BUS604: Innovation and Sustainability

You can start by learning to see your city and its resources with new eyes. It is normal for city governments to engage with stakeholders in consultations at all levels of policy; what is perhaps less evident is that these exchanges are strongly framed in normative patterns of confrontational dialogue. Partly for this reason, those who appear to represent business owners, workers, charities and other groups of interest have often lost touch with the real dynamics of innovation as much as you, and they have difficulty in bringing new energies to the table. In addition, the available policy instruments tend to act more on the city's economic fabric and physical capital (buildings, roads, infrastructures, etc). and less on the creative potential of the population. Policy options are thus determined by money available and projects to spend it on, such that the current imperative of 'doing more with less' seems to create an impossible situation.

Box 15

Data as a Resource

Information is a typical example of a hidden resource, and Open Data strategies and action plans make this information freely available as a platform and a resource for the development of new city services.

Like any innovation, however, the success of an Open Data strategy very much depends on people (especially your public servants) and their ability to think and act proactively.

In order to see the invisible resources behind this wall of difficulties, reflect on how you might turn that policy imperative upside down, doing 'less with more'. 'Doing less' in the sense that with citizen-driven innovation you can step back from being the sole provider of services; by relinquishing some degree of control, you can shift to a role of orchestration of partnerships that co-produce services together. 'With more' in the sense that you can now work with both traditional and 'invisible' resources ignored until now because they cost too little and elude control. 

Since individual and collective creativity are the motors of innovation, you need to look at how creative your people can be, what the conditions are to make them creative, and what makes your city attractive for other creative people to come and live there. In this way, you can already think of your city as having more resources than you thought, as you evaluate the contribution of your cultural and symbolic resources (the richness of cultural heritage, the vibrancy of cultural activity, etc). far beyond their immediate economic value. 

Box 16

Tech Hubs in Africa

In a recent project for the Botswana Innovation Hub, the World Bank's ICT group, together with the iHub in Kenya and BongoHive in Zambia, mapped tech hubs in Africa. A rapidly expanding innovation landscape emerged, with 90 hubs identified in over 28 countries and more than half of African economies with at least one. Guidelines on improving hub/lab sustainability were also produced.

On the other hand, public administrations are not normally meant to be creative at all, and innovative stakeholders have probably in the past had more negative experiences than you might like to think in trying to deal with them. Many active forces are therefore hidden from your eye on purpose, due to a barrier of mistrust. This can be true for the so-called 'digital innovation community' as well, made up of fiercely independent and often young programmers wary of public administrations by faith. Other active citizen groups and movements may have suffered the delusion of engaging in fleeting moments of opening up that have led nowhere. So seeing your city's creative potential doesn't necessarily mean being able to work with it.

Box 17

Building Trust in Milan

The Quarto Oggiaro district on the outskirts of Milan has been plagued by drug use and organized crime. A city-led urban regeneration program is now working with the EU's MyNeighbourhood project to turn the area's prospects around.

The MyNeighbourhood platform rebuilds a sense of belonging and identity by allowing users to participate in community activities and contribute to solve local challenges by co-creating solutions with others.

In Quarto Oggiaro, adoption of this platform has had the effect of bringing together different civic groups and building reciprocal trust.