One Page Summary

To connect people on the local and digital level commercial social networks for the neighborhood (like nextdoor.com or nebenan.de) start to spread across europe and show that there is a demand for such services. But the recent discussion about facebook shows that due to exploitation of users data those profit oriented and closed systems are not a good fit to be part of the public service landscape. Also they are limited in their flexibility to target the special needs from region to region. So there is the need for an open solution.

In late 2015 we joined the refugeehackathon in Berlin to find out how digital tools could help with integration in the wake of the refugee crisis that was emerging in Germany. From the demand analysis done with refugees we seen the strong need to be able to connect with the new living neighborhood and the smartphone was a digital tool almost available to every refugee - it is the most common entry point into the digital world across all social groups nowadays. So we were searching for a way to connect people thru the smartphone on a local level - within their neighborhood and start working on the Konfetti App as an Open Source project in our free time.

With our first testready Prototype which we finished about one year later, we realized that our focus had been too narrow by choosing a very gamified approach where people could earn Konfetti points when doing activities together. In user tests and talks with local communities we were seeing that everyone had a slightly different focus on how an app for the neighborhood or the local region should work. But everyone signaled us the need for an localized open app to inform people, connect them and help them organize for a better neighborhood. Especially because people started to use commercial tools like facebook, Whatsapp or nebenan.de .. but nobody was really happy with feature set or the commercial user data policies.

In cooperation with Technical University Berlin (TU Berlin) and the Berlin University of Arts (UDK Berlin) we designed a concept for a version 2.0 of the Konfetti App and had the chance to implement it thru a funding by the Prototype Fund (Open Knowledge Foundation).

So what we now can offer to the city of Siracusa is a Framework for an Open Source App that works on Android and iPhone that is designed for the local neighborhood with an inclusive and usability mindset from the beginning. Its build in a modular way, so that depending on the concrete needs you identified in your city we can co-design (with your task force or other third parties) and implement the solutions while utilizing the already available foundation we created.

Public and social services can be announced in the local newsfeed or visualized on a Open Street map. Special events can be published via push notification to activate people for participation. A group based chat system can be used to let people connect, help each other or can be a quick way to answer questions. An idea marketplace allows everybody to suggest how to improve the neighborhood, let the rest of the community vote on it and start to organize with the goal to meet in real life and make change happen right before our doorsteps. Helping others and becoming an active part of the community can be rewarded with a point based system. That all is what the App offers right now. And it can be extended and adapted to the needs we together identify.

Having an already existing framework for a local app that we can utilize and adapt makes it realistic that we can develop an idea we co-design to a test-ready implementation within the given short project time frame of 6 month. The open source approach offers the most possible ways to continue the solution after that time in a sustainable way. Your community can take full local ownership and join us on the development and maybe even talent from your area can become the first service provider to scale the solution for Italy within Europe. The Impact Hub Siracusa is a perfect environment for this and as a member of the Impact Hub Berlin we see a common goal and network we can rely on and strengthen together.