Idea Camp 2014_Ideas Booklet_low res

Robin van WestenThe NetherlandsIn the middle of the city of Amsterdam, I work for Waag Society, an institute for art, scienceand technology. We develop projects around social innovation and my main focus is oneducational projects and heritage projects. Currently I’m setting up our school programmearound digital fabrication. This school year, 80 kids can work in our FabLab and designtheir own inventions. Alongside my work for Waag Society, I also work as a businessdirector for the Café Theater Festival in my home town of Utrecht. Both these jobs inspireme a lot and I’m lucky to work on these topics.Artists designing creative interventions in public space around citizen science projects.Waag Society is very active in the field of citizenscience, through projects like the Smart Citizen Kit andour Open WetLab. We often see how citizens are veryenthusiastic about projects and activities, but don’t stayinvolved or gather support for their ideas within theircommunities. Through creative interventions togetherwith citizens and stakeholders, we will research howlasting involvement and influence can be secured.Through this research we aim to increase the (longlasting)impact of citizen science projects.Together withparticipants and partners from the Smart Citizen Kit, wewill design new ways to communicate research resultsin public space. Artists are involved to help find newangles and insights and stakeholders from other sectorsare involved. Through an intervention, our citizenscience project will have a bigger impact on redefiningpublic space via crowd-sourced data.56