Design-driven co-creation for migrants' integration in European Cities: REBUILD project

In this chapter, we brieRy present the situati on of the phenomenon ofimmigration in Europe and the objectives of the European research and development project REBUILD. Funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 programme, REBUILD aims to design and deliver a series of information and communication technologies (ICT)-based solutions (including a Digita! Companion with artifìcial intelligence (AI)-based profìling, users' needs analysis and intelligent matching with available services, and smart support far access to services through an intelligent chatbot), with the aim of improving both the effectiveness of the services currendy provided to migrants and refugees by the public administration and local organisations, and the quality oflife of migrants themselves. REB UILD integrates a user-centred, iterative and participatory design approach, aiming to respond adequately to new citizens' needs and ethical and intercultural dimensions, and to monitor and validate the socioeconomic impact of the proposed solution. We focus in particular on analysing and presenting the theoretical approaches, methodologies, techniques and results developed and obtained in the fìrst year of the project. In this year, we defìned, through ca-design activities and co-creation practices involving target users (migrants, refugees and service providers ), the guidelines and requirements that technical project partners are already using to develop the information provision of the digitai companion and the intelligent chatbot of the REBUILD project through artifìcial intelligence models. Tue main objective of the intelligent chatbot is to facilitate access to information for migrants and refugees about all the services offered by the host countries and, therefore, to facilitate their integration process into the host countries. Tue chatbot, furthermore, will allow service providers to better understand migrants and refugees to whom their services are addressed in a more widespread and analytical way, using the data that will be tracked and aggregated by REBUILD. Tue project highlights the value of information and knowledge for addressing the real needs of this particular category of users, who come from very different politica!, cultura! and economie contexts to those of the host countries. These considerable differences must be understood by everyone to encourage integration and communication, and specifìcally by service providers fostering and facilitating the integration process. Tue research activity described was carri ed out by a multicultural and multidisciplinary working group, involving psychologists, socia! science researchers, user researchers, technology experts, cultura! mediators, refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants, including some benefìciaries of the UNINETTUNO's "University for Refugees-Education Without Borders" initiative. Tue people involved were also selected on the basis of their educational leve!, including graduates, undergraduates and professionals in cultura! mediation; all the partners of the REBUILD project paid particular attention to composing balanced loca! research groups from the point of view of status and country of origin. Some of the migrants and refugees involved are currendy professionals working in the fìeld of reception and cultura! mediation; they provided a crucial contribution to the participatory research activities: • in the development of questionnaires aiming to investigate the cultura!background and stories of the migrants and refugees interviewed in the pilot regions (ltaly, Greece and Spain); • in the administration of interviews with loca! associations and authorities, in order to understand the needs and gaps perceived by the organisations providing services to these user groups; • through participation in the focus groups, designed by the Autonomous University of Barcelona, addressing the cultura! differences to be taken into account in the design ofREBUILD technological solutions; and • in the co-creation workshops, in which they helped to identify gaps in services and other reception systems in the pilot regions (Bologna, Thessaloniki and Barcelona) and contributed to the ideation of effective solutions to improve them. Tue exchange of ideas between theoretical experts, designers and developers of the REBUILD Digitai Companion, including migrants and refugees, provided a fundamental contribution in identifying the methodologies, languages and content to be adopted in the design and implementation of REBUILD technologies. Tue same group will be involved, in the advanced stage of the project, in testing and validating the technological solutions produced, in an iterative design process that will allow them to provide further feedback contributing to fìnalising the REBUILD solution. Only knowledge can help us all to respect differences and experience them as new opportunities and added value. Below, we introduce the topics and sections in this chapter. Tue fìrst section, REBUILD: an ICT-enabled integration Jacilitator and life­rebuilding guidance project, describes the migration landscape in which the REBUILD project was developed and the objectives of the project, which aims to promote mutuai knowledge between immigrants and service providers through an intelligent chatbot. Tue second section, Participation and co-creation far socia/ integration, describes the conceptual reference framework adopted for implementing the co-creation practices of workshops and participatory design involving migrants and service providers. Tue third section, Co-creation practices in the REBUILD project, presents the actual methodology applied in the REBUILD project, while the fourth section, Co-creation workshops activities, describes the concrete application of the methodology in the three project workshops, with a special focus on a visual storytelling method as a tool to validate envisioning scenarios. Finally, the fìfth section, Co-creation workshop findings: design keynotes, reports the results of the co-creation workshops, including the development of the main project themes, and the guidelines and requirements adopted by the technological partners of the project.