Citizen-driven innovation dominated projects showcased at the Lab Laboo Smart Cities exhibition at the Convergences World Forum in Paris, France, this week. From a Google Maps supplement for post-conflict areas to a TripAdvisor-style app rating sustainable merchants and businesses, the innovations converged around the idea that it takes a village to make the most of today’s urbanization challenges.
The forum convenes civic innovators through its Lab Laboo platform and awards one innovation with the Lab Laboo Prize, which includes 5,000 euros. This year, judges chose OpenStreetMap France, a francophone portal to the open-source mapping program OpenStreetMap, which allows users to create, edit and use mapping data.
Devex spoke with Lab Laboo organizations about some of the coolest new innovations related to urbanization and smart cities.
About the author
Molly Andersmollyanders_dev
Molly Anders is a former U.K. correspondent for Devex. Based in London, she reports on development finance trends with a focus on British and European institutions. She is especially interested in evidence-based development and women’s economic empowerment, as well as innovative financing for the protection of migrants and refugees. Molly is a former Fulbright Scholar and studied Arabic in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco.