Lessons learned
The elaboration and execution of the amai! project continue to be a challenging and enriching experience. At various times, we were faced with situations where we had to adjust our approach or draw lessons for the future. We have summarized these lessons below.
In a large-scale project like "amai!", it's crucial to keep an open mind to continue learning during the process and draw lessons from the experiences with an eye on a potential follow-up project. It's also very valuable to exchange experiences with project organizers of similar projects to gain inspiration from each other and strengthen one another.
In a large-scale project like "amai!", it's crucial to keep an open mind to continue learning during the process and draw lessons from the experiences with an eye on a potential follow-up project. It's also very valuable to exchange experiences with project organizers of similar projects to gain inspiration from each other and strengthen one another.
Below, you find a number of tips & tricks:
Activities and events
Offline or online?
Amai! was launched in the midst of the COVID period (April 2021). As a result, we had to organize all activities online during the first edition.
Also, the collection of ideas was only done via our online platform or online brainstorming sessions, which often progressed rather slowly. Citizens found their way to our website, but the threshold for them to share their idea online still appeared too large.
A year later, when there were more opportunities to organize offline events, we saw significant progress in our idea collection. We noticed that offline activities work better for this because you can directly engage with people and respond to their specific needs or concerns.
This lowers the threshold for them to brainstorm an idea and share it, as opposed to doing it through the website.
Also, the collection of ideas was only done via our online platform or online brainstorming sessions, which often progressed rather slowly. Citizens found their way to our website, but the threshold for them to share their idea online still appeared too large.
A year later, when there were more opportunities to organize offline events, we saw significant progress in our idea collection. We noticed that offline activities work better for this because you can directly engage with people and respond to their specific needs or concerns.
This lowers the threshold for them to brainstorm an idea and share it, as opposed to doing it through the website.
Tips For offline events
Although offline events offer great added value, it quickly became apparent that they are more labour-intensive. Especially for a smaller team, this can pose challenges with regard to keeping the execution realistic. Therefore, it is essential to critically assess which activities you can and cannot attend.
Some of the criteria we used include the required manpower and the alignment of amai!'s project goal with the objective of the activity.
Some of the criteria we used include the required manpower and the alignment of amai!'s project goal with the objective of the activity.
conversation starters
Throughout the project, we found out about the importance of accessible tools to initiate discussions and inform citizens appealingly. In amai!'s case, the card game was very successful in bringing AI to homes and schools, as well as our interactive wall for events. Additionally, we always refer to the activities citizens can do at home.
Communication
Accessible communication
In terms of broad communication, we also learned many lessons. We quickly realized the importance of accessible communication. However, this way of communicating about a complex subject such as Artificial Intelligence is not always straightforward.
To reach an audience as wide as possible, we make sure our language is not too specialistic and we make use of recognizable and concrete AI examples. Additionally, the AI-stories and accompanying illustrations make illustrate how we made our message accessible.
To reach an audience as wide as possible, we make sure our language is not too specialistic and we make use of recognizable and concrete AI examples. Additionally, the AI-stories and accompanying illustrations make illustrate how we made our message accessible.
Make a conversation guide
For idea collection at events, we developed a discussion guide that we refined over time. For instance, we adapted the wording to the target audience of the event. Directly asking people for an idea can be intimidating, while asking them about the problems they encounter in daily life is perceived as much more accessible. From there, the conversation can be steered towards a possible solution that involves AI. We therefore advise to create a discussion guide tailored to your project and target audience.
The conversation guide can be a finished document in which different conversation scenarios are described. Additionally, we always held on to the principle that every conversation starts from one of the four themes and the concerns of our conversation partner.
The conversation guide can be a finished document in which different conversation scenarios are described. Additionally, we always held on to the principle that every conversation starts from one of the four themes and the concerns of our conversation partner.
Give concrete examples
Bringing up concrete examples of AI applications also works well to involve your target audience. From the second edition onwards, we can refer to the ongoing amai! projects, each of which develops an AI idea from a citizen within their theme. We mention these projects in discussions, and they also get a place online or at events with amai!, sharing their progress.
Start from the experience of your target audience
Start conversations as much as possible from people's everyday lives and mention AI applications they recognize or use. Avoid focusing immediately on the technology itself, as this can deter people without a tech background.
Plan enough time and resources for a communication strategy
In a project such as amai!, it's essential to allocate enough time and resources for an extensive communication strategy and to not underestimate this part of the project.
Broad communication is crucial in involving citizens and keeping them engaged throughout the process. Consider collaborations with media partners, online campaigns, or engaging a communication agency.
Broad communication is crucial in involving citizens and keeping them engaged throughout the process. Consider collaborations with media partners, online campaigns, or engaging a communication agency.
Collaborate with domain ORGANIZATIONS
Finally, in a broad project like amai!, it's valuable to collaborate with domain organizations to reach your target audience. These are organizations working on specific societal themes (e.g., a nature organization). They often have a following they reach, for instance, through their newsletter or other (internal) communication. So, it's beneficial to establish contacts with organizations that are open to seeing how you can strengthen each other.
The project call
Evaluate your project call regularly
Each year, we've refined the process of the project call based on feedback from project submitters and a survey among interested parties who eventually decided not to submit a project proposal. A recurring piece of feedback was that the budget should be sufficiently high, and the project time sufficiently broad. The workload that the application procedure entails must be proportional to the resources that can be allocated.
In the first two editions of amai!, the different phases of the project were executed sequentially. This was an obvious approach, but brought a lot of pressure with it for the project team and the consortia that had to develop a proposal in a short time. In the third edition of amai!, the different phases were executed as parallel tracks, making it possible to create enough attention and time for each of the tracks.
In the first two editions of amai!, the different phases of the project were executed sequentially. This was an obvious approach, but brought a lot of pressure with it for the project team and the consortia that had to develop a proposal in a short time. In the third edition of amai!, the different phases were executed as parallel tracks, making it possible to create enough attention and time for each of the tracks.
Check in with the commissioners of yoyr project
When drafting the call, we also struggled to find a balance between keeping the project call as light as possible and meeting all the requirements concerning administration for legal frameworks since we open the call to many different parties (including citizens' associations, NGOs, local governments...). It's essential to be well-informed and to check with the commissioners of your project.
offer support to the project submitters
In amai!, we expect a lot from the project submitters: starting from a citizen's idea, collaboration between technical and societal partners who often don't know each other, incorporating a citizen science component, focusing on open data, ethically responsible AI, etc. Therefore, we provide a lot of support during this phase. Since the third edition, we've introduced a pre-registration process, so there's ample time to advise submitters and bring them into contact if similar projects have been submitted.
Make sure interested parties can find each other
Matching different partners is crucial to forming consortia of organizations with a diverse background. The preceding co-creation sessions played a significant role in this: during these sessions, different parties got to know each other by discussing concrete ideas. When launching the project call, we organized an online information session where interested parties could indicate their interest in specific domains or topics through Miro, and potential partners could find each other this way. Finally, we added a classifieds page to our online platform to search specifically for partners with particular expertise.
Projects and partners can learn a lot from each other. Bringing together stakeholders during (co-creation)workshops and intervision sessions was considered truly valuable for all parties.
Projects and partners can learn a lot from each other. Bringing together stakeholders during (co-creation)workshops and intervision sessions was considered truly valuable for all parties.
Sustainability
Create a long life for your materials
Like many other citizen science projects, amai! depends on project budgets with relatively short durations. It would be a shame if all the material developed within this project was lost. Therefore, it's essential to consider sustainability early on, ideally from the start, when the project concludes. For instance, within amai!, we collaborate with Brightlab, STEM education lab, and sister organization Scivil, to distribute our educational materials.
Everything we developed is available under Creative Commons Licence CC BY 4.0 DEED.
Everything we developed is available under Creative Commons Licence CC BY 4.0 DEED.
Make your methods sustainable
For the sustainability of our method, approach, and experiences, we developed this toolkit as inspiration for organizations to design similar citizen science projects in a similar manner.
Allow your project time to grow
In a large-scale project like "amai!", it's crucial to keep an open mind to continue learning during the process and draw lessons from the experiences with an eye on a potential follow-up project. In the different editions of amai! throughout the years, different changes have been made. For example, we set up a citizen jury board next to the public vote in the third edition of amai!. This way, we create a more substantive participation from citizens in the selection of the winning projects.
It’s also very valuable to exchange experiences with project organizers of similar projects to gain inspiration from each other and strengthen one another.
It’s also very valuable to exchange experiences with project organizers of similar projects to gain inspiration from each other and strengthen one another.
How to deal with the ideas that have not been selected?
Lastly, we've collected more than 900 societal AI ideas from citizens so far, which we definitely want to keep. We aim to further utilize these through hackathons, student projects, company projects, and as indicators of societal (policy) improvements and stumbling blocks, proposed by citizens.