Locations
Text: Oksana Udovyk, UNDP Ukraine’s Accelerator Lab; Alissa Ban'kovskaya, SYNCHRO SPACE
Editing: Tetyana Kononenko, Euan Macdonald, UNDP Ukraine
Last year, we at UNDP Ukraine’s Accelerator Lab started exploring a city transformation portfolio. Inspired by the quote of professor Dan Hill, the Director of Strategic Design at Vinnova, the Swedish government’s innovation agency: “Give the street to traffic engineers and you get traffic; give it to gardeners, you’d get gardens”, we decided to become “the gardeners” first.
We asked ourselves what we could learn from nature to improve our urban environments. The initial assumption was that nature-based solutions could get us to a sustainable future for cities in a more holistic and faster way than technology, as such solutions sustainable by default.
Our exploration journey led us to development of a gamified way to seek out nature-based solutions for local communities that we call the Community Safari (its methodology and toolkit are available to interested communities on request). Community Safari has now spread to number of Ukrainian cities and towns.
At the same time, we realized that we cannot become only “gardeners”. Thus, we started to look at urban transformation in a systematic way, uniting “gardeners” and “engineers”, among others in our city portfolio of interventions. We aimed for a cross-sectoral approach, bringing collective intelligence from different areas of expertise to create innovative solutions for the cities of the future. This is exactly when cooperation with SynchroSpace comes to our city transformation portfolio radar.
Innovating with SYNCHRO SPACE
SYNCHRO SPACE is a unique platform for synchronizing the activities of professionals from different areas to help cities identify and resolve problems. After problem mapping with city administration, the SYNCHRO SPACE organizes the urban hackathon where start-ups and experts solve the challenges identified, with the best ideas being put into practice.
Photo courtesy SYNCHROSPACE
Over the last two years, SYNCHRO SPACE has organized four urban hackathons. This year, the UNDP’s Accelerator Lab partnered with SYNCHRO SPACE to bring sustainability and nature-based innovations to the fore.
Smart solutions for four urban communities in Ukraine
This year, SYNCHRO SPACE facilitated the development of solutions for four target locations – Zaporizhzhya, Lozova amalgamated territorial community (Kharkiv Oblast), Gostomel amalgamated territorial community (Kyiv Oblast), and Chuguyiv (Kharkiv Oblast). The issues tackled by the teams included air pollution, excessive heat, lack of infrastructure for sports and leisure, and art spaces.
The Urban Hackathon saw 16 projects, four of which were selected as winners:
- Climate change lab (for Zaporizhzhya) is a solution for a large area of urban wasteland near a roundabout in the centre of Pivdennyi District in Zaporizhzhya, informally dubbed "the Sahara" due to its hot microclimate.
- iDev (for Lozova ATC) suggested creating a mobile application to map cycling routes and promote local tourism. This solution includes the visualization of hiking trails and bike paths, user-friendly navigation, and interesting quests for citizens.
- Zvidsy Agency (for Gostomel ATC) put forward the idea of mapping tourist routes, particularly for visiting local water areas – nine lakes and two rivers – as well as organizing active recreation zones at the central lake.
- Unexplored Urban Map (for Chuguyiv) suggested creating an art space with installations of Ilya Repin’s artworks, and modern audiovisual art at the House of Children's and Youth Creativity in Chuguyiv.
The Urban Hackathon winners were chosen by the cities themselves. Now the project teams are working together with their city administrations to refine the projects, which are expected to be implemented in Spring 2021.
Mentors of the urban hackathon - 16 experts & innovators from different fields in Ukraine
Six insights about innovations for sustainable cities
1. Cities are getting more and more concerned with environmental issues
We found that Ukrainian cities are now more interested in green solutions. Five out of eight identified issues were related to sustainable transportation, excessive heat, and air and water quality.
2. Cities have low awareness about available nature-based solutions
While preparing for the urban hackathon, we got in touch with city representatives to identify priority tasks. At first, they were mostly interested in tech or architectural solutions. We suggested that cities focus on well-defined problems rather than jumping to solutions. This shift in focus resulted in more diverse solutions, including nature-based ones.
3. Tech solutions are on the rise in Ukraine
Analysing both the requests from the target cities and solutions offered by the hackathon teams, we noticed that the highest demand was for urban-tech projects, that is solutions using data, sensors, or other smart-city solutions.
4. A mixture of nature-based solutions and tech could be a magic formula for Ukraine
Nowadays, innovations tend to be multidisciplinary. For example, the Nobel Prize is often awarded for discoveries made at the intersection of different sciences. SYNCHO SPACE promotes such innovations in the urban context. Combined with the nature-based solutions suggested by UNDP’s Accelerator Lab, and considering the great technological potential in Ukraine, this could be a win-win approach.
Here is an example of such solution from the urban hackathon:
Sculpture Eco Park in Gostomel (BOORYAK) is a combination of nature-based solutions, technologies and art. This project aims to address water pollution and falls in biodiversity through developing an art space (water sculptures) to raise public awareness about these issues.
5. Online events expand boundaries, geography-wise and time-wise
Due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, the 2020 urban hackathon went online. Even though the format required a different approach and methodology, it proved to be as effective as offline events. This year the hackathon attracted an even higher number of teams and projects, with more than 200 teams and various experts from all over Ukraine apply to participate.
Working digitally during the Hackathon
6. Participatory financing boosts the sense of ownership
The allocation of funds from the municipal budget for project implementation is important since it ensures the ownership and sustainability of projects. Our experience shows that cities that fund selected projects continue supporting them. This is often not the case for projects developed at the grassroots level or projects fully funded by donors. The city’s participation in project co-funding raises its commitment and responsibility for the project’s results.
At the same time, there could be obstacles in municipal procurement procedures and budget fund allocation. Ukraine does not have a special system for purchasing innovations yet. The lengthy procedure at the municipal level significantly complicates and slows down the process.
A good model we have seen working is a co-funding formula for the implementation of innovative solutions for cities: allocations from municipal budget + funds from donors and / or important local enterprises or businesses. This model was first widely applied in EU/UNDP’s Community-based approach to local development project.
Another example is from Bila Tserkva, Kyiv Oblast. The Softuup and BOORYAK team suggested creating a Boulevard of Living Sculptures. The project was implemented in 2019 within five months of the hackathon. Today, this location remains a hallmark of the city and a magnet for both residents and tourists.
The Fourth Urban Hackathon was organized by SYNCHRO SPACE with support of the UNDP’s Accelerator Lab in Ukraine, the Embassy of the Netherlands in Ukraine, and FIABCI Ukraine, the Ukrainian branch of the International Real Estate Federation.
Background:
SYNCHRO SPACE is a unique platform for the synchronization of activities of different specialists (architects, designers, IT-specialists, engineers, environmentalists) with the purpose of jointly developing and implementing innovative projects in cities in Ukraine and worldwide.
UNDP Ukraine’s Accelerator Lab is a global UNDP initiative aimed at identifying, elaborating and scaling-up innovative and sustainable solutions for local communities. Ninety-two Accelerator Labs teams are now helping 112 countries tackle 21st century development challenges.
Partners:
Ukrainian Smart City Digital Expo, WorldStartup, USF, EDS, TechUkraine, iHUB, IOT Ukraine, Open Cities Association, YEP! incubator, EO business incubator, 1991.
