Fora.ai
Run simulations on flooding and other climate and social issues
Project overview
Quick Facts
Project Focus
Collaborative Modeling Platform
Sector
Urban Planning & Environmental Science
Key Services
Platform Engineering, UI/UX, Strategy
The challenge
The traditional participatory modeling method relied on cumbersome, in-person workshops using physical 'game boards' and manual data input, lacking real-time visual interaction and an all-in-one management system for collecting participant feedback and simulation history.
The solution
We created an online collaboration platform to automate data processes and onboard stakeholders easily, transforming the physical 'game board' into an interactive whiteboard with real-time drag-and-drop simulation tools and data collection profiles.
The results
The platform successfully translated a complex research method into an interactive online experience, enabling collaborative solution design, real-time trade-off visualization, and strong adoption across urban planning and environmental science research communities.
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Purpose and partnerships
Overview
Data-Driven Perspective
Fora.ai was born out of the idea of addressing climate and social issues with a community and data-driven perspective. The team behind Fora.ai is a compassionate and incredible team of researchers and professors within the sector of urban planning, environmental science, and data science. We worked closely with a number of organizations to bring a collaborative process normally held in-person to online with visual and data tools that supported their long-standing research method and brought together community members and stakeholders.
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The method of participatory modeling
The Approach
Learning and Collaboration
Participatory modeling aims to aid the environmental planning process by involving more stakeholders, using real data to simulate the damage of not acting and the cost saved short and long term, and building a workflow that doesn’t require complicated scientific equipment to make critical decisions. To put it simply, participatory modeling is a learning and collaborative process to engage stakeholders and the community together in practicing real-world environmental planning.
Stages of the Methodology
Iterative Planning
The methodology has several stages, ensuring that all participants’ concerns and data are integrated before reaching a final, agreed-upon solution:
- 1.Define priorities: Participants first set their order of priorities (e.g., investment, damage reduction, impact on neighbors).
- 2.Build a solution together: Collaboratively bring together pieces (e.g., increase vegetation or direct run off) into practical use to solve the overall objective.
- 3.Run the simulation: Test if the proposed solution meets the necessary criteria and priorities of the group.
- 4.Collaborate and change: Continually change and adapt the priorities, cost benefit of the infrastructure change, and environmental benefit until all balance together into one solution the group can agree with.
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In-practice challenges
What Didn't Work
Cumbersome In-Person Workshops
The seminars and workshops would bring individuals together to work on a scenario with a physical ‘game board’ and ‘game tokens’ representing green infrastructure. While in-person collaboration is critical, the process was cumbersome to facilitate:
Physical tokens needed to be modeled into the data visualization tool that was tedious and outdated to continually update, not to mention you had to be in person.- Multiple points of interaction (collecting participant priorities, setting the game board, and presenting simulations) needed to be done by hand for the data to work together.
- No all-in-one management system to collect participant feedback, manage profiles, or see past simulation versions.
- Impact of change and visual simulations could not be interacted with and acted upon in real time.
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Fora.ai in action
The Platform Solution
Automating Data Processes
In partnership with the client, we designed and built an online collaboration platform focused on automating complex data processes and simplifying stakeholder onboarding. What emerged was a real-time problem-solving environment where groups can brainstorm, test scenarios, and work toward solutions together. At the core of the platform is a digital version of the physical “game board,” reimagined as an interactive whiteboard. Participants can:
Drag and drop tokens- Comment directly on the map
- Toggle visual terrain layers
- Edit scenarios
- Reference version history as ideas evolve
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Looking to the future
The Platform Solution
Automating Data Processes
building out the platform and incorporating new ideas for learning such as gamifying the experience where participants can play educational mini-games and earn points for their contribution. It was and continues to be an incredible journey in working with the team behind Fora.ai and the opportunity to have tech lend itself to real-world climate and social issues.
Purpose and Partnerships
A word from the client
"I love working with Audentio! We started our productive collaboration through the MapTheCount project to support outreach efforts in the State of Illinois during the Census 2020, a high-stakes and fast-paced project. Our success was built on the mutual trust, commitment, and reliability, where everyone was a key player and contributor to the overall team. This strong collaboration led me to engage with Audentio again to develop a vision I had for participatory modeling to address many climate and social problems. This platform, which we named Fora.ai, allows people to engage with others through intuitive modeling of these problems, so that they can collaboratively design and test solutions, visualize the tradeoffs of each, and then deliberate to choose a solution to implement. Audentio has helped us create the visualizations and prototypes that are now generating significant interest and excitement. Audentio is not a developer team on standby, they’re one of us! They share our passion for what we do, providing support and expertise on strategy, through design and product, through our work with key stakeholders. They work from within our team, from start to finish, to see the job is done and done well."
Director of Fora, NE University