Beth YeomansOne&Other reported back in February (see here) on the City of York Councils community innovation campaign GeniUS! The scheme is now going global as the team behind it are heading for a worldwide innovation summit and awards ceremony in Rio de Janeiro on 2 May.
The Living Labs Global Awards will be in Brazil, they highlight and promote technological and social innovation in addressing the challenges cities around the world face in areas like health, urban management, carbon management, mobility, education and tourism.
City of York Council and Science City York launched the scheme in January, it is an online community innovation platform, aimed to inspire and unite ideas from residents, community groups, businesses and visitors to help tackle major social and environmental issues in York.
GeniUS! has been short listed from 92 applicants to just five, the award is for a proposal to take this established approach to South Africa and pilot the scheme in Cape Town.
Heather Niven from Science City York and Neil Wilford from City of York Council CYC will be invited to Cape town if the scheme is successful at the awards, they will help run a GeniUS! pilot scheme later in the year.
Heather Niven, SCY’s innovation specialist, said: “We immediately recognised the parallel between Cape Town’s desire to develop an ‘innovation ecosystem’ between the business community, residents and city administration and our very own initiative. The GeniUS! scheme shows how we can collaborate with the private sector and our communities to increase our innovation capacity to make our city a better place to live, visit and work. I am delighted that it’s now being seen as a future model to explore opportunities for open innovation in other cities around the world.”
The global summit meeting will be held on May 3, this will give the team a chance to pitch the scheme to leaders from twenty-one Living Labs Global Award partner cities and 150 innovation experts from around the world.
Cllr James Alexander, Labour leader of City of York Council said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to export the city’s innovative listening approach to problem-solving. Only a few months in to the project we are already achieving national, and now global, recognition for the way York is working collaboratively to create better, long-lasting and relevant services for the city.”
The team behind GeniUS! are also submitting an application for stage two of the NESTA Creative Councils program, later this month. They are applying for up to £250k to support some of the solutions and develop the project in York and beyond. The outcome will be revealed by the end of May.
This is brilliant news for the community of York; to find out more a short video has been created in support of the bid, which can be seen below.
For more information on Living Labs Global Awards click here.
