EventKlaar
Our AI Strategy project, EventKlaar, aims to reduce the back-and-forth exchange of feedback between organizers and municipal permit workers. The AI reviews the application against municipal regulations and provides the municipal employee with a clear overview of any missing or incorrect information. The back-and-forth movement between the two parties increases the time spent per file by permit workers. Moreover, as organizers face substantial financial risks while organizing, EventKlaar will contribute to sooner certainty for organizers.
Main contributions
When the development of EventKlaar commenced, together with one teammate, I focused on condensing our ideas into the one-page summary. This document sketched the common theme for our project. It ensured that we had a good shared starting point to begin with while working apart from each other. During the unfolding of the project, my primary tasks were overseeing the Business Model Canvas and devising an appropriate governance structure.
Decisions, surprises, feedback and iterations
A key decision regarding the governance section was determining what to highlight on the slide deck. Usually there is plenty of room to elaborate on everything in text, the challenge lied in picking the most important elements to feature. Ultimately, I based my decision on our mission, which centred around explainability, responsibility, fairness, privacy and safety. An example of this is to highlight the 50/50 split between A and A+ applications when testing EventKlaar, to reduce discrimination by the system and enhance fairness.
While governance was a relatively specific component of the AI Strategy Lab, the Business Model Canvas was the element where all my teammates’ work converged. Although I had a clear understanding of the big picture regarding the Business Model Canvas, it was the component that underwent the most change during the project. An example of alterations of the BMC during the project was the addition of the permit volume-based revenue stream in addition to the yearly subscription base. These changes were rooted in changed decisions in other components, so maintaining the Business Model canvas required good understanding of my teammates work. The balance between the specific governance task and the overarching task regarding the Business Model Canvas kept me focused and engaged during the entire project.
A general challenge I experienced together with the team was the difficulty of translating an experience and feeling into a concrete and convincing story for others. As a co-creator, I already understood well where the problem stemmed from and was convinced of its significance. However, I did underestimate the complexity of the entire project and how much time, research and new knowledge it required. Fortunately, this personal overconfidence bias faded quickly; it caused no problems, it did provide a valuable lesson. I should have spent more time investigating the process before sticking to assumptions. Looking forward, I would spend more time validating the problem before developing a solution.
Another surprise while working on EventKlaar was that Rotterdam (our aimed first client to undergo a pilot period) has its own initiative called RAVE. This is an initiative to replace the outdated case system of the municipality of Rotterdam. This finding confirmed that changes really do need to be made to the system Rotterdam currently uses, and it presents an opportunity for us to collaborate. The timing is quite coincidental and solidifies our position in the ecosystem of the municipality.
Our goal with EventKlaar was to reduce the overall duration of the permit application process. We did not receive feedback on the one-page proposal, which gave us confidence. Because of this, we solely relied on feedback within our group. During our research and group discussions with the team, we discovered that a substantial portion of the problems stakeholders faced could not be solved with our AI idea. After all, meetings with stakeholders like the police, fire department, GHOR and DCHR must take place. These in-person meetings are essential because they possess unique knowledge and judgement regarding aspects that cannot be codified into simple rules and regulations. By gaining this clearer picture of components of the entire process, we were better able to determine what our solution could really address. This triggered a shift in my mindset: we were moving away from asking ourselves: “What is the general problem?” to asking “Where do we see opportunities to launch an effective project?” This focus was essential to truly establish the scope of EventKlaar: the goal was not primarily to address the entire process cycle, but rather to resolve the recurring back-and-forth movement between event organizers and the municipalities due to incomplete or insufficient information provided by applicants. It is rather unfortunate that, in my opinion, this moment came a bit later than desired, but for precisely that reason, I view it as a valuable learning experience.
Collaboration
I absolutely enjoyed working in this team on EventKlaar. AI Strategy Lab demonstrated once again the importance of collaboration within diverse teams. We would have never come up with this idea without one of my teammates. Her inspiration for EventKlaar was rooted in her own personal experiences and struggles applying for an event permit. Another teammate has personal work experiences with municipalities as clients, allowing him to enrich us with his unique perspective. Finally, my other teammate showed a lot of passion for creating our EventKlaar prototype. It was truly infectious to see him present the prototype, and moreover, he also taught us how the prototype had been developed. We met online several times to check in on our progress. I considered our work environment to be very pleasant. Whenever we disagreed, everyone felt free to share their perspectives and we always aimed to reach consensus. In the future I would ask for a more extensive explanation after the meetings I missed, since we had to verify the meeting after if I understood the conclusions correctly. This felt inefficient and the solution will reduce the risk of miscommunications.
The project and understanding of AI and Business Strategy
What I learned during this project and was confirmed during the demo day, is that the rise of AI makes things possible that were previously considered outlandish. This project drived me to push boundaries and remain imaginative. This project challenged me to find weaknesses in a well-established process and taught me and my team to unfold the solution from scratch.
However, I recognize that dreaming does not last forever. Ultimately, it is arguably even more important to remain as realistic as possible. Before taking this course, I believed the success AI existed only as a technical solution. But in reality, success of this project depends on organizational factors such as its business case and economics, and governance. As already discussed, I realised through EventKlaar that particular issues remain ‘human issues’ and cannot directly be solved by an AI. Integrity, critical thinking and making realistic choices are therefore factors that can make or break someone’s dream in this process.
