Russia Engages Youth in Urban Renewal With AI, VR, and AR
The Nizhny Novgorod region won two national awards for modernizing public voting and involving young people in city development through immersive technologies.
Two digital transformation projects from the Nizhny Novgorod region won the federal “Social Leaders of Russia” award, which supports top initiatives aimed at improving quality of life and regional development.
In the category “Best Practice for Engaging Citizens in Urban Environment Development,” the winning project digitized the regional program “Creating a Comfortable Urban Environment.” The initiative modernized the regional platform golosza.ru and simplified the voting process. This time, developers used VR and AR solutions to attract audiences and popularize participation.
In the category “Best Practice for Engaging Youth and Young Families in Socially Significant Projects,” the winner was the phygital quest “URBA.” The project was recognized for creating new ways to involve young people in urban renewal. The region chose to draw youth into city projects through gamification, augmented reality, and an AI assistant. In just the first three weeks, more than 16,000 people took part in the campaign, and over 2,000 young residents cast votes for improvement projects.
