CrowdSpot Turns 10!
A couple of weeks ago I sat down with CrowdSpot Founder Anthony Aisenberg to discuss marking the 10yr milestone of CrowdSpot. It was a rambling conversation about all the ups and downs of starting and keeping a business running.
The idea for CrowdSpot was built off the back of Anthony’s advocacy work in cycling. Noticing how cycling infrastructure wasn’t being spent on locations where it was desperately needed, he thought that crowdsourcing the collective knowledge (pins, comments, votes, etc.) of existing riders on an interactive map would help influence the debate on where priority cycling infrastructure improvements should be made.
Whilst the original idea was purely focused on improving conditions for Melbourne cycling, it didn’t take long for CrowdSpot to evolve across themes and in locations around the world. To date, CrowdSpot has completed over 150 projects with over 50 clients across 5 continents. In total, more than 500,000 data points have been created.
We would like to take this opportunity to reflect on our past triumphs, projects, and challenges with 10 key highlights.
1. The launch party
Back in late 2012 before anything had actually been achieved Anthony teamed up with Elliot Fishman and Tom Coleman to launch CrowdSpot at their new Collingwood offices.
Without a project under its belt and no one offering a comparable service in the country, friends and especially family had no idea what we were trying to do. People were at least impressed by the CrowdSpot cupcakes.
2. City Road Master Plan
After a series of free trial projects, it was the strategic planning team at the City of Melbourne led by Leanne Hodyl which gave CrowdSpot its first break. The City Road Master Plan project collected hundreds of pins along the much-maligned traffic corridor. Approximately 90% of submissions expressed negative sentiments. This helped advocacy efforts to develop design options to help transform City Road.
3. Projects in Silicon Valley
One morning Anthony received a random voicemail regarding a new project opportunity in California. Despite thinking it was some sort of scam he chased it up. Good thing he did as it led to a series of transport planning projects in the bay area. Bizarre to think that the county housing the tech hub of the world came to CrowdSpot for a technical solution.
4. BikeSpot 2016 (and 2020)
BikeSpot 2016, a collaboration with The Squeaky Wheel, was launched with the aim to crowdsource people’s perceptions of cycling safety across Metropolitan Melbourne. The result was significant. Thousands of submissions, feature articles in major newspapers, and the recognition of perceptions of cycling safety as an important data source for understanding people’s willingness to cycle.
CrowdSpot was recognised at the Planning Institute of Australia awards for Planning Excellence in the Public Engagement and Community Planning category for the BikeSpot project, a collaboration between 13 Government organisations and 16 community groups to crowdsource perceptions of bicycle safety.
BikeSpot 2020 then followed. Similar in nature, the 2020 version collected over 30,000 submissions across the state of Victoria. There are now plans in the works to re-boot the project on a national scale.
5. XYX Collaborations
Later in 2016 CrowdSpot launched the #FreetoBe project with Plan International. The #FreetoBe project was a platform where the real stories of women can be unearthed and taken to people in positions of power to advocate for change. Designed by young girls themselves, the interactive map invited girls and women to drop pins on places they love, avoid, and feel safe in and those that can be improved.
The develop insights from the data collected, Anthony was introduced to Dr. Nicole Kalms, the Founder and Director of Monash University’s XYX Lab. This introduction has to other XYX Lab collborations including:
- Victoria’s Gender Equality Map
- #FreetoBe 2018 launching in 5 continents simultaneously
- YourGround (more below)
6. Awarded the Melbourne Accelerator Program Innovation Prize (incl. trip to Italy)
In 2017, the CrowdSpot team was involved in the Melbourne Accelerator Program’s social impact accelerator, called Social Velocity and was announced as the inaugural winner of the MAP Innovation Prize.
The prize included a trip to Turin, Italy to participate with over 600 people, as part of the European Innovation Academy. EIA is known as an ‘Extreme Entrepreneurship Program’, that aims to help businesses scale or take ideas to tech start-ups in 15 days. This event facilitated learning, sharing, and the transformation of innovative ideas between leading entrepreneurs across the world.
7. SGS Collaborations
In 2018, CrowdSpot was offered the opportunity to collaborate with SGS Economics & Planning on projects that sat outside the primary crowdsourcing and engagement platform.
The result has been two web projects that are still in existence today. An internal school provision planning tool for the Department of Education & Training called SchoolScape and Find my School, the primary source for the public to determine the school zone they live within.
8. YourGround Triumph
The YourGround project, a collaboration with Monash University’s XYX Lab, is a digital mapping platform aiming to advance knowledge of safety in public spaces for women and gender-diverse people. With the support of two State Government partners and 23 Local Government partners, the project crowd-sourced over 6,000 submissions and has so far received 5 awards with national recognition.
The extensive project report on the data insights was led by XYX Lab.
The data is viewable via the interactive archive map.
9. TransportCamp!
The TransportCamp ‘unconference’ brings together transport professionals, researchers, technologists, and citizens interested in transport, technology, and innovation. Originating in the US, the unconference format is the only event where the attendees set the agenda and collaborate to determine the key topics they want to hear about and discuss.
CrowdSpot first launched in 2014 at the University of Melbourne whilst Anthony was completing his Master of Urban Planning. Since then, an additional 4 TransportCamp Melbourne events have taken place and Sydney will be hosting its second event on Friday 2 December at the University of Sydney.
10. The ‘team’
There have been many who have contributed to CrowdSpots success over the past 10 years. Just to name a few, special thanks to Elliot Fishman, Tom Coleman, Finn Robertson, Ben Sturmfels, Dan Peade, Cait Jones, Leanne Hodyl, Knowles Tivendale, Julian Szafraniec, Will Fooks, Duane Burtt, and Ben Rossiter.
Over the last ten years, CrowdSpot has supported data-driven innovation across a variety of spatial scales; from prioritising local needs to envisioning global futures. Therefore, we would like to humbly celebrate this milestone, and look forward in anticipation to our future data-driven endeavours.
