community. Using Whatsapp is an effective tool for collecting qualitative data from vulnerable communities at scale. WhatsApp is widely used, with 84% of refugee households in Lebanon on WhatsApp. WhatsApp's voice message function allowed us to send survey questions as voice messages and collect people’s stories…

ID2020 is a public-private partnership dedicated to improving lives through private and user-controlled digital identity. Today, over 1 billion people live without any form of legal ID, which can leave them economically marginalized and robbed of the opportunity for active citizenship. ID2020 is setting technical standards and launching pilot projects aimed at finding scalable digital identity solutions for world's most vulnerable populations, particularly refugees and stateless persons.

LawMaker is a lobby for the lobbyless – a free advocacy tool for those of us who don’t have a professional working for them to influence our governments. LawMaker allows Americans to (1) crowdsource ideas for new laws, (2) build voter coalitions, and (3) engage politicians to advocate for change. Our mission is to democratize democracies by empowering the creation of new laws that originate from real people at the grassroots, instead of from lobbyists and wealthy special interests.

The air-purifying billboard is a Macedonian innovative prototype that aim to clean the ambient air mainly polluted from traffic. There are currently 2 pilot billboards implementing this technology. The vacuum cleaning based solution, if set to all 820 billboards in Skopje can reduce air pollution by up to 20%, as the filter can purify 2.5 million cubic meters of air per month. The filters can absorb the PM10, PM 2.5 and other harmful particles. Around 200,000 bus passengers and 150,000 more…