A New Chapter
My name is Laetitia Lucy and I have lived in Camberwell, a bustling enclave of southeast London, my whole life. When I was growing up, it was the sort of place in which walking home late at night alone might be considered dangerous, or you found yourself frustrated that the only food outlets were greasy kebab shops. My mother was a member of our local residents association and I remember the endless meetings held in our house about rubbish tipping, parking problems and graffiti. We would spend hours at the weekend posting flyers about the campaigns through letterboxes. This idea might seem antiquated but before the Internet getting people to engage in local issues was no easy feat.
In fact one of my favourite ideas that I have come across is the Social Street project that began in Bologna, Italy. The concept began when a young couple moved to a new neighbourhood and, not knowing any of the other residents, took a chance and posted flyers through letterboxes inviting people to join a closed Facebook group through which to make friends. The idea took off and is now being replicated in hundreds of communities around the world. You can read about Social Street in a NY Times article here. A simple concept, and yet one that addresses a number of issues seen in many regions, including Camberwell, such as maintaining a sense of community, tackling social isolation (particularly amongst the elderly usually excluded from the online social space) and encouraging a sharing economy. This is the sort of work that truly inspires me, and it is my hope that I can in the future replicate the Social Street here in my neighbourhood as a way of bringing a diverse and steadily changing population together.
In the last five years or so, Camberwell has most decidedly entered the up-and-coming stage of its development. While gentrification is a somewhat dirty word these days, it can bring a lot of opportunity to an area. Changify is an app that is making the most of colourful and enthusiastic communities across the world and I am thrilled to have joined the team as the Project Management Intern.
After leaving school, I went to the University of Bath where I studied Social Sciences, writing my dissertation on prisoner recidivism. Leaving university I found myself in a very tough job market, and decided to take a three-month position at Sotheby’s. The role was interesting and enjoyable but three years on from my initial contract, I couldn’t help feeling that there was something else out there. It was in October 2014 that I first became aware of the concept of a ‘smart city’ when I attended a lecture at the Barbican Centre entitled ‘Cities in the machine age: all systems, no soul?’ It was eye opening to say the least, and in March 2015 I quit my job to pursue a change in career into this fascinating and formative sector.
I took the liberty of travelling for nine months last year after leaving Sotheby’s and found myself in a vast array of cities across the world. This opportunity was invaluable; I saw the desperate conditions left after the August 2014 floods in Detroit, a city already plagued by abandoned buildings and social disharmony, I saw the high-rises soar in Hong Kong with buildings seemingly erected overnight in an already crowded landscape and I saw one of the first modern planned cities, Tel Aviv, which experienced unprecedented population growth from 2,000 residents in 1920 to 34,000 just five years later. Working for the charity All Hands Volunteers in Kathmandu helping to clear rubble in the aftermath of the two deadly earthquakes in April and May last year was a humbling experience. Coming from a country which is relatively unaffected by natural disasters, occasionally feeling tremors whilst we were working made me appreciate just how unpredictable and forbidding Earth can be.
My goal now is to get onto a Masters program in the autumn so that I can really find my feet in the theory of this complex and ever-changing world and understand what our future cities could look like as well as how change can be implemented. I was lucky enough to come across D4SC whilst studying a free Open University course online on the basic principals of Smart Cities. Learning that they were based in Camberwell only encouraged me further to approach Priya Prakash, the serial change agent, entrepreneur and founder of D4SC to ask if there was any way for me to get involved with the work they do. To see Priya in action, watch the amazing TED Talk she did last year in Hamburg here.
In the coming weeks I will be helping a lot with the Plymouth-based pilot program of our Changify app, which we will be launching in May. This Thursday we have our first user-testing event in Plymouth at Rockets & Rascals. We will be meeting the group of new users, getting to know them and gathering their ideas and feedback on the app. If you are based in Plymouth and want to get involved please feel free to come along and find out more about the pilot. You can find out more by clicking this link to our event page. Stay tuned for updates on the pilot program.
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VISIT US: www.changify.org
