A city enabled for the entire population is a collective obligation all citizens must make a reality.

Despite the fact that Mexico City has had significant progress in terms of inclusion and anti-discrimination, there is still a lot left to do as shown by different statistics highlighting negative behaviors towards different groups of the population, whether because of social status, gender, sexual orientation, origin, disabilities, pet ownership, among many others.

The UN describes “well-being” as the presence of positive emotions and moods, the absence of negative ones, satisfaction with life, fulfillment, and positive functioning regarding physical, economic, social, emotional, psychological, and other areas. In this sense, inclusion and non-discrimination are an important part of equal conditions for all, which in turn foster positive social relationships and satisfaction.

This is why today, more than ever, is so necessary to generate actions that keep influencing change in our civic culture; to harness the social inclusion movement that has already begun and take it to unprecedented levels that produce historic change towards less discrimination and total accessibility.

Ciudad Abierta is the first digital fully inclusive and accessible platform in the world.

Designed to be navigated easily and intuitively, and adaptable to any device, ciudadabierta.mx is a web-app database fed with information from three main sources: Google, Time Out Mexico, and users.

At ciudadabierta.mx, citizens access a free index showing how specific places of the city meet their needs. The initial census features different public and leisure spaces divided into five categories, which are still being tested with users to identify other relevant in-demand categories.

These categories have different inclusion, non-discrimination, and infrastructure indicators to ensure proper conditions for all citizens.

ACCESSIBILITY

• Access ramps

• Wheelchair friendly bathrooms

•Elevators

•Car parking / valet parking

•Bike racks

LGBT+

•Friendly

•Mixed/unisex bathrooms

KIDS

•Kids menu

•Playgrounds

•Restrooms with diaper booths (men and women)

•High chairs

•Access for strollers

FOOD

•Vegan

•Vegetarian

PETS

•Pet friendly

•Dog menu

•Water bowls

During its first phase, Ciudad Abierta enabled one of the largest cities in the world: Mexico City.

The goal is to sensitize public space owners and decision-makers in order to promote inclusive practices that would allow their venues to be indexed in Ciudad Abierta and eventually influence local governments for the creation of new anti-discriminatory public policy. In the same way, showing Ciudad Abierta to citizens would allow them to become more aware of the needs of others and their own and help build more inclusive communities.

In order to build a strong case and make the platform a more powerful and democratic idea, we worked with key partners, including government, private and public institutions, and NGOs.

Ciudad Abierta is linked to Google’s API and is also fed by users, which makes it a live and ever-growing database with a unique set of information that couldn’t be grouped and featured anywhere else. This initiative is now one of Google’s global inclusion platforms.

#CiudadAbierta officially launched on the Day of Equal Treatment in CDMX (October 18th, 2018), with the support of the Council to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination in Mexico City (COPRED), the National Council to prevent Discrimination (CONAPRED), the Board of Tourism of Mexico City, the Museum Network for the Care of Persons with Disabilities, the Memory and Tolerance Museum, and the NGO Silencio AC. They all recognize Ciudad Abierta as the first accessibility and inclusion digital platform in Mexico City.

Ciudad Abierta is already entering its second phase to add more inclusion categories and start operating in other cities, per users’ requests.

Ciudad Abierta’s filters help people enjoy Mexico City regardless of gender, sexual orientation, origin, disabilities, parenthood. It successfully promotes several issues of the UN’s SDGs, including “well-being for all”, “gender equality and women empowerment”, and “inclusive cities”.

Moreover:

- High user participation has shown new relevant accessibility categories to add to CA (e.g. hearing impaired)

- Users describe CA as social support to identify places where they’ll feel happy/comfortable/secure/part of the community, officially complying with UN’s/WHO’s inclusion and well-being parameters.

- Local and global users have requested CA to be enabled in their cities

- +80 establishments have self-registered on the platform

- +1,100 establishments have downloaded “non-discrimination” badges and become accessible for all guests

- +160,000 registered users

- +45,000 active users p/month

- +2:36 min average browsing time p/user

- +15 million digital impacts

- + USD$500,000 earned media ROI

- +5000 active users feeding the platform daily