Rijeka PILOT: Workshop with civil associations

The central part of the Rijeka pilot is the establishment of the Citizen Collaboration Platform (CCP), an on-line tool which will allow open communication and interaction with citizens, primarily on gathering the ideas and proposals for use of City-owned infrastructure objects, real-estates and other public spaces. Three major target groups were identified: (1) elderly people, (2) young people, and (3) already engaged citizens.

On 25^th of January 2018 Rijeka pilot working team has organized a workshop with engaged citizens, gathered within different civil associations. The supporting partner and event co-organizer - association SMART, invited representatives of city civil scene, and the response was beyond expectations. 27 attendees from different associations, even from another cities, participated in the workshop and following discussion. The interest was on very high level, and so were their comments and proposals. The main objective of the workshop was to collect ideas and proposals on CCP performances, in order to be useful tool among civil society actors.

After general introduction with URBAN INNO project, presented by City of Rijeka representative Ms. Iva Ribarić, Mr. Damir Medved (Ericsson NT) proceeded with Rijeka pilot elaboration. This was the 3rd official occasion where the CCP as a pilot project was publicly introduced and tested by citizen participation. The following discussion provided useful inputs for CCP further development, with especial focus on City-owned real-estates transparency.

Among others, the most interesting demands were:

• To provide the descriptions of City-owned spaces with as many details as possible, enabling users to select proper real-estate faster and more precisely. For example, the height of the spaces is data which never appears in specifications, but is very important for particular activities such as sport.
• To enable the participation of socially disadvantaged groups through infrastructure of local community councils, public offices/institutions and info centers.
• To establish a fair voting system for citizens’ proposals, by respecting the local residents’ opinion and disabling anonymous users.
• To integrate the event calendar into the platform, indicating every important event in the city area, including the dates of official City calls.
• CCP has to be an open data source.
• CCP has to serve as a market place and exchange platform for civil sector associations.

In conclusion, workshop with engaged citizens and associations emphasized their needs and resulted with useful inputs that will make CCP acceptable as a tool for civil sector activities within the city area.