We are facing a revolution that will mark a turning point in how we generate and share information. Citizen science was born out of a collective need and the belief that the more interconnected creativity is, the more powerful it becomes.
Citizen science
The goal of the Fab City project is to develop a fully productive city whose inhabitants share their knowledge to solve local problems and set up new businesses and education schemes. Barcelona already has two ‘manufacturing athenaeums’ which take inspiration from this philosophy.
Making a city smart through the massive use of technology does not suffice. It requires citizens who are open, participative, enterprising, risk-takers, curious and innovative. The BCNLab project mirrors a path taken by the cities that are pushing the world forward.
The Cornellà Citilab opened its doors in 2007 thanks to a grant from the ERDF that transformed the old Can Suris factory into a citizen lab.
Under the leadership of the city of Barcelona, the project iCity is becoming the European laboratory for the creation of services making use of public information systems.
Citizen science may offer a more democratic and more transparent way of doing things, clearly aligned with the vision some people have of social innovation under the name of citizen lab.
PyBossa is an open source tool that allows any citizen to create their own project to analyse a problem, hypothesis or experiment using the scientific method.
AtrapaelTigre.com is a ground-breaking project based on the use of new technologies to compile data for studying, monitoring and controlling the tiger mosquito, with the help of the public.
We need a new cultural paradigm for the innovation society. We must be able to co-design and learn new cultural patterns, based on increasing each person’s responsibilities with regard to their inventions and use.