Connecting the Dots for Positive Change: Designing an Enabling Digital Platform for Social Innovation for a Depopulated Territory in Portugal

The article describes the development of a prototype for an enabling digital platform through a research through design process. The platform serves as an idea bank, triggering social innovation projects in an inland Portuguese territory facing population decline. Employing a design for social innovation approach, by recombining existing resources, it aims to act as a hub to connect locals, stakeholders, and other interested communities in locally implemented projects, generating sustainable and innovative solutions for mutual benefits. The platform aims to foster dialogue around shared interests, catalyzing place-making, community activation, and triggering communities of action to implement transformative social innovation projects for the territory. Various interaction design methods, such as wireframing, user-journey mapping, and formative testing, were used during this research. As part of a broader ecosystem to drive design-led social innovation initiatives, the platform was evaluated by experts and achieved positive results in articulating various crucial dimensions for the territory. The Topia Digital Platform asserts itself as an artefact of interaction design and a vehicle for design for social innovation.