Quarto Food Club & Quarto Gardening. Two PSS that apply a participatory oriented approach towards the development of a smart neighbourhood

The thesis has, as general framework, the European Commission project My neighbourhood/ My City, from CIP (Competitiveness and innovation framework programme 2007-2013). This project aims to create a new and ‘smarter city’ that focuses on people and their well-being rather that just ICT (information and communication technologies) , infrastructures and dashboards alone. The project started on 01-01-2013 and will last two years until 30-06-2015. My Neighbourhood / My City has four pilot projects each of which intends to explore a different scenario: My clean and lean neighbourhood in Birmingham,UK; My neighbourhood My world in Lisbon, Portugal; My healthy neighbourhood in Aalborg, Denmark and My neighbourhood, my happy life in Milan, Italy. Milan’s pilot, based in Quarto Oggiaro a neighbourhood located in the north-west of Milan, part of Zone 8, started the co-creation process which involved different existing and potential actors (project partners: POLITECNICO DI MILANO, Comune di Milano, Archeometra S.R.L and the Quarto Oggiaro Associations in representation of the community) into the project. The first stage was to understand the main problematics that had to be address and how to do so. In order to accomplish this, roundtables were organized. My specific task during this stage was to support the development and prepare the material for the co-creation sessions. The discussions of the roundtables were centered around the main issue: quality of life inside the neighbourhood. This was evaluated in terms of enhacement, communication, digital divide and education. From the conclusions obtained this group of actors co-create two service concepts that are being developed specifically in this thesis: Quarto food Club A Product service system that combines the need of affordable and enjoyable food access for elderly people with the opportunity for young people doing practical training. The service is based on the agreement between the Professional School of Hotel Management, the Local Associations (Piazetta Capuana) and the Municipality of Milano. Quarto Gardening Is a pss, that combines the need of affordable gardening services with the opportunity for young people to do practical training, and provides the possibility for the municipality to access the competences of the students of the Agricaltural School in order to take care of the green public areas. The school will offer this service by adopting a standard fee; the students will have the opportunity to learn on the field instead of spending this training time in private companies. The service is made possible thanks to the agreements the Technical Institute located in the Neighbourhood (Agricultural Education Program) and the Property Management (Municipality of Milan or Aler). This microsolutions (smart city services) were the result of a Human Smart City approach, the opposite way in which smart cities are seen nowadays, a vision that enriches the original concept with the human perspective, through the application of citizen-centric and participatory approaches to the co-design and development of Smart City services.