10 Capacity Strengthening Capsules. 10 Opportunities to learn new skills and strategies - from online communication strategies to green public procurement. 10 Experts reached out to 32 municipalities in 28 different countries. The lectures on specific processes and solution approaches provided the participants with relevant competencies for their local challenge in various thematic areas. You missed these sessions? Then visit our Virtual Gallery - there you will find the recordings of all the capsules! 

3 Design Thinking Workshops. 30 participants and 3 challenges. The workshops offered an intensive coaching aimed at focussed group work on specific municipal challenges. During the workshop efficient problem-solving methods were applied to align within the working group on the problem definition, to formulate concise solution scenarios and to build capacity in human-centred-design methods for following 3 challenges:

1. The first challenge, addressed the question of how can we help citizens, that depend on daily commutes in large cities, and therefore are exposed to pollution related diseases? Participants from Bangalore (India), Berlin (Germany), Barcelona (Spain) and Antananarivo (Madagascar) dealt with the answer to this question and the resulting solution approach. The solution called “GREEN ON” is an eco-Living Lab aimed at keeping cities clean and green through awareness raising and activity programs such as collective clean ups and tree planting. This idea includes a systemic approach to address supply chain impact and a circular approach to recycling and up-cycling.
2. The second challenge, addressed the question of how can we make bicycle use safe, healthy, and appealing? The working group with members from Lalitpur Metropolitan City council, Urban Electric Mobility Initiative UEMI and the Urban Mobility department from the technical University Berlin, collaborated on the challenge of improving urban bicycle traffic in the City of Lalitpur (Nepal). After exploring the challenge and navigating through the design thinking process, the team came up with a service concept for cargo-bike sharing for small businesses such as street vendors, delivery, and waste management.
3. The third challenge, addressed the question of how we can help a young creative professional struggling with the thought of leaving their country or not, stay in Belgrade and develop a career in the creative economy? The working group of entrepreneurs and coworking specialists from Austria, creatives from Mexico and Brazil, business consultants and the country representatives from Serbia, connected their solution to existing real-estate projects: an offline drop shipping creativity market in the Serbian Capital. To support the physical space a digital application for community building, global mentoring and capacity strengthening would serve local creatives as incentive to stay and build their business in Serbia.

1 Finance Advice. For those who wanted to find out what requirements and expectations a project proposal should meet in order to be supported, the session brought together different actors from finance institutions, foundations and social entrepreneurs such as Soarway Foundation, Qatar Charity, Turkish Airlines, Partner4Growth, Bean Voyage and JP Morgan. Participating municipalities and their private sector counterparts were given the opportunity to ask specific questions to prepare funding requests and project proposals accordingly. The event reached 104 registered participants from 32 municipalities in 24 different countries.

1. Believe in your project.

2. Have a vision. Why do you want to implement the project?

3. Have a plan. Donors need confidence.

4. Be credible and be realistic.

5. Find a strong partner.

6. Be accountable and transparent. Where and how are the funds spend?

7. Own it - put some skin in the game.

- Ambassador (Retd.) Scott DeLisi (Soarway Foundation/ Engage Nepal)

48h Hackathon. 46 Municipalities. 41 Countries. The Connective Cities Hackathon brought together over 160 participants - mentors, judges, and partners - to resolve the shared pandemic challenges and develop solutions jointly. After intensive work on actionable solutions, the created prototypes were presented to a selected committee.

Pop Up Living Space was chosen as the winner of our contest – focussing on how technology can be utilised to revitalize and occupy empty city spaces? The solution allows different creators to reserve urban space for short amounts of time (a few days or weeks), becoming a low commitment and proposition for them and a way to ensure the multi-purpose spaces are being used. The runner-up was Dzitri Point - based on the legendary Togolese King, considered a protector of his inhabitants, it is fighting trolls and fake news with media and tech literacy. In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, it is a tool that social actors use to combat dangerous misinformation and radicalization tendencies.

There was an honorary mention for Mixed City, an immersive, inclusive and educational AR experience to highlight urban features and attract visitors and talents. Nicola Tesla will appear in front of your eyes and challenge your intellect. The AR application will include real-world objects such as art installations, furniture, or other items in the game or seamlessly created out of thin air.

During the demonstration day, three solutions pitched outside of the hackathon and were entered into a "Matchathon" to help them connect to essential stakeholders and resources.

The winner of the Matchathon was White Libra - through DIGITAL WORK CITY, it makes digital work for companies and workers extremely easy and manageable. Within the platform you can find people to work with, working tools, HR services, and everything needed to draw up contracts, pay workers, and avoid bureaucracy, with respect to diversity and inclusion in a remote manner.

In order to support the further development of the created prototypes, each of the mentioned projects received prizes in form of online trainings for user-centred design and business management skills, tickets to Europe's biggest data science and AI conference and further networking opportunities.

The full judging panel at the event - selected the winners based on innovation, impact, applicability, feasibility, and execution across three categories, Innovation, Crisis Communication, and Digitalization - consisted of Katharina De Vita, Madeleine Gummer v. Mohl, Marcelo Garcia, Albert Calvo, Danilo Grbović, Alexander Ohrt, Kristine Tarvida, Tomislav Zorc, Ms. Sabine Drees.

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See final report of the Connective Cities Lab [pdf, 36 pp., 5,6mb]