he project OrganiCity has developed a service for experimentation, which explores how citizens, business and city authorities can work together to create digital solutions to urban challenges. OrganiCity’s vision is that the data that we emit from our cities has the potential to transform how we design for and respond to people’s needs. Gathering, connecting and analysing this data – whether from our environment, transport, homes or social media accounts – can provide us with rich and reliable insights into how our cities currently operate and, therefore, how they could operate more effectively in the future.
As we move into this digital age, more people than ever before are moving into our cities. Rapid urbanisation, growing and aging populations, extreme climates and new technologies are adding considerable strain and complexity to our cities. These challenges require us to reimagine how we can design and deliver more flexible, sustainable and resilient systems that not only manage our limited resources more efficiently, but also strengthen our communities, protect our environment and prioritise our health and wellbeing.
Tech companies, academia, public authorities, start-ups and citizen groups are all attempting to respond to these challenges with new solutions. Yet, one of the biggest inefficiencies of all is that we continue to tackle these issues in silos; the local knowledge of city authorities often doesn’t inform the latest health app, and the resources and experience of large corporations often doesn’t support the innovative ideas of small start-ups. OrganiCity has worked from the idea that if we share the same mission to develop the most useful products and services to future-proof our cities, then we need to start working together.
