The Citizen Census

Our first experiment, the Civic Bureau begins at Somerset House, as part of the Civic Workshop residency. Over the coming months we will be inviting the public to take part. We are interested in how the census can make better use of civic technology and what the census would look like if done at a City level, built on the idea of the city as a public good. This raises questions about how people participate and how often, what kinds of information people want to give towards a "public good" and what would feel representative of their everyday lives. We have partnered with a team at the ICRI Cities lab at University College London, and will be showcasing Sens-Us, an interactive Citizen Census, at Somerset House. Sens-Us will be based on the VoxBox technology, developed at UCL, which is an innovative way to gather opinions through a “tangible questionnaire” as opposed to filling out forms. The Civic Bureau will be open from January 15th for one month. But if you can't join in person - the live data from the Census can be seen here.

We'd love to understand what information are you willing to share? What sort of information would you like to know? How would you want to use the information from a citizen census?