We are opening our first US branch in Denver. Since autumn inUse has been working with Denver to help them become a smarter, more sustainable city. This is a part of inUse's venture in becoming the digital partner of choice for all cities and companies who want to become more sustainable.
The City of Denver is one of the fastest growing cities of US today. To meet the challenges with a growing population the city is working hard on becoming a Smart and more Sustainable City – in all aspects. To succeed they partnered up with Panasonic. The partnership's goal is to enhance access to and development of community engagement, energy efficiency, water conservation, public safety, healthcare and other public services.
inUse in charge of Service Design
Service Design is an intrinsic part of Smart Cities, and while Panasonic is extremely strong on engineering, they have room for more Service Design. They looked for a strong partner on the strategic side of Service Design and involved inUse.
The focus was at first to help Panasonic in the engagement with Denver mostly with three things:
- To understand citizens' needs and behaviors, and to perform data-driven analysis and on-site observations and interviews, learning about people's needs and understanding where there is a window for improvement.
- To visualize design solutions for different ideas that pop up, based on citizens' needs and technological opportunities, aiming for city goals on sustainability.
- To engage and organize the city leaders as a collective on how to make decisions at a pace that allows for radical changes towards a Smart and Sustainable City. In short; to find a smart way of working.
Building our branch
inUse started by sending CEO Kjell Persson, one of the owners Ingrid Domingues, and the UX Director of physical design Fredrik Andersson to Denver. Right now the Denver branch has two Service Designers, but the goal is to be 10 employees in a year. The long-term contract with Panasonic will hopefully expand beyond the City of Denver and inUse will grow the office and take on more clients.
Are you curious and want to know more about what we are doing in Denver – and of course, HOW we’re doing it – reach out to Pia-Karin Åkesson and we’ll come to your office and elaborate.
We also promise to keep you up to date on what we are doing in Denver, sharing stories and design.