eChallenges e-2014 Conference Proceedings

Paul Cunningham and Miriam Cunningham (Eds)

IIMC International Information Management Corporation, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-905824-46-5

Human Smart Cities: A Human-Centric

Model aiming at the wellbeing and quality
of life of citizens
Álvaro OLIVEIRA; Margarida CAMPOLARGO; Maria MARTINS;
Alfamicro, Alameda da Guia 192A, Cascais, 2750-368, Portugal
Tel: +351 214866784, Email: [email protected]
Abstract: MyNeighbourhood is a European project, part of the CIP ICT PSP
Program in Smart Cities, aiming at recreating and strengthening the social ties within
neighbourhoods, envisioning a new approach to the City. The project is based on an
innovative vision, methodologies and tools which intend to create a Human Smart
City starting from the neighbourhood and scaling up to the city. The project is a test
bed of the Human Smart City concept that proposes to develop a citizen-driven,
smart, all-inclusive and sustainable environment, with a new governance framework
in which citizens and government engage in listening and talking to each other. This
public governance model favours the emergence of a participatory innovation
ecosystem that creates jobs, wealth and ultimately generates happiness for citizens.

1. Introduction
More than half of the human population lives in cities today and this figure is estimated to
increase to 70% by 2050 [1]. In such a scenario, the wellbeing and quality of life of citizens
is impacted by challenges such as demographic shifts, gentrification, sustainable housing,
mobility, environmental impact, food and water sustainability, health care support, and
security and safety. Solutions for these challenges has become a priority.
The fast growth of ICT enabled services, namely the pervasive computer devices and
social networking, are driving the environment for democracy innovation and societal
transformations at all levels of our society. Citizens are becoming more knowledgeable and
demanding in their needs. Civic collaboration and participation has been increasing,
strengthening the commitment to the common good and the democratic dynamics, where
general interests prevail over individual interests [2].
The City challenges and societal transformations have been recently stressed by the
financial crisis contributing to a new social consciousness leading to the creation of new
approaches to face and adjust to these transformations. Signs of these new approaches and
new models namely citizen driven innovation (Living Labs [3]), focused on the co-design
and co-creation of City services, are emerging [4] [5] [6] [7].
The concept of the Smart City was created by the traditional ICT industry aiming to
explore a new market opportunity. The “technology push” solutions however failed to
engage the citizens and public authorities who did not take ownership of the “smart”
services. In our research we have developed new models to engage citizens and public
authorities in the co-design and co-creation of services to solve their needs. These concepts
integrate a new paradigm for the City which we coined Human Smart City [4].
In Human Smart Cities, the Government is open to engage and be engaged in citizens’
initiatives on the basis of an open, transparent and trustful relationship. The Government
implements and supports an ecosystem of urban innovation (Urban Living Lab), where
virtual communities are encouraged to migrate to the physical environment to meet together

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 and to discover their common Wishes, Interests and Needs (WIN Methodology), co-
designing and co-creating solutions. In Human Smart Cities, information technologies are
used to solve social problems and economic and environmental issues, focusing on the
welfare and happiness of citizens.
In this paper, the authors argue that the city challenges are more effectively addressed at
the scale of the neighbourhood. They provide cases and experiences that demonstrate the
viability, importance and impact of this model, mainly based on examples from the
MyNeighbourhood project, which is seen as a testbed of the Human Smart Cities vision.
In MyNeighbourhood the past values of socio-spatial connectedness of traditional
communities are recreated. The Living Lab methodology is used to attract and engage
virtual communities that are encouraged to migrate to the physical environment where they
discover their common wishes, interests and needs, (WIN Methodology). Design thinking
methodologies are used to support the co-design and co-creation of solutions. Gamification
methodology is used to stimulate and sustain the citizens’ motivation to participate in the
creation of the Human Smart City.
In MyNeighbourhood a social-digital environment (technical platform and social
innovation methodologies and tools) has been created to stimulate and support a closer
interaction between people, their places of physical dwelling and their material, social and
environmental concerns. Proudness and sense of belonging comes to life and scales up to
the Human Smart City where the Wellbeing and Happiness of their Citizens takes place [8].
The solutions are co-designed and co-created bottom-up by the citizens in collaboration
and with the support of Public Authorities. This approach adds new momentum to the
concept of co-production of public services [9], which becomes more sustainable and
resilient in both time and scope, by embedding a pro-active involvement of urban
stakeholders in all aspects of the design and instantiation of neighbourhood services. This
also paves the way for a new model of public service delivery, where those who have been
normally targeted as passive end-users now tend to become collaborative co-producers, as
an alternative, if not in substitution, for local public authorities; and to a next generation of
urban smart citizenship, where those who have traditionally been considered as parts of the
problem become effective agents of the most appropriate solution [10].

2. Objectives
MyNeighbourhood creates a new Human-centric concept of the "Smart City" focusing on
people and their wellbeing rather than on ICT infrastructures and dashboards, which
become just the enablers of the transformation. Paradoxically, the same ICT trends that – in
conjunction with other urban trends – have helped to erode the urban connection to
neighbourhoods and communities also have the potential to rebuild them. A neighbourhood
is an area shaped or determined by a social group that is created through bottom-up local
processes. In the MyNeighbourhood project, the objective is to foster a qualitative and
innovative process to identify and generate solutions that will not only influence the
neighbourhood but the surrounding ecosystem of the City.
MyNeighbouthood identifies the Wishes, Interest and Needs of the citizens (WIN
methodology [9]) by involving them in a co-design process leading to the co-creation of
solutions. "Smart" ICT services building upon data provided by the citizens are used to
recreate the social binds between neighbours and their link to the physical place of the
neighbourhood.
MyNeighbourhood combines new digital technologies and techniques, such as social
gaming principles (gamification), with the Living Lab methodology, to help strengthen
existing ties and resolve community issues in the real, day-to-day world of the urban
neighbourhoods. In so doing, it aims to unleash a new viral wave of locally driven
innovations that will help make cities healthier, happier and smarter places to live.

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 With the continued advances of technology, cities have been pervaded by various
information and communication technology (ICT) systems, which increase the physical
capital of a city, thus contributing to the next phase of the urbanization process with the
emergence of the Human Smart Cities by design. Although the initial vision of smart cities
is to provide a smart environment for smart living of people with smart governance and
economies, these solutions generally confine themselves to the physical dimension; most of
the existing solutions have neglected even further the truism that cities are about people.
A change is required in the current phase of urbanization, with cities facing big epochal
challenges that can be effectively summarized by three phenomena:
x The devastating effects of the financial crisis undermining the European social model.
This is leading to severe limitations in cities’ abilities to invest in new infrastructures,
and in some areas is even leading to severe reductions of funds available for the
provision of basic city services such as transportation and social services.
x The increasing threat and disruption brought about by climate change to our territories.
Once perceived as a global issue, climate change by now directly affects everyday life
in cities. As major floods and droughts become ever more common, for example, the
environmental effects of urbanization and the lack of adequate tools and behavior
patterns becomes increasingly evident.
x The demand for more effective representation set forth by our constituencies. The so-
called democratic deficit is a cause for alarm for governance at any scale, but it also
adds to the difficulty of building trust and engaging stakeholders and citizens in
collaborative processes aimed at addressing common problems.
These challenges call for a transformation in the way we all work, live, play, and build
our future, which in turn places a special burden on those of us holding the responsibility to
govern such processes with an optimum usage of the public resources available.
Building upon the six recognized levels of social innovation [5], the MyNeighbourhood
Living Lab approach develops local socio-digital innovation environments that help to:
x Rebuild neighbourhoods;
x Empower neighbourhoods, and
x Scale up neighbourhood value,
in a manner that reconnects people, recreates communities and, ultimately, makes cities
smarter. This vision is being experimented in four City pilots in Aalborg (DK),
Birmingham (UK), Lisbon (PT) and Milan (IT). These Cities are using the MyN
(MyNeighbourhood) solution to kick-start a viral effect wherein neighbours and friends
adopt the open MyN Platform to reconnect with one another, share ideas, create new ways
of interaction and help make their daily lives ‘smarter’ in the target subject areas of: health,
environment, participation, and transport, among others.

3. Methodology
MyNeighbourhood along with other projects such as Periphéria [4] were the basis to create
the Human Smart Cities concept. MyNeighbourhood builds a socio-technical system
whereby existing communities can interact in a synergic way, in order to:
x Strengthen and widen a sense of belonging from a single community to the
neighbourhood.
x Assure mutual interdependency characterized by a multiplicity of urban dimensions
(social, economic, environmental...).
x Redirect the isolation mechanism that is typical of contemporary urban societies
towards a highly connected one [11].

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 MyNeighnourhod Methodology promotes and supports common, social, collective
values (social capital) able to develop reciprocity and solidarity mechanisms, which we
consider at the base of the neighbourhood life and conception. It is based on three key
phases:
Phase 1 - Context analysis
The context analysis phase consisted of the identification of the stakeholders, the existing
projects and all the factors that are considered to have influence on the social context and in
the solution creation. The field work consisted of interviews, guerrilla observation and post-
it sessions that created a link favouring listening and talking amongst the main actors,
including citizens, professionals, experts and volunteers. These methodologies allow the
MyNeighbourhood team to gain the trust of the target community. The data collection
during this phase resulted in the identification of WINs (Wishes, Interests and Needs) of the
citizens and also the needs of the local associations and the municipalities.
Phase 2 - Co-design
A Co-design handbook was created to provide tools and describe this methodology. Its
general structure was the basis of the field work carried out in the project, that was divided
into two main phases: the context analysis phase and Service Design phase [13].
During the co-design phase the data collected previously was used to co-design and co-
create solutions and services. Several workshops and meetings were held to share ideas and
co-design services together with the local stakeholders and citizens. Some tools, such as
Blueprints, Stakeholder maps and Journey maps, were used to facilitate the interaction and
to progress quicker and obtain results.
Solutions are being applied to each pilot context, in order to understand how the
proposed concepts and their implementation fit the real needs and how people are using
products, services and technologies proposed as a result of the co-design process. This
feedback is used to refine the services and the Platform.[14]
Phase 3 – Deployment

3.1 Rebuilding Neighbourhoods

x Use the Living Lab methodology to deploy and promote a MyNeighbourhood website
that builds upon and improves existing City Information Apps by enabling local
residents to connect with each other and share resources – user data such as time, assets
& knowledge, ICT tools and apps - to improve their own neighbourhoods [12].;
x Work with pilot cities, to ‘kick start’ the site in the target subject areas: health,
environment, participation, and transport;
x Embed a gamification layer in the MyNeighbourhood site that motivates users to:
o Keep returning to the site;
o Do more for their neighbourhood and
o Engage their friends to set up a new MyNeighbourhood site in their own
neighbourhood.

3.2 Empowering Neighbourhoods

x Use the MyN Platform to feed a resident query or need into a ‘Neighbourhood Advisor
System’;
x Establish a database that will understand the request and map it against potential
outcomes – ranging from a relevant existing app through to direct contact with others in

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 the neighbourhood who can help or potential crowdsourcing options to create new
solutions;
x Include a feedback loop into each solution to draw the user back into gamification.

3.3 Scaling Neighbourhood Value

x Ensure that MyNeighbourhood Platform offers a quick and easy one-stop portal for
people to add local content, ideas applications and needs about their own
neighbourhood – thereby facilitating a viral effect;
x Make ideas and apps widely and openly available – whether newly created or already
existing – through on- and offline channels and tactics such as developer competitions;
x Aggregate and navigate needs at the neighbourhood, city and Global level to provide
scalable intelligence at all three of these phases.

4. Technology Description
The MyN platform is the technical solution that meets the goals and services envisioned
from the MyNeighbourhood Vision and Concept and from the work done in the living labs
and co-design activities within the pilots. It helps to recreate a lost sense of neighbourhood
that is rooted in the local place, were people share the same interests and needs. As such,
the Platform intends to provide the means of identifying, searching and managing the needs
of the individuals within the context of the neighbourhood. This also entails the sharing of
knowledge and expertise across the neighbourhood [15].
The MyN is an open source platform combining web technologies, existing products,
social networks, semantic technology and gamification to ensure the engagement of citizens
and the effective response to their wishes, interests and needs. Its architecture takes into
consideration the bottom-up design process derived from the co-design activities,
enhancing the human focus. The design of the platform is based on user-centered methods,
and includes a set of tools and principles that will be reflected in the system and in the user
interface.
In the product discovery phase, which was the base of the creation of the Platform
architecture, product solutions were envisioned from the business intentions and the project
vision, but the product discovery was not focused only on the solution. This activity led the
stakeholders to spend time understanding more than just what to build: the solution context,
business and product strategy, customer segments, product usages, regulatory constraints,
legacy product and architecture, users and user goals and how the product will touch the
lives of the users [16].
The Platform is available on the web (www.my-n.eu) and provides, among many
functionalities, the features of creating communities within each neighbourhood, creating
blogs and discussion, promoting challenges, exchanging products and services in the
‘Neighbourhood Market Square’ as well as georeferencing POIs (Points of interest), such as
restaurants, bars, local important places, bus stops, gardens, in the ‘Neighbourhood places’
which also allows the insertion of comments, accessibility rate, photos and other
information that the user can add.

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 Figure 1. MyN Platform Architecture

5. Developments
MyNeighbourhood is working in four pilot cities, where the methodology and tools were
applied at a target neighbourhood. The four pilots have different issues and specific
characteristics: the work developed in Mouraria (Lisbon) [10] neighbourhood, came up
with services more oriented to the social inclusion and local economy issues; in Ladyhood
(Birmingham) the challenges addressed were applied to transportation and mobility; in
Quarto Oggiaro (Milan) we addressed, among others, the issues related to maintenance of
public areas and elderly people social integration; in Nørresundbyv (Aalborg) the solutions
created are concerned with health care and social inclusion of people with mental and
physical disabilities.
The selection of these four pilots allowed the co-design of a set of services that were the
initial core of the MyN platform. These services were replicated in other pilots and
expanded to cover all the identified WINs. [17]. Additional neighbourhoods are now
populating the platform with the already developed services and some new ones. MyN is
being progressively extended to all the neighbourhoods of the City, fostering the interaction
among them, scaling to the Human Smart City.

6. Results
MyN is already supporting urban innovation ecosystems in which the City Government,
citizens and their organizations work together in a transparent, open, participatory and
efficient way. The city government operates with full knowledge of the citizens’ will, based
on a solid relationship of trust, recreating the values and the culture inherent to
neighbourhood communities with a strong identity and willingness to collaborate with each
other. Ultimately, MyN contributes to increase the level of satisfaction with the city
administration and the services made available.
It is stimulating and supporting the community innovation and entrepreneurship. New
or enhanced business opportunities (Including increased profits) are also taking advantage
of MyN. Start-ups and SMEs are using data extracted from MyNeighbourhood platform to
create new applications and services addressing the market needs and having access to a

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 focus group, formerly only available to larger companies. In Lisbon, MyN supports the
local businesses through a mentorship process, empowering people namely the
unemployed, and providing tools to support the creation of new products and services, to
open their businesses in the neighbourhood. This is exemplified by "Pastéis da Mouraria", a
new pastry brand, run by a very young entrepreneur: João. He joined MyNeighbourhood
and through the mentorship process is consolidating the brand and increasing the sales.
In Milan the "QuartoFood Club" service has been implemented with a great success,
improving the social life of a vulnerable group of elderly citizens from Quarto Oggiaro
neighbourhood. The students of the local Hotel Management School prepare and serve
meals to a group of elderly citizens from the neighbourhood contributing to their integration
and the student’s self-satisfaction and recognition. In Lisbon, the "Ó Vizinho" promotes
services and products exchanges within the neighbourhood, thus supporting the
interchanging of mutual help between neighbours and creating a huge social impact.
In Aalborg MyN is engaging citizens from the neighbourhood to perform voluntary
work for the benefit of people with disabilities. The services: Voluntary Help: volunteer
support in visiting/helping disabled citizens when at home or accompanying them when
going out; Accessible City: information sharing about accessibility and friendliness of local
businesses towards disabled customers; and Cultural Assistance: local businesses offering
free assistance to people with disabilities on the occasion of cultural events.
Some other successful results are provided by the ecological services, such as the
volunteer maintenance of green public areas in Milan and the improvement of the air
quality in Birmingham through the Women on Wheels and Travel Buddies services. The
Women on Wheels service promotes healthy lifestyles through a new, dedicated social
networking, which also contributes to make cycling an integral part of the city transport
network.

7. Business Benefits
A wide dissemination and evangelization work of MyNeighbourhood methodologies and
tools as well as the MyN platform is being performed on a global scale demonstrating the
benefits achieved by citizens, local authorities and business organizations. A package of
MyN consultancy services is being prepared and the MyN platform is being integrated in
the FI-Ware as the solution for the Human Smart Cities on a Global Scale [18].
The Human Smart Cities Manifesto [19] was publicly announced and signed in Rome
on the 30th May 2013, with the aim to exchange experience, best practice cases and create
the critical mass that may influence the required changes and policies to make MyN a
business success. In October 2013 the Human Smart Cities Network was launched
attracting initially 70 cities. This number has grown to 103 cities today. A large number of
Human Smart Cities events based on MyNeighbourhood have taken place in Europe and
Beyond: Lisbon, Brasilia, Bologna, Rome, etc. These events are significant steps on the
emerging Human Smart City movement.
Entities ranging from Associations of cities (such as Eurocities, Convenant of Mayors)
to public entities engaged in the support to the Human " Smartisation" of Cities, (such as
the European Commission and the World Bank), can play an important role in this process.
Awarding recognition mechanisms such as the establishment of a prize (iCapital award can
also be very important to accelerate and consolidate the Human Smart Cities
implementation, offering better quality of life and happiness to the citizens.

8. Conclusions
MyNeighbourhood established itself as a powerful test bed for the implementation of a
Human Smart Cities vision and methodologies. The project is based on the premise that

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 neighbourhoods represent a heretofore untapped, yet powerful, catalyst for human smart
city change. MyNeighbourhood aims to transform the city governance by engaging citizens
in an open, transparent and trusted dialog, enhancing and easing the interaction with the city
administration: this makes it easier for citizens and business to transmit priorities and needs
to city administration, reduces the need for time consuming face-to-face interactions with
city administration and removes the burden of bureaucratic processes by facilitating greater
neighbour-to-neighbour ex-changes. MyNeighbourhood is now in a phase of wide
engagement and testing of the Platform and developing the business proposition to address
in a Global Scale the transformation of the Cities.
Human Smart Cities use technologies as an enabler to connect and engage government
and citizens, aiming to rebuild, recreate and motivate urban communities, stimulating and
supporting their collaboration activities leading to a joint increase of social wellbeing.
Human Smart Cities "hear and speak" to the citizens; policies and supporting services make
the city government more open, transparent, participatory and efficient - a mirror of the
citizens’ will. Human Smart Cities empower citizens to co-design and co-create solutions
for their Wishes, Interests and Needs, recreating a new sense of belonging and identity,
leading to a better and happier society.

Acknowledgement
MyNeighbourhood is a CIP ICT-CIP project partially funded by the European Commission.

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