In January 2018, the London Borough of Southwark hosted a WeGovNow training lab which brought together public service officials both internal and external to the municipality as well as representatives from local NGOs. Participants included Officers from various departments including Communities, Housing and Repairs, Public Health, Planning and Regeneration, Highways and Transport, Commissioning and Social Care. There were also representatives from National Health Service (NHS), umbrella organisation Community Southwark and one of UK’s largest property development and investment companies British Land.  

The training session introduced the various stakeholders to the WeGovNow platform, motivating them to discover its capabilities and explore new and innovative ways in which the platform could be utilised to achieve better engagement and improve service delivery and relationships between the service providers and service users. Participants had the opportunity to interact with the platform in a hands-on “train the trainer” workshop format, experiencing how it works in practice and assessing its usability in relation to service scenarios within their respective areas of work. Participants took part in various activities such as registering to the site, setting up an interactive map to plan an event or collect and share data, debating and reporting local issues, and reaching consensus on proposed solutions.  

                         ^{WeGovNow lab participants discussing the platform functionalities                          (Top left: María Alonso, Mapping for Change)}

Participants then took part in a discussion informed by their experience of using the platform and identifying potential for usage as well as further technical improvements and development. The platform was positively received by participants who saw this as a means of modernising the ways in which the public, private and voluntary sectors involve and empower local people by placing active citizenship at their fingertips.