The pandemic highlighted inequalities in access to information and services during emergencies. Cities must equip themselves with digital tools to manage health crises and disasters more effectively, ensuring inclusion, accessibility, and participation.

Sonar-Cities addresses this need by developing an ICT ecosystem that enables:

• Collection and sharing of knowledge for emergency preparedness;
  
• Involvement of local communities in the co-creation of tools;
  
• Facilitated access to educational and simulation content for various stakeholders (citizens, operators, decision-makers).

Social IT plays a central technical role in the project, particularly as co-leader of WP5. . The key activities include:

• Development of the “Sonar-Cities Knowledge Platform”: a multilingual and multichannel online platform hosting training content, emergency scenario simulations, videos, podcasts, and MOOCs for operators and citizens;
  
• Co-creation of a digital application to encourage the participation of vulnerable groups and promote health literacy;
  
• Design and implementation of personalized digital environments for each of the 6 pilot cities, in collaboration with their respective Stakeholder Boards;
  
• Software development based on principles of accessibility and cultural, linguistic, and semiotic adaptability;
  
• Integration of virtual simulation tools, testing on realistic urban crisis scenarios, and user feedback collection;
  

Contribution to technical dissemination and scalability of the system at the European level, leveraging previous experience in co-design and ICT social projects.

The platform will be released by 2025 and will integrate open, replicable, and adaptable tools for different urban contexts.
Social IT’s technical contribution focuses on the development and scalability of the digital component: from building the platform to supporting partners in co-creation, up to the implementation of localized digital solutions in the six pilot contexts.
The platform will be released in an open format, with the goal of promoting its replicability in other European cities.