Enabling situated open and participatory design processes by exploiting a digital platform for open innovation in smart cities

The paper discusses the experience conducted in the context of Peripheria, a European Project started in 2010, in experimenting with 5 different European cities the perspective of open innovation and crowdsourcing to boost citizens active participation to solve problems of their cities. To reach this goal Peripheria elaborated the notion of challenges as the tool to introduce the competitive dimension for the discovery of emergent needs in gaming and participatory processes that characterises the Periphèria approach. Similar competition to elicit user engagement and creativity exist in a range of settings (Baek, Manzini & Rizzo, 2010, Von Hippel, 2005; Cautela, Rizzo & Zurlo, 2009), from peer-to-peer innovation mechanisms (between companies, among people from a community, between end users and companies, between experts and companies. The article discusses the Peripheria general framework as an example of application of open innovation in public sector to co-design services between citizens and cities stakeholders. The core of the project is the ideation of a open platform that aims to support citizens participation to the definition of future services for their cities.