In November 2019, Open Lab Athens undertook the scientific design and implementation of co-design phase for Synergy project. Synergy is a toolbox for economic and business cooperation using blockchain which collectively developed with the participation of local cooperatives of Athens.
Our involvement in the project was to design and implement a process which will be able to engage cooperatives with the general idea of Synergy through field visits and semi-structured interviews with workers. In these field visits we mapped the different needs and the problems cooperatives facing and also we had the opportunity to discuss with them the processes of problem solving or collective agreement they use in their daily workflow. The data collection created a base upon which we designed a specific methodology which was seperated in two workshops and helped participants not only to collectively think and design the econonomic services of Synergy, but also to analyze in depth the problems of their ecosystem. The co-design workshops was organized through different canvases which helped the participants:
- to discuss and structure an analysis of several problems they are facing
- to combine aspects of the problems with specific economic tools
- to map potential changes or dynamics that may arise because of the integration of these tools
- to design in detail the proposed service
- to analyze possible concequences in the principles and the workflow of the cooperatives
