Here is a list of municipalities that have entered COG2020.
If you click on it, you can see the local issues and related data of that municipality. Citizen/student teams will look at these issues and other data to come up with ideas for solutions.

Issues from local governments

Hokkaido	Muroran City
Tohoku	Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture; Aizuwakamatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture
Kanto	Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture; Minato, Meguro, Setagaya, Nakano and Tama Wards, Tokyo; Yokohama and Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture
Hokuriku	Sabae City, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture
Chubu	Mishima City, Susono City, Shizuoka Prefecture
Kinki	Otsu City, Omi Hachiman City, Kusatsu City, Shiga Prefecture; Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture; Osaka Prefecture, Suminoe Ward, Osaka City, Toyonaka City, Hyogo Prefecture; Kakogawa City, Sanda City, Hyogo Prefecture
Chugoku	Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture; Ube City, Yamaguchi Prefecture
Shikoku	Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture; Yawatahama City, Ehime Prefecture
Kyushu	Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture; Tamana City, Kumamoto Prefecture
Okinawa	Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture

A list of all projects can be found here.

Requests to local governments that apply

Please respond to inquiries from citizens/student teams submitting ideas in STEP 2 and have a friendly communication with them. In the final Open Review, the collaboration system will also be judged.

Review Period

January - February 2021

Examination details

• • Details of the idea, reasons for the idea, and procedures for implementing the idea (document review and final public review)
• • Cooperation between citizens/students and local government (additional survey and final public review)

Review Procedure

(1) Document screening (January 2021)

Ideas submitted by citizens/students will be reviewed and classified into the following categories.

1. A. Finalists (subject to final Open Review)
2. B. Semi-finalists
3. C. Poster
4. D. Site up

(2) Additional questions for finalists (February 2021)

Citizens/students who have submitted finalist ideas and their local governments will be surveyed for additional information on the status of collaboration between citizens/students and local governments, which will be used as material for the final Open Review.

(3) Final public Steering and awarding (February 28, 2021)

We are currently planning to hold the meeting online.
However, depending on the situation, we may change the method.
The final program will be announced in February 2021 along with the announcement of (1).
The finalists will be judged and awarded based on their presentations and the open Q&A session with the judges.

(4) Parallel event - Semi-finalist mini-presentation and poster exhibition

The semi-finalist mini-presentations and poster exhibition will also be considered online.

(5) After Contest

We'll be announcing the results of the online voting and other events.
We hope you enjoy it!

(6) Publication of results

After the final Open Review, the results will be published on the website as soon as possible.

Steering will be conducted on two aspects: the submitted ideas and the collaboration system between citizens/students and the local government.

Screening of ideas

(1) Subject of review

Steering will be conducted for the following points

1. • Submission of Idea Explanation Form by Applicant
2. • Presentation at the final Open Review (citizen/student team, using Power Point)

(2) Screening items

The screening items are as follows

1. • Content of the idea
2. • The reason for the idea and the supporting data
3. • Idea Realization Process

Please check the Citizen/Student Application Form, which will be available in September for more details.

Review of the collaboration system

(1) Subject of review

We will judge the actual collaboration between citizens/students and the local government in this application.

1. • Results of an additional survey of the teams that submitted ideas for the final public review and their local governments
2. • Presentation at the final Open Review (using Power Point by the relevant local government)

(2) Screening items

The screening items are as follows

1. • Status of public availability of issue-related data (including responses to inquiries)
2. • Support for the independent efforts of citizens and students in the idea formation stage
3. • Willingness to collaborate with citizens and students when the idea matures and moves to implementation
4. • Open communication with citizens/students about ideas

Application Period (Completed)

June 1, 2020 - August 31, 2020

Application Details

• • Local issues to be considered with citizens/students (discovered from the perspective of citizens)
• • Publicly available data, information, and materials related to the issue ("public data")

Application Requirements

Local government (department in charge)* that meets the following requirements

1. (1) Aiming to become a regional platform for data and knowledge sharing
2. (2) Willingness to work with citizens/students who play a leading role
3. (3) Participation of the department in charge of the issue measures and the department in charge of issue-related data
5. (4) Participation of general departments such as planning, public relations, citizenship, and data management (recommended)

In addition to a single municipality, a coalition of neighboring municipalities or a coalition of municipalities with common issues is also possible.

Problem classification

(Cross-cutting issues are also acceptable.)

1. 1. Aging, nursing care, medical care, and health
2. 2. Parenting, family, and education
3. 3. City planning and transportation
4. 4. Environment and energy
5. 5. Disaster prevention and crime prevention
6. 6. Industry (primary, secondary, and tertiary) and work style reform
7. 7. Civic pride, tourism
8. 8. Smart city ・smart citizen (can be combined with other issues)
9. 9. Assignments that take into account the changes in society that the COVID-19 will bring (may be combined with other assignments)
10. 10. Others (e.g., initiatives not covered by the above categories)

If you want to emphasize the SDGs, please write them in the SDGs section of the application form.

Application Procedure

(1) Regional issues and related data

• • Relevant data can be submitted by presenting the URL of the site where the data is located or by presenting the published paper media (preferably in electronic form).
  (The data does not have to be in machine-readable open data format as long as it is publicly available.
• • You can propose any number of regional issues for a single municipality (department in charge).
• • Local governments that have applied to COG in the past are also welcome. Different or the same proposal is fine.
• • There is no problem if citizens/students and the local government discuss and decide on the issues to be addressed in order to identify the issues from the citizens' perspective.

(2) Support for citizens/students who submit ideas

• • Please assist citizen students who are submitting their ideas about issues and public data.
• • Please respond to any additional data requests from citizen students who are submitting ideas to analyze the issues and formulate ideas to the extent possible.

(3) Announcement of the applicant municipality

Publication on this site will be made after the deadline at the end of August.

Application Procedure

1. Click on "Application Form PDF" to see the entire form.

This PDF will give you an overview of what municipalities need to know when they apply.

PDF file for checking the application form.

2. You can choose either (1) or (2) below as the method of sending your application.

(1) Fill out and submit the Google application form below.

If you have more than one proposal, please submit an application form for each of them.
(You can revise your application once you have submitted it until midnight on August 31, the deadline for submission.

Fill out and submit the application form.

(2) Fill out the application form and send it via the "Attach to Email" link below.

Please download and fill out the application form from "Download Application Form" below, and send it to the secretariat via email attachment from "Submit Application" below.

• 1

  Download the application form

  Download the application form

• 2

  Fill out the application form and send it to the secretariat via e-mail with attached.

  Apply Now

If the mailer does not start after clicking "Apply", please contact
admin_cog2020@pp.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Application Period (Completed)

Mid-September to December 20, 2020

Application Details

What we are looking for are ideas for social activities that will lead to solutions to the issues entered by the local government.

• • We hope that citizens/students will engage in concrete activities to address issues as their own.
• • Make sure to think about how to implement your idea.
• • There are some things that require collaboration with the government in the course of consideration.
• • It is essential that the order of self-help, mutual-help, and public-help be firmly understood.

Application Requirements

A team of citizens/students who meet all of the following requirements (1) to (5)

(1) Team

A team of citizens/students who want to contribute to the resolution of local issues from the perspective of residents*.
The perspective of the residents who will be the recipients of the ideas.
One person cannot apply alone.

(2) Team members

If the applicant municipality

1. A. Residents
2. B. People who do not live in the city but commute to work or school
3. C. People who do not fall into the above categories but have a strong enthusiasm for problem solving

(3) Team Leader

Applicants who fall into one of the following categories
To the applying local government

1. A. Residents
2. B. People who do not live in the city but commute to work or school

In addition to the above, we will also accept applications from citizens/students who fall under the category of A or B of the applicant municipality and are related to the idea of the application, provided that they are recommended by the applicant municipality.

1. C. Former residents of the community
2. D. Workers in the region (not required to commute)
3. E. Study/research subject (can be past)

(4) Team formation

Any of the following are acceptable

1. A. A team of citizens only
2. B. Mixed team of citizens and students (*)
3. C. Teams of only students (*)

Students include high school students, vocational school students, university students, and graduate students.
(It is possible to add junior high school students and younger to the citizen/student team for reasons such as the need for a child's perspective.

(Note) Treatment of past application teams

There are no restrictions, except for the following
Teams that were subject to the final public review at the COG are not allowed to apply if the regional issues presented by the local government are the same as before.

Application file (application form and appeal flyer) and how to apply

When submitting your application, please send the following two types of files. If you send only one file, it will not be considered.

(1) Application form required for screening (Download the prescribed form: docx file)
(2) Appeal website flyer (A4 single-sided only: PDF file)

Application Form

• • You will need to enter the name of the idea, the name of the team, the content of the idea, the reason for the idea, supporting data, and the process to realize the idea.
• • The application form is divided into two parts: a public part and a private part.
• • Please read the "Notes" on the first page of the application form carefully to confirm the contents of your application. There are precautions such as the handling of intellectual property rights.
• • Please download the " Application Form " from the link below, fill out the necessary information, and then proceed to create the " Appeal Website Publication Flyer ".

Download the "Application Form".

Website release flyer for appeal

• • After completing the application form, please make a flyer that shows the following items (1), (2), and (3) at a glance.
• • The results will be published on the COG2020 website for reference during the review process and will also be used for online voting.

• (1) Make the main points of the idea you want to appeal to easy to understand.
• (2) The reason for this idea (with some very simple data to back it up)
• (3) A simple process to realize the idea.

• • Flyer size: One A4 sheet, single-sided only
• • Format: PDF, please.

The same precautions, such as the handling of intellectual property rights, apply to the application form. Please check it carefully and make a flyer.

How to Apply

Once you have the above two files, please send them to us by e-mail using the "Apply" link below.

• Send the completed application form and two copies of and
  to the secretariat via email attachment.

  Apply Now

If the mailer does not start after clicking "Apply", please contact
admin_cog2020@pp.u-tokyo.ac.jp

---

Key Points of the Application Form

---

Content of the idea
Please indicate in an easy-to-understand manner what your idea is for a social activity (service) that will solve this or that problem. Please limit your entry to two pages.

This is the main point of the problem that you want to solve as an application team! Please write a very short description of your idea.
Then, write the "what" and the "who," "when," "where," and "how" of the idea.

(Reference)
It will be easier to understand if you envision a situation where this idea for solving a problem is implemented in a concrete way.
In order to generate good ideas, it is necessary to analyze and confirm the relevant data and to empathize with the people who will use the ideas through design thinking.

---

Reason for the idea
In no more than two pages, explain why you are proposing this idea, giving evidence of the data that supports it. This section confirms the necessity and effectiveness of the idea. Data broadly includes numerical data, such as statistics, and qualitative data, such as questionnaires, interviews, descriptions of experiences, related plans, and existing measures. Data should be clearly identified as to its source.

I will write the reason (why) I propose this idea.

In order to support the ideas of "what", "who", "when", "where", and "how" in (1) above, you will need to write the following.
To support the ideas of "what," "who," "when," "where," and "how," write down your thoughts on "why" you want to do this, referring to the data above.

(Reference) Reasons for proposing an idea and supporting data
Please look for data that clearly shows the current problem that appeals to the need to propose the idea.
Data (qualitative data is also acceptable) that shows the effect of the proposed idea on improving the current situation will also be considered.

---

(3) Process to realize the idea
In two pages or less, please provide a general description of the process of realizing your idea, including the entity that will realize the idea, the approximate scale of the resources (people, goods, and money) needed to realize the idea and their realistic procurement methods, the process including the time frame for realizing the idea, and solutions to institutional constraints on realization, if any. In this section, we will check the feasibility. The feasibility of the idea will be checked here.

The first step is to devise and write specific activities for the realization of the idea in accordance with the above points.

(Reference)
Realizing entity: The team that actually implements the idea and its motivation
Resources required for realization: Rough target of resources required for each of human, material, and financial resources.
People: How many people are in the team and what are their roles?
People: How many members are there and how their roles are assigned?
Money: How much money is needed and how to raise it?
Process including time line for realization: Make a simple plan including feasible plan, procedure for implementation, and brush-up.

---

To arrive at a good idea, we use data analysis to discover and confirm the facts surrounding the issue, and design thinking to empathize with the owner of the issue and discover the underlying problem. Once this is discovered, you can move on to devising concrete ideas for solutions. Think about this and that.

Then, summarize the ideas that you think would be good to have and want to use, and summarize the content of the ideas, the rationale for the ideas, and the flow of realization with the overall story in mind. For more details, please refer to the later sections on data usage, design thinking, and work flow.

It is possible that applications that input and use data will be included as a means of implementing the idea. If you need additional local data, please contact the local government in question in a timely manner. If not, please use data and materials within the published range.

We are looking forward to your ideas, which are not just a petition or an attempt to get the government to act on your behalf (we also welcome your ideas to actively solve problems).

However, there are some things that require collaboration with the government, and some things that would be better implemented by the government. However, the content of such activities will be enhanced if we first examine how much we can do ourselves. It is essential to firmly grasp the sequence of self-help, mutual aid, and public assistance.

When the idea has matured afterwards, it is necessary to work out again the specific ways of collaboration between citizens and the government over its implementation.

Form of use of data

The use of data is generally for analysis of the issue or for input to an application. In this contest, the use of public data (including documents) is acceptable, and is not limited to open data. Open data is data that has been released in a format suitable for machine reading in the digital age (e.g. TXT, CSV, etc.) and is suitable for application input.

On the other hand, there are two types of data to understand the reality of society: thin data - the facts of society, and thick data - the contexts and backgrounds that bring those facts to light. Use these types of data well to analyze issues and come up with ideas. Thick data is the gateway to the next stage of design thinking.

Design Thinking

When creating "things" such as buildings, cities, products, posters, and websites, people have traditionally tried to create things that are more sympathetic to the users by looking at the finished product, for example, blueprints and models, repeatedly modifying them, and Steering their usability and impressions. Design Thinking is a way to apply this method not only to products but also to services, and to design services that are more sympathetic to people by touching the root of their issues. In layman's terms, design thinking can be described as "nice to have" and "nice to use" thinking for users. Please refer to this approach when you are considering ideas for solving local problems, and try to come up with ideas that will resonate with the people who will use them when they are realized.

Design Thinking and Data Analysis

Design thinking and data analysis are effective in the stage of extracting the underlying issues. It doesn't matter which comes first, but try to be aware of the good points of both and use them.

The relationship between design thinking and experts

In design thinking, the first step is to start from the perspective of the citizens and users, and the perspective of the experts is to support them.
In order to realize the idea, it is necessary to check the supplier's point of view. Please note that experts (e.g., experts in the field of the issue, IT engineers) are not necessarily required for the application teams.

Digital Technology

You are already using digital technology in your daily communication and data visualization and analysis without even knowing it. When it comes to creating simulations and applications for specific purposes, it is difficult for citizens to do it alone, which is where engineers come into their own. In addition to increasing the digital sensitivity of citizens, meeting engineers is also important in promoting open governance. However, even if you don't have these engineers in your team, it can be fun to have incidental hints that sometimes it would be nice to have such apps, etc., to realize your ideas.

Where do you get your ideas?

se your intuition, inspiration, and associations during the idea hinting phase. Use data effectively to support your explanation of the content of your idea.

A sample of the work flow from idea creation to application.

- Stage 1 / Extraction of underlying issues (Tools: Design thinking and data analysis)

We use data and materials to analyze issues, and then use design thinking to delve into the issues and extract the underlying issues.

- Stage 2 / Idea generation (tool: design thinking)

Generate specific ideas to solve the problem you have delved into. Iterative desk testing to develop ideas is also a good idea. We hope that the ideas will be attractive, new, and exciting, that people will want to put them into practice and use them in the future, and that the issues will be solved as a result.

- Stage 3 / Finishing the Application (Tool: Logical Thinking)

Please check the feasibility of your idea and summarize (1) the content of the idea, (2) the rationale for the idea with data, and (3) the process of realization with an awareness of the story. For more details, please refer to the application form.