Open4Citizens is one of the new Horizon2020 CAPS projects that have started in January 2016. The CAPS initiative refers to ‘Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation’.

OpenDataLabs

In the project ‘playgrounds’ are created, where citizens and other local actors are empowered to actually convene and cooperate to the development of new web and mobile applications that enhance their very own experience of already existing public services. These playgrounds have the purpose of creating unique communities of practice (OpenDataLabs) and include service jams, hackathons, co-design workshops, and other physical or virtual events, open to citizens, interest groups, but also representatives of the public sector, students, hackers and start uppers. There will be ample opportunities for students to participate. 

Objectives

  • Creating OpenDataLabs where citizens can design new services, in a collaborative environment, using open data
  • Exploring hackathons as a new form of bottom-up participatory innovation
  • Digital literacy skills for citizens
  • Combining two models: solutions development lab and the incubator models
  • Implementing the developed/tested solutions
  • Network of cities using Open4Citizens labs

Pilot Locations

Open4Citizens is carried out in five pilot locations: in Denmark, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands. TU Delft, faculty of Industrial Design Engineering is responsible for the creation of a design methodology for the series of hackathons organised by the consortium partners, and will develop an appropriate design toolkit aimed at citizens to better comprehend data and to become more able to actively shape the services surrounding them.