Solo Kota Kita wins 2013 SEED Award for Excellence in Public Interest Design

BlinkTag's client Solo Kota Kita won the 2013 SEED Award for Excellence in Public Interest Design for the Solo Kota Kita project. BlinkTag worked with the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Ford Foundation to develop Solo Kota Kita, a web-based tool for neighborhood advocacy and citizen planning in Surakarta (Solo), Central Java, Indonesia.

For the first time ever, census-style data was collected, analyzed and made available via interactive maps, downloads, charts and tables. This allowed citizens who participate in “musrenbang” to access information about how their neighborhood is developing and learn more about the demographics of their neighborhood and city.

“The jury found this application to be very effective in presenting the issues, the solutions and the community engagement strategy of the project. The design appears to reflect the planning, participation and excellent ideas of the architects and the community. Firm Foundation is to be commended for addressing several critical triple bottom line issues in a very thoughtful and inclusive manner. We found the replicability of the project especially compelling for other communities facing similar issues. The project successfully combines economic opportunity, community building and reinventing relationships with the river in a highly innovative and contextual way. The use of story-telling to involve the community in the design process was particularly notable and creative.”
SEED Award for Excellence Jury

The SEED awards recognize “design projects with exceptional social, economic, and environmental impact and represent the forces needed to create truly sustainable projects and positive change in the world.”

The Solo Kota Kita project has also been featured in the New York Times, Good Magazine, The Polis Blog and Design Observer.