On Wednesday 10th November, Mike Saunders CEO of Commonplace and Abi L.Glen from OnePlanet (and Lateral North & ATP) came together to host an event at After The Pandemic, to showcase the collaborative project we have been working on together. 

“We aim to be the (Common)place that people congregate to collaborate with their community and influence positive change to the place they live, work or play.” (Mike Saunders, CEO of Commonplace)

Both organisations believe that we can use data to empower better outcomes and help tackle problems more quickly. Commonplace has been using heat map technology to map issues raised by local people around Glasgow. Some of these issues are very personal and localised, such as the desire to transform an abandoned football pitch into a dog run or city-wide issues… including a push to get rid of the M8! 

This technology has been incredibly successful in helping local planning departments engage with their communities. It is giving everyone the opportunity to speak and raise issues they might not have thought other people in their community also cared about. Mike showed us through a graph of the most common themes, and we learned that community spirit was the most mentioned topic raised by Glaswegians. 

OnePlanet believes we can be the platform which combines all the community data to show how many people are wanting the same developments, and what is the fairest and most sustainable way of doing this. As Mike rounded up the event, he summarised the collaboration by saying we want to be the gel that helps the bottom up approach meet the top down. 

Abi added to the famed quote by Pankaj Tripathi: “science makes life easier but art makes it worth living; data builds stories, but someone needs to tell them” – we believe by combining the two we have a great opportunity for community engagement and development to help approach social, economic and environmental issues across all communities. 

Left to Right: Fergus Bruce (After The Pandemic), Dr Abi L. Glen (OnePlanet, ATP & Lateral North) & Mike Saunders (CEO of Commonplace)