Successful implementation of the 17 global SDGs will only be possible if they are widely supported by society. Many citizens, businesses and initiatives are already engaged. The project “Community Sustainability Work” aims to make this commitment visible and strengthened. It aims to encourage new activities and attract new actors to commit to sustainability. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH therefore awards a contract to the office of the Council for Sustainable Development (RNE) to develop and operate the open source web portal “Gemeinschaftswerk Sustainability”.
The core element of the online platform is an SDG initiative card. It is intended to cater for initiatives that contribute to the achievement of the SDGs in Germany. The aim is to raise public awareness of these “SDG initiatives”. On the other hand, it will facilitate contacts between initiatives, promote their commitment and motivate new sustainability activities. The online platform will be developed in accordance with the principles of agile project management and the Principles for Digital Development.
— Work package 0: Agilous project management: The AN is expected to implement the platform development using agile mindsets and approaches. Short development cycles, mechanisms to integrate feedback and priority changes into the work plan and frequent releases of new versions are essential. Continuous code testing and a high level of transparency in the development process are needed. Frequent non-bureaucratic exchanges between the AN Focal Point and project coordination in the RNE office are expected.
— Work package 1: Kick-off workshop
— Work package 2: Platform development, testing and live: In order to allow an early Go-Live of the platform, the development of a minimum Viable Product (MVP) is foreseen. The main purpose of the MVP is to visualise initiatives imported from other data sources. In order to register new initiatives, the MVP provides only a temporary interface. The MVP should also allow user feedbacks to be collected in order to decide on the following development steps. Building on this, further functionalities will be developed. As it stands, these include, for example, APIs on data import, smart search and filtering functions, Heatmaps, Calls, Challenges, Commitments, Events, Chat and Newsletter functions, registration and application processes for action days or funding funds.
— Work package 3: Development, testing and implementation of the AI harvesting application: The purpose of the harvesting application is to search the Internet (web crawling) to find and map relevant initiatives (web scraping) and to extract relevant content and import it into the platform’s database. In addition, the algorithms of the AI harvesting application must be able to further learn and improve themselves (e.g. with the feedback that the project team returns to the system).
— Work package 4: Training and training: RNE staff will be trained by the AN on the use of the platform. As the platform and its tools are constantly evolving, the AN conducts half-day workshops.
— Work package 5: Establishment: The Contractor shall be responsible for the support and operation of the platform. Detailed information is specified in a SLA (Service Level Agreement).
— Work package 6: Support: The Contractor must ensure that users are supported in using the platform and that ideas, feedback, requests and comments can be properly documented and returned to active development planning.
Keywords: Sustainability, SDGs, artificial intelligence, AI, agile software development, web development, usability, UX-design, mapping, web crawling, web harvesting, platform