Q&A Covid-19 reActions – Malta

On the 22nd August, the UM team were lucky enough to be invited to hold our HEIDI Project Design a Digital Action event at Invent3D’s makerspace in Zejtun, Malta. We had previously put out a call for students who wished to participate in conceptualising a digital action that addressed real time issues, and we were lucky to have Ruby Ai Young and Olivia Schneider on board to brainstorm and analyse under the mentorship of local entrepreneur and all-round good guy, David Sciberras (CEO and founder of Invent3D).

Using the methodology that had been drafted earlier on in Output 2, we were able to identify an issue and work from that point to identify possible obstacles or barriers to a successful digital action. Ruby and Olivia designed an app that would log and monitor public bin use across Malta, and considered the transferability to other localities across the globe. They saw that litter and public waste was a problem, both socially and environmentally, and sought to design a citizen science project that would help raise awareness and encourage people to be more sustainable and eco-aware.

The students then presented their work to a panel of industry leaders including ministerial representatives, and then hosted a 20 minute Q&A session. Considering the students only had two hours to brainstorm and conceptualise their ideas, their citizen science project was impressive and wowed the panel. The recorded webinar will be made available on YouTube soon!

M were also part of a webinar series with local NGO Dawra Madwarna to discuss the role of community participation in local planning and how the use of citizen science projects can help local councils with their long term planning. Carlos Cañas used his app Walking Malta to show how important social engagement was to gather data, and that this can be used to understand the needs of people in relation to their environment.