Bird City
Birds in the modern world face daily threats to their wellbeing, however there are many people who are passionate about making the world safer for birds. The American Bird Conservancy, Environment for the Americas, and the ASU Cloud Innovation Center have come together to support these conservation leaders in their efforts.
Problem
Conservation leaders are working in cities around the world to make their regions more habitable for birds. The distance between them, however, makes it difficult for them to collaborate. Historically there has been no way for experienced conservation leaders to pass on their wisdom to those just getting started. These communication barriers limit what conservation leaders can do to make the world a better place for birds. The ASU CIC aims to solve this challenge.
Approach
The ASU CIC will be creating a prototype of a web-based network to bring together those who are working to help the birds. This network, called Bird City Americas, will reach conservation leaders in North and South America and will give them a space to meet, talk, and collaborate. Each Bird City Americas partner will also have a website made for them that includes information about their work, partners, and contact information.
For cities who are not Bird Cities (cities that take action to protect birds), Bird City Americas can help them become one. They can review the requirements to become a Bird City, learn more about the challenges that birds face, and hear from experienced Bird City leaders on how best to go about creating change that benefits birds.
Supporting Artifacts
The Amazon Working Backwards process produces three artifacts - a fictional Press Release, a list of Frequently Asked Questions, and a Visual depiction of the user experience. The Bird City Americas artifacts can be found here:
Next Steps
The ASU CIC developed a prototype which was sent to developers for production. The website can be viewed here.
About the ASU CIC
The ASU Smart Cities Cloud Innovation Center (CIC) is a strategic relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and is supported by AWS on ASU’s Innovation campus - SkySong. The mission of the CIC is to drive Innovation Challenges that materially benefit the greater Phoenix metro area and beyond. The CIC will do this by solving pressing community and regional challenges, using shareable and repeatable technology solutions from ideation through prototype, as a service for the greater human good.
The CIC also provides real-world problem-solving experiences to students by immersing them in the application of proven innovation methods in combination with the latest technologies to solve important challenges in the public sector.
The challenges being addressed cover a wide variety of topics including homelessness, water conservation, vandalism, pedestrian safety, digital service delivery and many others. The CIC leverages the deep subject matter expertise of government, education and non-profit organizations to clearly understand the customers affected by public sector challenges and develops solutions that meet the customer needs.
For more information on the ASU CIC, to read about projects or to submit a challenge, please visit https://smartchallenges.asu.edu.