resilience.io Community Cockpit
Empower and enable communities and city decision makers through a single entry Community Cockpit portal which links projects, data, apps.
Written by Catherine Allinson Future Earth Ltd
Connecting communities to practical solutions, risk data and information and to decision makers via a single point of entry Community Cockpit. Enable, empower, communicate.
EXPLAIN YOUR IDEA
Problem: no direct route for 2-way interaction between vulnerable communities and policy makers to develop integrated solutions to climate smart infrastructure and service provision or ways to raise awareness to improve resilience at scale. No single repository for data, info and help to improve resilience.Idea: design and test a “Community Cockpit” - a digital portal accessible from any digital device at home, in schools or community centres with all data and information about the slum community and its risks. Mobile phone pictures, recorded stories, crowd sourced data on water, fire, heat or floods, policy documents, and open source demographic, economic and infrastructure data about the community and the risks it faces can be housed. All backed by an integrated systems model to help decision making with a direct connection to decision makers.
The Community Cockpit will be linked to the "http://resilience.io" integrated systems platform (already being built with DfID funding) to enable cities to better plan and invest in low carbon, sustainable solutions. Both are maintained collectively and housed at an appropriate academic institution.
Solution: 1) provides a free repository of data and information to vulnerable communities; 2) educates and empowers vulnerable communities and related CSOs to contribute to the decision making process on issues, solutions, policies, practices; 3) provides an open source evidence base to hold decision-makers to account
WHO BENEFITS?
Beneficiaries: The Communities Cockpit portal and entry app will be designed for vulnerable communities as a central repository for GIS, open source and government data and info. Communities will have free access via their phones to the same data and information as decision-makers, from one place, in a co-designed format for ease of use by a wide range of educational levels. 76.5% population in Accra have a mobile phone.Where? Any city with slums and climate risk. We already work in Accra.
HOW DOES YOUR IDEA TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE CONTEXT OF URBAN SLUMS AND CLIMATE CHANGE?
The http://resilience.io platform is being constructed as part of the Future Cities Africa DfID project for use in cities by municipalities & governments AND importantly slum communities to ensure they are part of the decision-making process for resilience. We will co-design a single 'go to space' where all data and information about climate change risks (demographic, floods, heat, health, sanitation, buildings) is equally accessible to communities to improve their ability to access, learn, act and communicate horizontally and vertically.Ordinary - the tool is for integrated risk and resilience planning
System - the Community Cockpit will be co-designed with and target the most vulnerable.
Flexible - the Cockpit will be designed with slum communities and is flexible for use on mobile phones, laptops and can integrate SEWA Spread the Word app or Neysan Zolzer's OpenIDEO suggestions
Resources - the Cockpit will be linked to the resource flow model http://resilience.io for in depth insights into how communities and resources are affected by climate change, supporting local planning authorities and ODA projects with integrated data and information.
Gender - the Cockpit will be designed by both genders including the youth but women will be empowered and comprise 52.4% mobile phone users in e.g. Accra area.
Collaboration - the Cockpit will be designed with slum community(ies) and would work well in combo with Rainbowgate Network Neighbourhood Scheme
Works in any city and is a 'free at point of use' communal space connecting city leaders directly with the community
IN-COUNTRY EXPERIENCE
- Yes, between one and two years
EXPERTISE
- I’ve worked in a sector related to my idea for at least two years
GEOGRAPHIC FOCUS
- Yes
TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF
The Ecological Sequestration Trust was formed in 2011 by Peter Head, CBE, to demonstrate at city scale how to address energy, water, food security in the face of the combined challenges of changes of climate, demography and increasing resource-scarcity. We work with UNISDR, UNSDSN, Habitat and more.IS THIS A NEW OR RECENT IDEA FOR YOU OR YOUR ORGANIZATION? HOW DOES IT DIFFER FROM WHAT YOU ARE ALREADY DOING?
We have not started to build the Community Cockpit but developing user interfaces (Sector Cockpits) has been planned as part of the "integrated systems model http://resilience.io" development (currently being built with seed funding from DfID). OpenIDEO funding would allow us to work with a vulnerable community to build a prototype for replication elsewhere and provide a single entry point for all data and information on risk and resilience, appropriate products and services collected from a wide variety of sources - GIS, open source, government and of course dedicated apps as suggested by other applicants to this competition.HOW IS YOUR IDEA DIFFERENT FROM OTHER SIMILAR INITIATIVES? WHAT ARE YOU DOING DIFFERENTLY? WHAT UNIQUE ADVANTAGES DO YOU HAVE?
We are building a "world first city scale integrated systems model" for resilience. The difference is that it does not just layer data and information but shows the impact of any change in any circumstances (demographic, climate, resource use, productivity etc.) which vastly improves the ability of communities and governments to assess the effect of e.g. flood defence, sanitation or heat interventions prior to investment. The Communities Cockpit will allow the vulnerable the same access to data and info as those who can pay for it, so communities can: a) contribute to planning and investment decisions using robust evidence and b) develop their own business cases for investment attracting new private sector product and service solutions from within the communities as well as from outside. e.g. sanitation in Accra. The more linked Apps, data and information fed into the Communities Cockpit the richer a resource it will become. Using this evidence base communities can mobilize private sector finance to help build resilience related Products and Services. We are happy to link with others to ensure a holistic solution is found to de-risk improve resilience at community scale.WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR IDEA?
1. How will the community users interact with the Community Cockpit. What are the priority Apps they would like to see listed on the Community Cockpit?2. How do we design it so that both illiterate users can contribute e.g. uploading their stories recorded on mobile phones and literate users can access the most robust data and information to help empower them?
3. Are other OpenIDEO applicants happy to share their app data and info in a central Community Cockpit repository?
4. How well would the Community Cockpit answer the need by city planners and decision makers to interact with the slum communities and test their proposed interventions?
WHY DO YOU THINK THE PROBLEM YOUR IDEA SOLVES FOR HASN'T BEEN SOLVED YET?
Computational big data cloud power, satellite mapping/ITC technologies and the open data movement have come together now to provide a new way to tackle the global and community level challenge of climate change. ITC has exploded across Africa - 76.5% people in Accra have mobile phones which be used to inform, educate and connect people to improve resilience to climate change. We must act swiftly to harness this for the most vulnerable and provide the same access to them as to governments. There is power in knowledge, data, evidence but to date no one has provided a repository open for all to use and contribute into like our Community Cockpit.HOW HAS YOUR IDEA CHANGED BASED ON FEEDBACK FROM YOUR COMMUNITY?
Old Fadama slum Accra. The IPCC predicts sea level rise, flooding and an increase in rainfall intensity for Accra.
Resident of Old Fadama slum in Accra. In her hand she carries her link to data and information. A way to network, learn and improve her resilience and to connect her to decision makers via the Community Cockpit.
1. The self-adoption of smart phone technology and willingness to pay for low cost internet packages renders almost the entire slum community reachable if a practical and easy to use Community Cockpit is created and well publicized.
2. We will change our initial idea to create a single point of entry through the Community Cockpit to a further range of information, apps, products and services (with other applicants here), which can help to inform communities and increase their resilience to climate change risks. Importantly, these will then be able to be linked to the integrated 3D systems model to improve granularity of data and information.
3. The Community Cockpit will become a resource for and provide a direct route to decision makers - we have already founded a cross-sector working group in Accra with municipality, uni and private sector interested in 2-way communication with communities.
Data will add value to e.g. the UNDP Community Resilience through Early Warning project http://www.gh.undp.org/content/ghana/en/home/operations/projects/environment_and_energy/crew.html
WHAT WOULD YOU ULTIMATELY LIKE TO ACHIEVE WITH THIS IDEA? WHAT IS YOUR NEXT STEP TO GET THERE?
Incremental development will not deliver the necessary step changes to address the systemic challenges of climate change, resource consumption and urbanisation,and the required outcomes for health and wellbeing – for individuals, communities, economies, and the natural and built environments. The radical shifts required can only come from systems innovation and active collaboration across multiple disciplines and by all communities. We need to give practical tools to communities to enable them to build resilience and connect those most at risk to policy makers and implementers to enable smarter decision making.test.
Is OpenIDEO seeking transformational projects which address climate resilience using integrated systems technology which would be enabled by the Community Cockpit or is it a traditional project by project based approach?How does your idea connect to the broader system of the city where you plan to implement?
The Community Cockpit is just one of several cockpits (Water Cockpit; Energy Cockpit; Governance Cockpit, Transport Cockpit etc.) which will be built to improve resilience to climate change at city level. We will work with other apps.The http://resilience.io model sits behind each cockpit for users to assess resource flows at city scale, for example, water, energy, food, minerals, so that cites can better manage critical supporting ecosystems. The cockpits will all be linked together such that previously poorly connected operational silos can consider the best solutions across different climate scenarios, each area can be deeply investigated and the vital links between sectors e.g. water service interruption and energy networks better understood. The municipal authorities, academics and communities are fully involved. The Community Cockpit approach is holistic and will ensure the sum impact of the OpenIDEO contributing apps and initiatives are greater than the whole.
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CommentCatherine Allinson Future Earth Ltd