#designforchange
How can we inspire youth to move from a place of confusion into a place of urgency to invest in their skills that will equip them to create the future of livable society?
The Smart & Sustainable Urban Mobility Open Innovation Program was a ten weeks intense program that focused to teach young minds to make proper research, to ask better questions, to co-design for a better future through human centered design steps.
This was one of the biggest projects we've been involved in. We learned a lot, we met great people and discovered new angles of design by designing connections, events and a mentoring program.
Partners: imece, The General Consulate of The Netherlands-Istanbul, Zorlu Holding
Collaborators: Ara Studio
Photos & Video: 140 Journos, Atlas Storytelling
Special thanks to Bahar Orçun, Ayşesu Çelik, Ceylan Uşaki Erali, Tolgahan Akbulut
What
The Smart & Sustainable Urban Mobility Open Innovation Program was a ten weeks intense program that focused to teach young minds to make proper research, to ask better questions, to co-design for a better future through human centered design steps.
Social innovation platform imece designed a ten week curriculum and training sessions using a human centered design approach and the Netherlands Consulate-General in Istanbul made possible this program with their vision, network and endless support as the main partner.
We proudly took a role as a managing partner and a collaboration designer at in total this six months project. We connected the main partners; the Netherlands Consulate-General in Istanbul and social innovation platform imece with other 21 supportive partners within the smart and sustainable urban mobility topic.
We also designed and managed the "creative mentorship" program to support students who participated in the innovation challenge. During ten weeks of open innovation challenge, we also organized events such as Kickoff Event, Partners Gathering, Project Showcase, and Closing Event with participation of hundreds of professionals, creatives, and students. It was an amazing journey full of learnings, dreams, and curious minds.
Video: 140 Journos
Process
SEARCH & MAP
We made research within the topic and mapped potential stakeholders.
DISRUPT & RE-ASK
We asked new questions to discover new intentions and relations between stakeholders, organizational goals, and future foresee.
DESIGN
We designed collaborations between different scales from enterprises to big companies, from an individual designer to a university. We also designed a creative mentorship program to connect students with professional designers to discuss their projects as well.
TEST
We tested our collaborative design approach with small and medium activities such as “collaboration matters workshop” and with our surveys which we shared with participants via our monthly newsletter
TRACK
We organized follow up meetings to facilitate the collaboration between supporter partners. We also supported imece for the monitoring phase by facilitating conversations between Dutch organizations and winner projects.
Results
We worked for months together with program partners, supporters, and mentors. In the end, we reached a great, curious community;
1 Execution Partner
1 Main Partner
1 Managing Partner
7 network Partners
4 Supporting Partners
4 Prototyping Partners
11 Knowledge & Content Partners these people, organizations had very diverse backgrounds;
24 Organizations from 7 different disciplines
7 Universities
4 High Schools
3 Municipalities
34 Creative Professionals
but most importantly 228 Students participated to the program and created 34 projects in only ten weeks.
You can see student projects here.
What we learned
Be Clear, Connect Deeper
We learned that defining roles and limiting responsibilities as clear as possible is the hardest part of collaborative projects but also very it's critical to manage expectations. Especially after hearing such different intensives, goals, and plans of them. But it’s not impossible so, first listen, then define roles as clear as possible to make the process efficient.
Collaboration is Possible
It’s for sure, if you have a question, there is a person who has the answer. There are several people, organizations that have the same purpose and goal as you. Be honest and open enough to hear.
Rituals Create Bond
Work is not only about work. It’s about trust, shared values, and purpose. Create some time and organize some activities to bond with your partners to understand each other better.
Bridge between impossibles
There are always several disciplines, communities that never comes together but should connect to create a bigger impact. Don’t hesitate the bridge them when you have a good cause.