City Visionaries

Although there are young people in the periphery with high creative potential and motivated in building solutions for their territory, there is a great difficulty on the part of social agents in facilitating and guiding impact projects with them.This is because access to current design tools for social innovation is quite restricted and most of the time, non-existent.Part of this lack of access is the lack of technology in this context. The solution consists of a digital service that guides and connects social agents from different locations for the development of impactful businesses. Our platform provides a methodology with different possibilities for configuring meetings and composing tools. This allows for an exchange of information with other facilitators and personalizes the development process according to the profile of the group. With globally scalable service, thousands of young adults can find new jobs, generate income and transform their realities (personal and community).

In Brazil, a country with 210 million inhabitants,about 13 million of them live in slums and more than 900 million in the world. According to research generated by Favela Holding, the territory of the favelas generates R$119.8 billion annually.The most recent study named Pesquisa Favelas Brasileiras 2019, carried out through a partnership between Instituto Data Favela, Locomotiva and CUFA, reveals that 9 out of 10 favela residents need opportunities in life to be able to improve their lives.As Lucas Lima, 24 years old, born and raised in Complexo do Alemão (one of the main favelas in Brazil) recalls:“Within the community there are young people with an above average creative capacity, but without access to tools to put that mentality out. We need to bring technology to the favela for yesterday!”.On the margins of society,these communities create an informal economy system.In the book “Shadow Cities”,it is estimated that 1.8 billion people worldwide are employed in these activities in the shadow of cities, in Brazil there are 37.3 million.Combating this growth in numbers and enabling the inclusion of these people in a formal way in the market is the great social delivery of our technology.

The solution is a digital service made available from an application, which includes an original methodology of collaborative design to assist in the development of entrepreneurship with impact on the peripheries. The methodology consists of 05 blocks of content, each with a thematic focus that will help entrepreneurs to move towards the creation of their projects / businesses. Each block consists of a set of specific activities and exercises. The blocks are Taking Care of People and Relations, Thinking Critically, Investigating and Defining the Problem, Living the Idea, Structuring the Project. Altogether there are 28 tools distributed in these blocks of content. As a technology, there is a system mediated by an application available for Android, where it is possible to configure the entire work plan. Within the application, facilitators organize their work plans according to the profile and availability of the class, they can find other facilitators and access their work plans, exchange information, share files and check the progress of their process.

In the first place, the solution is aimed at social agents who want to help young people from the periphery to develop their social impact projects. The Visionários da Cidade program provides these facilitating agents with access to different design tools, designed especially for the development of social innovation businesses and which consider different stages of the idea formatting process. In addition, the fact that the methodology is available in a digital medium, helps these facilitators to expand their channel of communication, exchange and learning with other facilitators from different locations. The technology made available facilitates the autonomy of the facilitators and the construction of networked processes. The proposed methodology, which will be used by the facilitators, leads young adults to discover interests, argumentation and critical positioning, offering creative conditions for the elaboration of projects that create solutions to existing problems in their local context.

To the extent that our solution includes the transfer of technology to social agents that mobilize groups of young adults to create new social innovation businesses,we're directly enabling the development of new and small businesses in the peripheries.In addition,through our technology,its possible to establish active exchanges with a diversity of social agents distributed in different parts of the territory(Brazil initially,but from all over the world in the near future)enabling the formation of networking focused on practical experiences of facilitation of each social agent.Its part of our plans to expand the solution,to distribute seedcapital for the businesses conceived through our methodology.

Usually projects and businesses that are focused on helping to develop social entrepreneurship projects in peripheral communities use an approach that reinforces the culture of dependency. In this context, the designer is the specialist who teaches and monitors the process and when he leaves he takes the knowledge with him, creating a relationship of dependence. Unlike these initiatives, City Visionaries is a program that looks for the formation of a network of facilitators capable of leading the development of social impact solutions in an independent and autonomous way. In addition, the insertion of this program in a digital dimension favors self-development based on the exchange and sharing of information with different facilitators in different peripheral zones throughout the national territory. The power that these connections generate can result in the crossing of many projects, in bringing people together and in exchanging information that would not be possible without this technology. Likewise, City Visionaries provides access, in a clear and practical way, to a facilitation process carefully planned to take into account the specifics of the projects and the social context where they take shape.

Our solution is a digital service guided by a new process aimed at developing entrepreneurship and generating new and small businesses. This process is an original collaborative design methodology (tested and validated with dozens of young adults) aimed at creating new social innovation businesses. The methodology was thought through the use of technology to gain scale of social impact and it is only possible to be practiced if the available app technology is used. In other words, our app enables a network of facilitators to share their work plans that they are conducting with young people, as well as all our guidance and orchestration activities at a distance from the different active work plans happens in a structured way. In the same way that telemedicine exists, we are proposing teledesign for the consistent development of new businesses for young adults living on the peripheries.

The app has been used by different facilitators throughout Brazil. There are currently 3 cities in Brazil that have facilitators using technology: Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Porto Alegre. Each facilitator creates his work plan according to the type of process chosen. Our methodology guides 4 types of processes: complete, fast, short and free. The complete involves a suggestion of the route passing through all the tools of the Visionaries. There are 28 activities in 13 work sessions. The fast is ideal for an immersion experience in two or three days, total energy in 4 work sessions. The short is a selection of the most important activities to live the process in 8 work sessions. The free is aimed at setting up the process according to the free choice of activities and the intensities that the facilitator deems relevant to conduct with young people. The choice of the type of process involves the depth and time of involvement that the facilitator and the group of young adults (who will be creating their businesses) make the best deal to practice the process. All processes and tool choices are already properly validated and functional, in order to mobilize the creation of new businesses in a practical way, based on the critical and creative capacity of the entrepreneurs.

We provide the link to the app in another field of this form.

Existing problem: social agents who want to help young people from the peripheries with great creative potential to develop their ideas for transforming their territories, but do not have the knowledge of design tools and accessible technology that enables knowledge exchanges in a distributed way.

1.inputs: application's operating system; designers; collaborative design methodology / process (04 types of processes); 05 blocks of content and 28 design tools for social innovation.

2.activities: guide facilitators in understanding processes and making better use of tools with young adults; develop technology stability; mobilize new facilitators / social agents;

2.1Indicators: orientation hours; programming hours; number of contacts with NGOs operating on the peripheries.

2.2Instruments: hour reports using the Toggl hour management tool; descriptive report of contacts made with NGOs.

3.outputs: number of downloads of the application on Google Play; number of active facilitators on the platform; number of knowledge exchanges between facilitators within the application; number of new businesses created

3.1Indicators: number of downloads of the application on Google Play; number of active facilitators on the platform; number of knowledge exchanges between facilitators within the application; number of new businesses created

3.2Instruments: report downloads Google Play; analytical app report.

4.outcomes: learning new knowledge to facilitate design for social innovation.

4.1Indicators: testimonials collected from facilitators.

4.2Instrument: structured interviews with the facilitators.

5.impact: new businesses created in the peripheries; reduction in the number of informal workers and underemployment; increased seed money to boost business in the early stages

5.1Indicators: number of new businesses created; number of new entrepreneurs linked to new businesses; seed money investment volume.

5.2Instrument: analytical report of the app; digital survey with business founders; financial report from City Visionaries.

More than 100 people have already downloaded the tools from the city's visionaries website and 10 people have already downloaded the application. There are currently 3 facilitators in different cities and outlying areas experiencing the process with groups of young people, thinking about solutions for their territory. Our idea is that next year, every month, we will have at least 3 facilitators forming working groups of at least 3 young people and generating potential business. Then, in the next year, 36 facilitators (social agents) will be directly impacted and 108 young people. In 5 years, 2,160 facilitators will be impacted and 6,480 young people. With that, we estimate that of these 6480 entrepreneurs that will be impacts, there are at least 180 new businesses.

Goals by 2021:

• generation of at least 10 self-sustainable businesses;
• using the methodology improve technology involvement of social agents from the main peripheral communities in Brazil (currently there are already 3 cities involved - Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Porto Alegre);
• have more than 100 social agents registered in the application and with projects in development - expand the number of downloads of the application;
• expand the application to the IOS system.

Goals by 2025:

• having an investment fund to support projects with the greatest potential for impact generated from the Visionaries program;
• expand the program to underserved communities in other countries (internationalize the project - Africa and Latin America);
• have a consolidated partner network.

Next Year

1. obtain funding to continue developing the technology;

2. obtain funding to be able to invest in the business generated (seed money);

3. circumvent the effects of the covid-19 pandemic, which greatly weaken communities in the periphery;

4. mobilize new facilitators / social agents in a context where these people are looking for jobs or already work somewhere, not having the time to lead and conduct a process with City Visionaries;

5. to be able to establish a scale of growth for the project, because in this way we will develop a funnel of new and small businesses that can be successful and generate a financial return both for the entrepreneurs and for the City Visionaries itself.

1. we have an experienced team of fundraising professionals who are permanently mobilizing connections to obtain funding for the City Visionaries;

2. we have a financial manager who studies different liaison formats with the new businesses, in a way that enables an operation to share in the results of these businesses;

3. we are monitoring and developing affective connections with people in the communities to monitor how the effects of the pandemic are going. Likewise, we support projects that provide assistance-based support to meet basic needs of communities. In this way, we are able to act in a systemic way to improve the situation of the communities;

4. We have an active action plan that builds new relationships with different NGOs and enables us to increase the network of facilitators;

5. It depends directly on our delivery as technology and guidance for using the methodology. It is the core of our activity and we are totally focused on delivering this value to the people who connect with us.

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full-time staff: 3 people (Aron, Liliane e Daniel)

part-time staff: 2 people (Ana e Aline)

contractors: 01 technology agency

Aron Krause Litvin - Master in Strategic Design. He works as a professor at the Strategic Design PPG at Unisinos (Innovation oriented by Design). Coordinator of the first citizen social innovation laboratory for the city of Porto Alegre (TransLab), having managed the impact of 35 projects over five years. Speaker at TEDxPorto Alegre 2016 with the talk “What collaboration can do for us”. He was a guest member of the Global Shapers group, selected global youth leaders.

Liliane Basso - Master in Design. Development of actions, projects and business with consistent results in the areas of health, design and education. Solid experience in team management, strategic thinking, research and development of product service systems. Experience in mobilizing partners to enable projects, fundraising and institutional relationships. It manages to create innovative products and services capable of promoting improvements in the quality of life and well-being of people. She is a manager of social impact projects at the ESPM Social Poa University and professor of the ESPM Design course.

Daniel Caminha - Psychologist. Postgraduate in Systemic Constellations (Centro Bert Hellinger) and Institutional Analysis (FADERGS). He had experiences in the Visual Arts and Urban Visual Poetics course (University of Barcelona). He is a researcher on cultural transformation devices at the crossroads between behavior, society and institutions.

Ana and Aline - both are trained designers with extensive knowledge in collaborative design methodologies. They work with facilitating groups, creating new tools and guiding social innovation processes with different organizations.

City Visionaries is a social startup developed 4 years ago by the articulation of TransLAB - Citizen Laboratory with Brunel - University of London, promoted by the Newton Fund, through the British Council. TransLAB is a citizen laboratory - located in Porto Alegre, Brazil - that facilitates codesign processes aimed at social innovation and entrepreneurship. Since 2013, TransLAB has been working with people committed to actively contributing to the development of the city. The approach that TransLAB uses is interdisciplinary and interinstitutional: its members believe in the potentialities related to the connection between universities, public and private institutions, the government and civil society in the development and implementation of projects.

The collaboration between Brunel University and TransLAB was extremely relevant: TransLAB was able to apply its knowledge of context and field experience, while Brunel incorporated their knowledge related with sustainable design, co-design, service design, methods and techniques to the entire development process from the program. This process allowed the transfer of knowledge and skills between Brunel researchers and TransLAB members (founders of City Visionaries). 

The inaugural edition of  was held with members of the Young Apprentice Project, through a partnership with the Murialdo Institute, located in Morro da Cruz in Porto Alegre (RS), which opened its doors to experiment with the methodology and design of the first version of the Program over a year.

Our value proposition is to deliver an original and validated collaborative design process that enables the creation of new businesses guided by social innovation. Our main impact generated is the creation of new businesses carried out by young adults from the peripheries. The more new businesses that are actually generated, the less informal work there will be in these communities and more quality of life and well-being, both for the entrepreneur and his team, and for the community where the business will be operating. In this sense, the main beneficiaries are the facilitators / social agents who lead the development of these new businesses with young adults, as well as the young adults themselves who practice the collaborative design process to build their businesses. Our type of intervention happens through the use of technology (an app), where we transfer all the knowledge and guidance necessary for the best use of the process. Our main cost structure is people (both designers who support the use of the methodology, as well as a technology team that makes the system stable). Our revenues come from participating in the success of the business generated through the methodology and we reinvest our profit in setting up our own fund that enables the distribution of the growing seed money. Our essential partners are NGOs that already operate in different communities, as well as large organizations that financially support social businesses like Visionários (like MIT Solves).

Our strategy is a combination of donations, awards and international research grants with the financial establishment of a seed money investment fund in the businesses that we help to build. Until then, the money we got was through prizes. We are in a phase of growth of City Visionaries and we need to have volume of new businesses being created. Our thesis is that if we start to invest money so that new businesses have a small investment at the beginning of their operations, this often determines that success happens. It is the necessary support that entrepreneurs need to believe that their idea can work and be sustainable. Once this happens, we have a relationship of participation in the results of these businesses for a period of up to 03 years or until we reach double the seed investment we make.

Our biggest goal in participating in MIT Solves is to get the funds to continue developing the technology that supports the entire Visionários network process. The use of the application is essential to provide connections between facilitators, exchange information, share project status and facilitate the organization of the work process. Concentrating all these functionalities in a single digital space, taking into account the ease of use of the interface and accessible language, makes all the difference in the empowerment and encouragement of the independence and autonomy of the social agents who assume the role of facilitators. In addition, we dream of being able to invest in the business generated (seed money). We know that many ideas with high creative potential emerge within these working groups and that they would be very relevant solutions for the context for which they are intended. Finally, with the resource provided by MIT Solves, it will be possible to establish a scale of growth for the project, because in this way we will develop a funnel of new and small businesses that can be successful and generate a financial return for both entrepreneurs and for the City Visionaries itself.

We need to evolve our technology to a new operating system. In addition, setting up our investment fund's business strategy would be very good to be reviewed by experienced people with other types of similar projects. Our metrics and evaluation of results can receive critical contributions from professionals with international experience in other projects, which reinforces our theory of change.

For City Visionaries to be able to establish itself solidly and build a relevant network of partners there are two major groups that we would like to partner with: NGOs and schools within communities - they would be the gateway to mobilize social agents from different communities and young people interested in participating.

Institutions to promote social projects and businesses (awards, research grants, investments). Among these two groups can mention:

Escola Murialdo: http://www.colegiomurialdo.com.br/home?porto-alegre

Instituto Alana: https://alana.org.br/

ONG Favela Radical: https://www.uol.com.br/ecoa/reportagens-especiais/causadores-jefferson-quirino/#a-favela-radical

Tecnogueto: https://tecnogueto.com.br/

Amaphiko: https://www.redbull.com/br-pt/projects/red-bull-amaphiko

British Council: https://www.britishcouncil.org.br/

MIT: contribution of improvements to the methodology and connection with other NGOs (Latin America and Africa) where we could make the first internationalization movements of the platform.

We need to continue investing in technology improvements and expansion to another IOS operating system. For that, we would need 15 thousand US dollars. We would still need 50 thousand US dollars to guarantee an expansion of the Visionários da Cidade operational team, in order to accompany and mobilize the social agents (facilitators), as well as the other operational activities that involve our social startup.