Shape Copenhagen

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TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PROJECT OVERVIEW PROCESS FINAL CONCEPT CONCLUSIONS TEAM

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The city of Copenhagen welcomes thousands of new residents from outside of Denmark each year. Their reasons to move to Copenhagen are as diverse as their backgrounds; they may come for job opportunities, to further their education, or perhaps because of relationships. These new Copenhageners are a major asset for the city.

They bring with them resourcefulness, unique skills and experiences, and a fresh perspective on the city.

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However, the city of Copenhagen can - and should - be doing more to better leverage and engage this community as an untapped asset. This has been the focus of a four week iterative design process, using design research and experience prototypes to explore and better understand this opportunity space. This report presents the final outcome of this project, how the design team got there and how they imagine this can be taken forward by key stakeholders.

“Shape Copenhagen is a civic participation service to help facilitate responsive citizenry amongst Copenhageners, in an accessible and informative way.�

Shape Copenhagen is a civic participation service to help facilitate responsive citizenry amongst new Copenhageners, in an accessible and informative way. It does so by providing an infrastructure for dialogue between the city and its newest residents. The city can reach out to communities with information about ongoing urban planning and develop-

ment processes. In turn, the residents can give their input and feedback on initiatives. In addition, residents are also able to initiate new projects that they want to see happen in their neighbourhoods. With this tool, new residents are able to quickly learn about and engage with issues effecting their new home.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY KEY INSIGHTS Our service proposition is based on the following key findings: • Newcomers’ diverse skills and experiences are under-utilised.

• Newcomers become part of the fabric of Copenhagen as soon as they arrive.

• There’s a window of opportunity now to expand Copenhagen’s smart city agenda to better include meaningful civic engagement.

IMPLEMENTATION The City of Copenhagen is currently rolling out a civic participation programme called “Sammen for byen” (Together for the city), which aims to better understand how citizens want to participate in the development of the city. The team presents the service outlined in this report to be used as inspiration for ways to proactively engage with newcomers in this exciting and timely initiative.

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PROJECT OVERVIEW

INTRODUCTION This project is the result of a four week course on Data Driven Service Design given at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. The project was conducted in close cooperation with the International House, who provided the team access to both their employees and the users of the International House.

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DESIGN BRIEF “This is not about fixing bureaucracy, shortening the queue or form filling. This is about integrating identity and social meaning into the social fabric of the city by utilising big sets of data.

To understand the needs, desires and challenges of the Copenhagen municipality and their newly arriving citizens, to empower the phrase, ‘Smart City, Smart Citizens’.”

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PROJECT OVERVIEW

PROCESS

The team worked through an iterative design process throughout the four weeks.

In the initial two weeks of the project, the team explored speculative design to better understand the problem space and ask provocative questions about 10

the existing immigration system and its stakeholders. The process followed a cycle of amplifying, flipping, combining and looking at potential positive and negative consequences. The team developed and tested three different experience prototypes as tools to do so.

The last two weeks the team shifted to a more hands on service design process.

They set out to identify newcomers’ user journeys, where the service would fit into the existing system provided by the International House and the different possible touch points of such a service.

The team interviewed a number of experts from various departments in the municipality to better understand how the service could help solve issues currently facing the city.

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MISSION STATEMENT “Utilize the city’s diversity to help Copenhagen become a truly Smart City.”

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PROJECT OVERVIEW

MODEL

During the four week project, the team explored a model depicting the perceived relationship between newcomers and recipient communities (see above). The project focused on flipping this perception of newcomers being “needy”.

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Instead, the team wanted to speculate on what the consequences would be if recipient community was perceived as the “needy� one and the newcomers were viewed only as assets.

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PROCESS­

RESEARCH Throughout the project the team utilized a wide range of methods to better understand the problem space, its users and a wide range of stakeholders.

In total, the team interacted with 50+ users and stakeholders using all of these methods.

These methods included observation, interviews, co-creation and desk research.

The team identified three main user groups: • Municipality representatives • New Copenhageners • Local Danes & other long-term residents

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OBSERVATIONS AND INTERVIEWS

NEWCOMERS The team conducted initial observations and short interviews with various users at the International House. In addition, they identified previous users that had been in Copenhagen for several years, to get a better understanding of their transition process.

FINDINGS

• Newcomers to Copenhagen have unique experiences and are eager to share them • Organic networking is happening and is used as a strategy to ease people’s transition 18

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CO-CREATION

NEWCOMERS User journey maps were created to flesh out and create a better understanding of the different steps newcomers go through when they move to Copenhagen. The team facilitated ten co-creation sessions where users of International House created their own user journey, indicating their pain points, highs and lows during the transition process.

FINDINGS

• Main pain points when arriving include securing long-term housing, jobs inline with their existing skill-level and establishing new social networks • Newcomers resources are often under-utilized 21

INTERVIEWS

LOCAL DANES To better understand local Danes’ points of view on newcomers to Copenhagen, the team talked to people on the street using a low-fidelity prototype to get the conversation going about existing perceptions on immigration.

“Every immigrant is a gift.”

- Local Dane

FINDINGS

• Many local Danes value newcomers as equal contributors to Danish society • The media often portrays a different story than local Danes 22

“It’s the media that creates the perception of ‘needy’ immigrants. I wish they would focus more on the positive sides of immigration.”

- Local Dane

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EXPERT INTERVIEWS

CENTER FOR URBAN DEVELOPMENT The Department of Economic Development and the Department of Technology and Environment in the City of Copenhagen have jointly initiated a project to better understand how Copenhageners would like to participate in issues concerning the development of their City. The team interviewed representatives from the Center for Urban

Development on the City’s goals and current initiatives related to civic participation.

“To facilitate public participation we need smarter solutions than we have today” - Rebecca, Center of Urban Development

FINDINGS

• New Copenhageners are overlooked for civic participation initiatives • The municipality is looking for new methods for civic participation • The municipality wants to streamline how different departments engage residents 24

“We want to engage people on themes and topics which they know and care about, like how they use the city.�

- Anja, Center of Urban Development

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EXPERT INTERVIEWS

COPENHAGEN SOLUTIONS LAB Copenhagen aims at becoming one of City agenda, the team interviewed a the smartest cities in the world. This has special advisor at the Culture and Leiimplications for every sector in the city. sure Department.

Copenhagen Solutions Lab is the governing body for the different projects and initiatives. To better understand how newcomers can con- Mikkel, Culture and Leisure Dept. tribute to the Smart

“It’s a resource to have a newcomer see the city from the outside.”

FINDINGS

• A truly Smart City needs to crowdsource data and promote ongoing and meaningful interactions with its citizens • The City’s numerous departments often work in silos • There is a need for new, effective tools for civic participation to better inform municipal decision making 26

“The Smart City agenda has mainly focused on technological issues, and not social engagement.�

- Mikkel, Culture and Leisure Dept.

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EXPERT INTERVIEWS

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE The client serving staff of the International House represent a wealth of experience and insights about newcomers to Copenhagen. The team conducted in-depth interviews with staff to get a better understanding of the work conducted and what sort of services the International House provides to its users.

FINDINGS

• All social networks are not necessarily helpful, it’s important they provide support structures needed to help newcomers settle in

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- Younes

“A success story is when newcomers are able to maintain their own identity and attain their goals in Copenhagen.�

- Younes, International House

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PROCESS

PROTOTYPES The team developed numerous prototypes throughout the project to better explore the problem space. The prototypes ranged from low-fidelity paper prototypes, to real-life experience prototypes.

The prototypes were designed with varying levels of fidelity in mind in order to elicit different types of feedback from user groups.

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PROTOTYPES

NEWCOMER TED TALK One of the team’s early hypotheses was that newcomers have a range of unique - often untapped - experiences that they bring with them to Copenhagen. To explore this, the team developed a prototype that focused on experience sharing in the format of a short ‘TED talk’.

The video was screened for numerous visitors at the International House to open a conversation about possible interest in skill and experience sharing.

FINDINGS

• Curation of this type of content is needed • People come to the International House (IH) with a clear objective • Timing is key - the IH is not the place for unplanned retention activities

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PROTOTYPES

NEWCOMERS THINK TANK Based on insights from early interviews with newcomers and the ‘TED talk’ prototype, an experience prototype in the form of a workshop was developed.

The main goal of this prototype was to explore if our target group would be interested in using their free time to share their experiences and collaborate with fellow newcomers to reach a common community development goal.

A two hour workshop on a Friday evening attracted three participants who was eager to share and develop their ideas in order to solve an identified problem for the City.

FINDINGS

• There is a sense of civic duty for Copenhagen among newcomers • People are willing to share and build on each other’s ideas, even though they don’t know each other • Facilitation of processes are essential when bringing strangers together for problem solving 34

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PROTOTYPES

NEW IMMIGRATION PROGRAM What would happen if Denmark wanted to attract the most immigrants in the world? To explore this speculative question, the team developed a set of national policies to enable Denmark to attract up to 100 000 immigrants each year. The Danish Knowledge Exchange Programme (D-KEP) would give Danes the opportunity to take a sabbatical year every 5th year. New foreign talent

would be recruited to hold the jobs of the Danes for one year and contribute with their experiences and outside perspectives.

Imagining how the D-KEP initiative would work provided a provocative perspective on the current immigration system.

FINDINGS

• Designing a specific solution targeted solely at newcomers is not holistic enough to solve the complex problems identified

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FINAL CONCEPT

SERVICE OVERVIEW “Shape Copenhagen is a civic participation service to help facilitate responsive citizenry amongst Copenhageners, in an accessible and informative way.”

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FINAL CONCEPT

SERVICE BLUEPRINT

The service blueprint outlines the front and back end elements of the proposed service. The front end shows the touchpoint for the end user (resident). The back end show how the organizer of the service (municipality) would manage the service.

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FINAL CONCEPT

IMPLEMENTATION The team envisions implementing the service through the following overall steps: • Setting up a cross departmental civic participation task force to coordinate and streamline how the city elicits feedback and engage its residents in the development of Copenhagen.

• The task force will channel ideas, opinions and feedback from the public to the correct authorities and make sure that its residents are being heard and kept in the loop.

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• The International House is the obvious touchpoint to engage new Copenhageners in the service.

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FINAL CONCEPT

DIGITAL TOUCHPOINT A mobile application was developed to explore one possible way of implementing parts of the service.

It outlines the benefits of the service for the two main user groups.

Residents will be able to voice their ideas and opinions about the development of the city.

City planners will be able to engage its residents by providing timely and relevant information about its planning processes.

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FINAL CONCEPT

DIGITAL TOUCHPOINT

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CONCLUSION

SUMMARY Through an iterative design process covering four weeks, the team explored the problem space through a range of research methods and by developing prototypes to help inform the final concept design.

Moving from a speculative design process the first two weeks, the team zoomed in on specific issues identified during the last two week of the project. By utilizing personas, user journey maps and service blueprints as process tools the team developed a final concept which aims at utilizing newcomers’ assets to help find solutions to the city’s challenges.

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CONCLUSION

WAYS FORWARD The proposed concept from this project can be taken forward in the following incremental steps.

Short term Coordinate with the Department of Economic Development and translate the “Together for the City” survey currently available (Sammen for byen), and inform newcomers coming through the International House about how to engage with the initiative.

Near term Facilitate focus groups with newcomers in cooperation with Copenhagen Solu-

tion Lab to develop solutions to specific challenges that the city faces. This will help identify what type of support structure would be needed to best engage this community.

Long term Setting up a cross departmental civic participation task force to oversee the city’s civic participation initiatives. The International House would be a critical stakeholder to champion the engagement of newcomers. First pilot year will be setting up a small scale version of the service and test it out in some of Copenhagen’s neighbourhoods.

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THE TEAM

Shape Copenhagen is a project by: Aljeandra Molina, Hรฅvard Lundberg, Chelsey Wickmark, Vihanga Gore and Ciarรกn Duffy.

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