Given the challenges created by increasing urbanization, dense population concentrations, and limited budgets, many local governments are turning to innovative methods to find solutions to civic problems. Following the example of how many large corporations have used crowdsourcing and open innovation to solve complex problems and create innovative consumer products, local governments are looking to civic engagement and open innovation to help identify and develop solutions to public problems.
Many government agencies have already embraced open innovation. For example, the US federal government has been actively engaging citizens to help address public issues through prizes and open challenges. In fact, the federal government’s use of crowdsourcing has increased 6-fold since January 2011, when President Obama signed the America COMPETES Act into law. Challenge.gov has seen more than 42,000 people participate in more than 300 challenges , with $35 million awarded in prizes. Abroad, the Indonesian government held its first open hackathon earlier this year to create apps focused on addressing public issues related to city budget control and public transportation. Crowdsourcing initiatives are truly in the democratic spirit of by the people, for the people. Iceland even collaborated with its constitution!
A study conducted by the IBM Center for The Business of Government in collaboration with the University of Southern California sought to identify and analyze various methods by which governments can effectively leverage crowdsourcing and open innovation. Depending on whether the problem is to locate or analyze existing data and knowledge, or whether it requires developing a completely new idea or solution, there are 4 possible approaches that governments can take. We briefly discuss them below.
1. Information discovery and management
This type of approach is for tasks where the government agency reaches out to citizens to help collect, organize, or maintain information and knowledge, such as creating collective resources. For example, the Boston Mayor’s Office launched Streetbumps, an app that allows citizen volunteers to collect information about road conditions while driving. The data is then collected and analyzed to identify and fix short-term problems, as well as plan long-term investments.
2. Distributed human intelligence tasks
This refers to tasks that require human intelligence, being distributed to a community of volunteers. These can be online tasks or tasks that require physical action in the real world. Examples include “Adopt a Hydrant” and “Adopt a Hurricane Siren” in Boston and Honolulu respectively, where civic agencies reached out to local citizens to help maintain essential infrastructure. Efforts to transcribe historical documents through crowdsourcing, such as this project to transcribe the 1940 US Census, also follow this approach.
3.Search for streams
This type of crowdsourcing helps agencies find solutions to difficult ideation problems that often have empirical solutions such as cost-saving formulas or scientific solutions. By reaching out to a larger community online, government agencies can connect with people on the margins who may have a unique skill set and perspective that could help find a solution. The “Vehicle Stopper” contest launched by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to create a viable, cost-effective and sustainable means of stopping a runaway vehicle, without damaging it, had an overwhelming response of over 1,000 registrations and over 100 proposals. Solutions The final selected solution was from a retired engineer in Lima, Peru, who was awarded a $25k prize for the rights to use his idea.
4. Peer-Reviewed Creative Production
Not all problems have empirical answers, but are questions of politics, design, aesthetics, or subjective taste. In such situations, the most commonly used crowdsourcing model by agencies is the peer review approach, where the community not only proposes solutions, but also selects the final solution, usually through a combination of voting and feedback. For example, the Utah Transit Authority launched the Next Stop Design challenge to design the ideal bus shelter for an actual transit center. Although no reward was offered, more than 3,000 participants registered and submitted more than 260 high-quality designs.
These approaches and examples only serve to show different ways that governments can take advantage of open innovation through crowdsourcing methods. Of course, just as in the commercial space, local civic agencies attempting this must also be aware of best practices and considerations to execute such initiatives effectively.