As part of the Social Life of Cities collaborative, we worked with the University of Chicago's Office of Civic Engagement, Cisco and McCaffery Interests to create new ways to use digital technology to help people feel safer in Chicago's south side.
In our first workshops, in July 2012, we discussed what blocks and what boosts community resiience on the south side, and designed four propositions for new ways to use digital technology to tackle these issues. Our second workshops, a year later in July 2013, focused on one idea: "Team Approach to Tackling Violence" (TATV). We spent the day looking at how south side residents use smartphones, text and websites, examining the experiences of people from different ages and backgrounds, and designing app concepts to help residents stay safer and report crime. Download a report describing the process and outcomes from this workshop.
Since then we have been working with our partners in Chicago to develop and test one of these app concepts and to evaluate this approach to working with community partners. To read more about this work and how digital tools are being used to tackle crime and support community safety read our scoping report here.
