If you are a designer, computer scientist, engineer, or social scientist that is looking to research real-world challenges, and you are interested in human-centred design methods or human-centred design methods, then you might be interested in working with me and the cross-disciplinary team at Action Lab to address Digital Civics challenges. 

Digital Civics is a new cross-disciplinary area of research that explores ways technology can promote new forms of participation in the design and delivery of public, commercial and humanitarian services, from education and public health to social care and town planning.

For example, our Indaba technology and workflow is a new kind of participatory video methodology supports communities across the world in creating high-quality videos as participant voice in NGO field contexts and is currently being rolled out worldwide by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresent Societies. Another example is WhatFutures, a new way of using mass communication applications and social media technologies to allow people to collaborate to address real world problems.

Something else that is really import to be creation of open source software and hardware, for example, our OpenMovement AX3 accelerometer which was designed for the largest study of physical activity ever conducted (over 100K participants) and is now used by clinical researchers across the World; and Intake24, an online 24-hour dietary recall system which was developed for Food Standards Scotland and is used for dietary survey across the globe.