Tag Archives: MK:Smart

Crowdsourcing in smart cities: a world of best practice

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By Steven McGinty

Too often, debates on smart cities revolve around terms such as “Internet of things”, “big data”, and “sensors”. However, there is a growing realisation that truly smart cities take a more person-centric approach, which focuses on the needs of citizens and harnesses their skills, talents and experience.

Crowdsourcing is one approach that can help cities do just that. From Danish toy maker Lego to tech giant Amazon, organisations are using digital tools to gather views, opinions, data, and even money from citizens. Public sector institutions have also got involved, introducing projects that engage with citizens, as well as tap into external skills through events such as hackathons (where civic hackers come together to solve key city problems).

Already, there is a wide range of crowdsourcing initiatives across the world. Below I’ve highlighted some of the best.

Scottish Government

In 2015, the Scottish Government’s Open Data and Fisheries teams introduced Dialogue, a citizen engagement tool developed by Delib (a social enterprise based in the UK and Australia).

The Open Data team were in the process of creating an open data plan for public bodies. They felt that crowdsourcing could help them gain a greater understanding of the types and formats of datasets people would be interested in, and as such, posed a series of questions to citizens.

The Fisheries Team took to crowdsourcing to gather the views on a proposal to create a ‘kill licence’ and carcass tagging regime for salmon. As they knew this would be controversial, they wanted to gain a better understanding of the concerns in fishing communities, and to see if there were any better approaches.

Both teams learned a lot of useful lessons from the process. These included:

  • ensuring questions were as specific as possible so citizens could understand;
  • marketing projects to specific communities with an interest in the question raised;
  • avoiding making assumptions or stereotyping audiences; and
  • giving short deadlines (as this added urgency and encouraged greater participation).

Milton Keynes

MK: Smart – Milton Keynes’ wide ranging smart cities programme – has introduced an online platform known as Our MK to connect with citizens. This award-winning project supports people in playing a central role in urban innovation, from crowdsourcing initial ideas through to finding mentoring support and funding through their dedicated SpaceHive page.

The platform’s citizen ideas competition offers up to £5,000 worth of funding to turn ideas into reality. So far it’s generated over 100 ideas, with 13 projects being allocated funding. This includes the Go Breastfeeding MK App (an app which promotes the use of breastfeeding within Milton Keynes) and the gamification of Redways (which saw an app developed to encourage people to explore the Redways network – a series of shared use paths for cyclists and pedestrians.)

Madrid City Council

In 2016, Madrid City Council launched Decide Madrid. The platform played a key role in supporting the city’s participatory budgeting process, allowing citizens to propose, debate, and rank ideas submitted to the website. Once citizens had chosen their top proposals, city employees checked the ideas against viability criteria and a cost report was carried out. If the proposal failed to meet the criteria, a report was published explaining why it had been excluded.

Decide Madrid provided guidance of what was allowed and what was not (offline meetings were also used to explain the limitations of the scheme), to ensure that only valid proposals were checked. This ensured the initiative didn’t become too labour intensive.

In the 2016 Budget, €60 million was set aside. By the time the process had finished, citizens had debated over 5,000 initial ideas, with 225 projects being chosen for funding.

Reykjavik City Council

Better Reykjavik was introduced to provide a direct link for citizens to Reykjavik City Council. The online platform enables citizens to voice, debate and prioritise the issues that they believe will improve their city. For example, Icelandic school children have suggested the need for more field trips.

In 2010, the platform played an important role in Reykjavik’s city council elections, providing a space for all political parties to crowdsource ideas for their campaign. After the election, Jón Gnarr, former Mayor of Reykjavik, encouraged citizens to use the platform during coalition talks. Within a four week period (before and after the election), 40% of Reykjavik’s voters had used the platform and almost 2000 priorities had been created.

Overall, almost 60% of citizens have used the platform, and the city has spent approximately £1.7 million on developing projects sourced from citizens.

Final thoughts

Crowdsourcing is more than just creating a flashy website or app. It’s a process which requires strategic planning and investment. If you’re planning your own initiative, seeking out good practice and learning from the experience of others is a great place to start.

This article was based on the briefing ‘The crowdsourced city: engaging citizens in smart cities’. Idox Information Service members can access this briefing via our customer website.

Highlighting policy and practice: research briefings from The Knowledge Exchange

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So far this year, our team of Research Officers in The Knowledge Exchange have researched and written more than 30 policy and research briefings on a diverse range of subjects, from housing and planning to technology and training. Written in a clear and concise style, each briefing brings together examples of recently published evidence, alerts readers to new and continuing developments and signposts sources of further information. New briefings are available exclusively to members of our Information Service, and the choice of topics is driven by what our members are asking us about.

Today’s blog post offers a flavour of just some of the topics we’ve been covering during the year.

Housing

In many parts of the UK, people are struggling to buy or rent affordable housing. One consequence is a rise in homelessness. Our briefing – Delivering solutions to tackle homelessness – describes the complexities involved in defining homelessness, and the subsequent difficulties in measuring the scale of the problem. The causes of homelessness are no less complex, and the briefing lists some of the factors that lead to people finding themselves on the street, such as eviction, unemployment, health problems and relationship breakdowns. It also highlights approaches to tackling homelessness, such as social impact bonds and homeless health peer advocacy.

Planning

Closely related to housing is the role of planning in ensuring that individuals and families not only have adequate homes, but the infrastructure and services needed to support communities. One of the significant developments in this area has been the UK government’s policy on devolving more powers (including planning) to England’s cities and regions. Our briefing – Devolution of planning powers to city-regions – explains that each devolution deal agreed between the UK government and local authorities is tailored to the local area. In the West Midlands, for example, a directly-elected mayor will be given planning powers to drive housing delivery and improvements.

The briefing notes that, while there is widespread agreement that devolution of planning powers to local areas is a positive step, there is also concern that local areas won’t be able to deliver what they need to in terms of planning without control of expenditure, much of which is still retained by central government.

Technology

Our “Ideas in Practice” series of briefings presents case studies of projects and initiatives that have tackled a range of social issues, often resulting in reduced costs or improved efficiency. Our smart cities briefing on MK: Smart outlines a technology-led urban innovation project in Milton Keynes that aims to improve the town’s key infrastructure in areas such as transport, energy, and water. One of MK:Smart’s success stories is its Smart Parking initiative, which has encouraged drivers to use limited parking spaces more effectively, as well as providing the council with a better understanding of parking behaviour.

Another technology-focused briefing looks at the increasing development of “serious games” in the domains of planning, education, health and cultural heritage. Serious games in the policy field have borrowed elements from the video games sector, such as virtual reality, simulations and digital game-based learning. As well as improving skills and engagement among individuals, serious games have been used as a powerful way of introducing new concepts to the public, and providing people with an understanding of different points of view. The briefing showcases some examples of the application of serious games, including ‘B3— Design your Marketplace!’ which created an immersive and playful environment to encourage citizens to give their views on the design of a marketplace in Billstedt, a district of Hamburg.

Education, training and skills

A number of our briefings this year have focused on the all-important areas of education, training and skills. The Ideas in Practice briefing on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education considers key trends and practical applications. Among the initiatives highlighted in the briefing is Third Space Learning, which connects primary schools in England and Wales with maths specialists via one-to-one online sessions.

In August, we published a briefing focusing on the impact of outdoor learning on educational attainment. It includes information on the implementation of the Forest School initiative in the UK, which places emphasis on children having contact with nature from an early age. The briefing highlights evidence that pupils with the highest connection to nature have been found to perform better in exams, and notes the positive impact on the attainment of those from deprived backgrounds.

Crime

Our briefing on urban gang crime highlights some of the ways that local authorities and organisations have sought to tackle the problem. One of the case studies focused on the exploitation of young women by gangs in Manchester. Delivered by women who have survived gang exploitation, it provides one-to-one support, allowing both mentors and victims to create lasting relationships and networks of support which help them as they transition from life within a gang. In 2013, the project won the Women in Housing award for best community/ training project for its work in rebuilding women’s lives.

Further information

This is just a taster of the variety of subjects addressed in The Knowledge Exchange’s policy and research briefings. A fuller list of briefings is provided here, and members of the Idox Information Service can keep up-to-date with newly-published briefings via our weekly Bulletin.