Digital solutions to City challenges

Connecting behavioural insights with quantified community

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Corpus Christi ‘Citizen Scientists’ - February 2015. #scienceface #l00plabs

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Katz Kiely talks about co-designing digital solutions to city challenges at Playable City conference. 

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BadgerScape Released Into the Wild.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! THOSE PESKY BUGS GET EVERYWHERE.

We are exploring fun, bottom up models that motivate people to make their cities healthier, happier and safer.

We hope BadgerScape will motivate people to walk more, and drive less, by combining pester power, games, quantified self, data, and behavioural triggers. 

A very early prototype has been released into the wild. 

We need you and your kids to tell us what works and what doesn’t, so we can make sure that the next version is a whole heap better.

IT’S CHILDS PLAY

Get your kid to register here: http://www.badgerscape.com so they can build an avatar and play a Candy Crush style game.

To buy extra lives and new stuff for their avatar, they need to collect Pester Pesos. 

To earn Pesos they have to recruit adults (yes that’s you), who download a tracking app.

If they want to earn more Pesos, the can recruit more adults. 

Every 500 steps you walk, your kid should get one Pester Peso. If you don’t walk enough, your Minion Master can send Badger Bulletins until you do. 

CAN YOU HELP US?

if you are interested and able to help us test the system, please mail [email protected] with Beta Badger in the subject line.

We will send you a beta badger mail to let you know what to look out for.. At the end of a two week test period we will ask you to fill in a simple feedback form. 

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BadgerScape: A World Changing Concept

We were delighted that BadgerScape was selected as one of the “5 ideas that could Shake the World” by the GREAT Festival of Creativity.  Our CEO Katz went off to pitch with 4 other innovators and thought leaders in Istanbul last week. 

Check out the deck here: http://www.slideshare.net/katzkiely/loop-instanbul-final-pdf

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Cities could breathe easier with BadgerScape: Calling beta testers!!

BadgerScape combines pester power and nudge technologies in a citywide game to make citizens happier and healthier whilst making the air cleaner.

To buy extra lives in a Candy Crush style game, kids will recruit adults that they know, who in turn must walk to earn points.

BadgerScape has been originated and incubated with Brixton residents and school children as part of Walk the Talk program, a research collaboration between Loop Labs and Intel.  

BadgerScape developers and Loop Labs are asking people to test the system and make sure it works! Kids can play the game, and adults can download the tracking app at: http://www.badgerscape.com

THE CHALLENGES:

INACTIVITY: The NHS spends an estimated £29bn on heart disease[1], £5bn on obesity[2] and £10bn on inactivity every year[3]

WE NEED TO WALK MORE: 2 km takes the average person around 20 minutes to walk. Walking prevents heart disease, asthma, diabetes, strokes and depression.

AIR POLLUTION: Particulate pollution kills thousands of people every year. Air pollution is linked to 18 common diseases, costing the public purse over £20 billion a year in the UK alone. London is Europe’s most polluted capital City and its air is over the EU limits[4]

CARS ARE KEY CULPRITS:35% of car journeys are less than 2km. These first two kilometres, before engines have warmed up and emissions systems kick in, are the most polluting.

A SOLUTION:BADGERSCAPE

BadgerScape, an online game, will motivate people to walk more and drive less.

Inspired by Candy Crush, the game will encourage kids to recruit adults. By walking with a tracking app, adults will earn virtual currency that kids can use to buy extra lives, and to personalise their avatars.

Urban outdoor screens will show league tables and celebrate winners, reminding people to carry on playing and encourage healthy competition.

MORE INFORMATION

With BadgerScape, Loop Labs aims to create a world first behaviour change model that includes a game, a connected tracking app and data visualisations for urban screens.

Steps are converted to currency, allowing kids to buy extra lives, to personalise avatars and to level up.

“This initiative will put citizens at the heart of this innovative solution that aims to make Cities happier, healthier and more sustainable. Empowering communities is key to achieving lasting change.” says Nicky Gavron, Chair of Loop Labs.

Katz Kiely CEO describes how children badger parents to earn points;

“BadgerScape will show how pester power can be harnessed for good and how effort can be converted to currency. Empowering kids to drive positive impact in this way could be a game changer”.

Researchers from ICRI Cities will evaluate the impact of the game on wellbeing and the environment, aided by sensors (designed by Intel) across Cities, as part of ongoing research into creative urban interventions.

Intel’s Duncan Wilson, Director of ICRI adds “We have partnered on BadgerScape because we want to show how the data generated by the myriad sensors across cities can be used to make cities healthier places to live.”

BadgerScape, the game and the tracking app will be available at Badgerscape.com from 16th May.  For more information, please contact: Gloria Davies-Coates - [email protected]

ENDS

  Notes to editor

Loop Labs is a social change start-up founded by Nicky Gavron former Deputy Mayor of London with Katz Kiely, an award winning digital engagement and innovation strategist who has worked with the UN, BBC and Westfield.

  Loop Labs is working in collaboration with Intel, UCL and Ogilvy&Mather on this innovative product designed to encourage healthier behaviours.

        [1] Coronary heart disease statistics, 2012

[2] Department of Health, Reducing Obesity and Improving Diet 2013

[3] Walking for Health, 2013

[4] www.cleanairlondon.org

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Design Feedback Workshop with The Green Team Kids

Gloria from Loop Labs ran a design feedback session with the Green Team kids from Corpus Christi Primary School in Brixton last week. 

The kids were presented with designs for the BadgerScape logo, the minions, the badger and the worm and they needed to vote on which design they liked best as well as offer up suggestions for improvement. For example, the badger needs to be less fierce and more cheeky.

It was a very valuable session and Gloria fed all their votes and comments back to our designer Marco the next day.

Here are the kids in action!

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Could you be one of our Minions?

We are really excited to announce that our game BadgerScape, co-designed with kids and Brixtonites, is almost ready for beta testing. Read how you could get involved.

We need your help! If you live in Brixton, would you be willing to help us test the Minion Tracker? All you need to do is signup using this form. You will then get an email to let you know that the App is ready to download on to your phone. Download the App and then walk as you normally would.

By downloading the App, you will be helping us to make Brixton a healthier and happier place to live.

Thank you!

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We need your help! Got kids aged 7-11? We need their feedback on designs for our eco game Badgerscape. Tweet us at @l00plabs with #meandmykidarein

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Watch the video from our Multidisciplinary Lab Day in Brixton. Our #Hack4Change event brought together data experts, local residents, artists, psychologists and kids to help co-design our #walkthetalk App

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Jubilee Primary Eco Warriors

Year 4 Eco Warriors at Jubilee Primary School in Brixton have been helping the Loop Labs team develop characters and core messaging for the Walk the Talk game. 

The children were very welcoming and excited about being part of the co-design process. Year 4 Eco Warriors are a very creative bunch and helped us to draw out some potential avatars using the exquisite corpse methodology.

All the design inputs received from pupils at Jubilee Primary and Corpus Christi Catholic School have been fed to the software development team at Coder Studios.

Watch this space for news of how the game develops.

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Our CEO Katz Kiely speaking at Ogilvy's Behaviour Change Lab Day 

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RAPID TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION AND INTEGRATION

At the turn of the century, PCs were mostly confined to offices, phones were cumbersome, the web was strictly 1.0, personal data was expensive and difficult to track, and there were no social networks.  Now, the digitisation of content and rapidly evolving technology have transformed the way we communicate, share and collaborate. The majority of UK citizens access Web 2.0, mostly using smart phones, and they use countless apps to organise their daily lives. And it’s not just kids and geeks; most people aged 54-65 own smartphones. 

Social networks are massive, and massively powerful. With over 800m global Facebook users and 250m on twitter, these new giants afford entirely new ways of engaging and connecting citizens. There are millions of networked sensors embedded across the urban landscape, manipulating data. Motion sensors, location sensors, induction sensors, light and heat sensors, and RFID tags are built into our smart phones, trainers, cars, and ID cards. Smart phone toting citizens generate terabytes of data every day. Mobile data traffic in 2013 was nearly twelve times the size of the entire Global Internet in 2000. Easy access to this data provides real time insights about where and how we live. The speed of change over the last 15 years is unprecedented, and shows no sign of slowing down any time soon. We are now entering the long awaited and heralded era of the Internet of Things, where people, processes, data and things are connecting in entirely new ways. A new era for business, politicians and the third sector is dawning; our challenge is how to understand and harness this power.

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Small steps and the power of the crowd

The UN predicts that by 2050 the world’s population will be near 11 billion, with 80% living in cities. London’s population is expected to grow by an extra one million people over eight years. Cities were not built to cope with the needs of these burgeoning numbers. Urban infrastructures are creaking and straining at the seams. Cities have a ravenous appetite fo world's energy and creating over 70% of global CO2 emissions.

Cities need to figure out how to be more sustainable. Though top down strategies (policy and technical infrastructures) are achieving some success, LOOP believes citizen behaviour and bottom up solutions are key. 

LOOP is learning how to motivate behavioural change by connecting people and pervasive technology in smarter ways. We are putting the smart citizen at the heart of the Smart Cities agenda.

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Bridging the gap between intention and action is difficult. Behaviour change is a long process. Successful behaviour change models must motivate people to try something new and also support them to repeat that behaviour often enough for it to become habitual

Katz Kiely, CEO of Loop Labs talking about our Walk the Talk project

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DESIGNING WITH THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE

Many projects have tried to crack this challenge over the last few years with limited success. Using available technology and integrating behavioural insights across all stages of design and implementation, LOOP Labs (working with Intel Collaborative Research Institute and Ogilvy Change) is developing a new integrated model to motivate people to walk more and drive less.  The first LOOP multi-channel behaviour change campaign is called “Walk the Talk.” Over the next three months at a testbed in Brixton, in a TSB funded feasibility project, we will experiment with a number of innovative design techniques, and share our journey across multiple platforms, to benefit likeminded organisations. The input of local community leaders will be central to design and development process. As adults are heavily influenced by the desires of their children, we will harness “pester power” by including primary school children from our testbed area in the design, development and decision making process.  A clever, and brand new, game mechanic will harness, and potentially strengthen, intergenerational bonds. Children will depend on points collected from adult team members to rise through game levels. Points will be collected by adults on a smart phone tracking app based on tried and tested models like those used by “Moves”. The app will track steps, distance, calories, and map routes. LOOP believes that public connected screens could be a powerful piece in the motivational puzzle. They litter the urban landscape, often with unused, or badly used, media space. We will commandeer screens in places where significant numbers of the testbed community spend time, including supermarkets, municipal offices, health centres, cinemas, and pubs.  People feel individual actions are worthless in the face of the massive climate change challenge. Perceived lack of impact is demotivating. Following the crowd and “keeping up with the Jones’s”,however, are both powerful drivers. Childrenand parents will be rewarded for even their smallest successes, keeping them engaged and enthused. LOOP LABS interventions will show that individual actions, collected across communities, can have significant impact. Data generated by kids and their adult teams will be aggregated and visualised on public screens, answering questions such as: How far has the community walked? How many calories has it burned? Which school and which child are doing best? Cities were not built in a day. Solving the Smart Cities challenge will not happen overnight. However LOOP Labs believes that new models harnessing social media, behavioural insights and open data hold a vital key.

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Cities were not built in a day. Solving the Smart Cities challenge will not happen overnight. However LOOP Labs believes that new models harnessing socialmedia, behavioural insights and open data hold a vital key.

Katz Kiely, CEO of Loop Labs