Designing a smart society: from smart cities to smart societies

Drir. Rianne Valkenburg, Drir. Elke Den Ouden, and Drs. Mary Ann Schreurs outline the challenges of modern co-creation with citizens and the new design approach which is needed when applying OI2. Smart solutions enable citizens to become an active producer of societal value, instead of a passive consumer of government services. Redefining smart cities to a focus on quality of life for their citizens implies creating a smart society. In this transformation lies the design challenge of how to enable and engage all citizens to make use of the new possibilities and employ themselves. To really become a resilient city, a different approach is needed to engage the people.