Three questions. Then three kinds of community.

Swedish-built MMO-style GPS game (by Andrimon) where players capture virtual zones placed on real-world maps using their phone's GPS. Played in monthly rounds with full reset; densest in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and increasingly the UK and Germany. Annual Bonanza events bring players to a single city for hours-long standalone tournaments (2026 Bonanza in Gothenburg).

Pixel-art GPS RPG where players claim real-world Settlements that spawn at popular POIs (parks, landmarks). Each Settlement awards titles (Count, Grand Duke, Emperor) for the holder. Kingdoms (player-formed factions) wage 24-hour Wars against matched rivals.

Players capture physical and virtual 'munzees' at real-world locations. Each month, clans (player teams) battle in Clan Wars with rotating monthly requirements (capture types, regions, point totals). Levels 1-6 with reserved tiers for premium players.

Physical 'Beat Box' RFID sensors mounted on lampposts across a town. Walkers/cyclists/wheelers tap them with a card or phone app to earn points for themselves and their team. Each deployment is town-wide and time-boxed (~6 weeks). 5,000+ schools have participated; reached 2 million people in 200+ places.

Hexagonal map overlay where every hexagon a player runs through is claimed for them; running a loop claims all interior hexagons. Players progress through historical 'Ages' (Bronze, Iron, etc.) by accumulating territory, build castles, and battle neighbors for street/neighborhood control.

Players track walks/runs and capture hexagonal tiles on a real-world map; rewards 'determination over speed' so consistency wins, not speed. Joins thousands of nearby players competing for city/town control.

Your city map starts under a mist; every step clears fog around your GPS position and reveals streets, parks, and landmarks. Add friends, join/create guilds, fight guild territory wars over city sectors.

Niantic's MH-themed AR location game ran its first 'Carnival' Oct 12-13, 2024 in Shibuya with Niantic's event team working with Shibuya City Council to plan safe routes and exclusive monster spawns. Thousands of fans descended on the district.

Chipotle places a single named Strava segment in each participating city (Chipotle NYC Segment, Chipotle London Segment, etc.). Local Legends (most repeat efforts in 90 days) win individual prizes, AND every city competes on collective mileage on the segment.

To mark 25 years of geocaching, regional community teams across the world host accredited 'Block Party' Mega/Giga-Events (>=300 attendees, >=6 hours, must celebrate the anniversary). Each is organized by a local team (SEMAG 2025 Team in Massachusetts, GEOregon in Oregon, regional Swiss group, etc.).

Built on Niantic's Lightship ARDK, Splat Town lets two-player teams spray Splatoon-style goo onto real-world surfaces at VPS-mapped landmarks. Goo persists across sessions in a server-side database so every player sees the same coverage.

Self-described as a hybrid running tracker + neighborhood territory game. Smart GPS overlays let runners chase 10K PBs while 'holding down your neighborhood' against other community members.

Free 6-7 week walking and cycling game played across a town. Contactless RFID Beat Boxes are mounted on lamp posts across the playing area; players (children, families, workplaces, voluntary groups) tap cards on boxes to score points. Over 1.9 million participants have played in 5,000+ schools to date.

21-day national bicycle-kilometer competition organized by Klima-Bündnis (Climate Alliance). Over 1.2 million participants in 2024-2025. Citizens log kilometers via app or website; municipalities and councils form teams.

6-week 'Klimathon' run by Berlin-based 2zero (formerly Klimakompass). Each week features 4-6 challenges across themes (mobility, food, energy, consumption, digital, leisure). Mannheim ran as a CoLAB pilot under the EU '100 climate-neutral cities by 2030' Mission starting Jan 2025.

App by Berlin greentech Blacksquared. Every 5 kg of CO2 saved (via cycling, transit, energy-saving) earns one digital Klima-Taler redeemable at participating local retailers. In 2024 the city of Leer in East Frisia saved 291.3 tons of CO2 and topped the national ranking, with 54 partner shops and 10,000+ redeemed Talers.

Annual September cycling challenge run by Love to Ride. Riders log trips via app; workplaces compete on regional and global leaderboards segmented by size bracket. In 2023 Philadelphia alone, 412 riders from 56 workplaces logged 4,898 trips.

4-6 week online team-based sustainability game. Teams of employees, congregations, or community groups log daily sustainable actions; points appear on a public scoreboard visible to all players. Used by Miron Construction, law firms, school districts, etc.

4-day global bioblitz run by California Academy of Sciences and Natural History Museum of LA. Cities compete to record the most observations, most species, and engage the most people via iNaturalist. 2024: 2.4M observations, 65,700+ species, 83,000+ participants in 675 cities.

Pingo Doce supermarket program: shoppers earn 'cromos' (tokens) per €20 spent via the loyalty app, with bonus cromos for fruit/veg purchases. Cromos are donated to schools, which exchange accumulated points for tech/sports/art equipment (tablets, robotics kits, projectors). Covers 1,000+ schools across Lisbon district.

Regional spin-off of the City Nature Challenge model run by Nature Alberta. Residents in participating Alberta cities/towns use iNaturalist or eBird to log observations during the challenge window. Specifically calibrated for the Leduc-Edmonton-St. Albert corridor.

24-48 hour citizen hackathon run by EIT Climate-KIC. Each participating city sets its own local climate challenge; teams of citizens, students, and entrepreneurs develop solutions. Best team in each city receives Climate-KIC coaching post-event. Over 30,000 participants since 2015.

French neighborhood app combining mutual aid, classifieds, geolocated safety alerts, and a local-services directory. Subscribed by municipalities; free for residents. Includes a 'gazette' and directory per neighborhood.

City of Vienna participatory program where residents in specific districts (Bezirke) submit climate-protection ideas; municipal climate councils review and fund the best. Operates on a rotating district cycle with €6M+ budgeted in 2024. Each Bezirk has its own cohort and outputs.

City-branded climate app powered by motiontag that auto-detects walking/cycling/public-transport trips and converts CO2 saved into 'Klima-Taler' coins redeemable at local pools, museums, shops. Each participating city gets its own white-label instance; users join open teams.

Run by Climate Alliance, a 21-day campaign where municipalities sign up to compete on per-capita and absolute cycling kilometers. Mandatory team affiliation; tracked via the CITY CYCLING app GPS or paper log.

Charity-run platform that pulls schools' smart-meter data into an energy-analysis dashboard for pupils and staff, with explicit competition layer.

Block leaders recruit 5-8 neighboring households into a 'Cool Block' that runs a 9-meeting, 5-month program across carbon, water, resilience, livability, and empowerment themes. 'Cool Neighborhood' = ~10 Cool Blocks in geographic proximity.

Started 2016 as LA-vs-SF friendly competition; now an annual end-of-April 4-day bioblitz where cities compete on most observations, most species, most participants. Using iNaturalist. Run by California Academy of Sciences + Natural History Museum LA.

Swiss-registered nonprofit where each town runs a chapter (resident-led volunteer team) doing weekly cleanups, supported by a global mentor team. Chapters share branding, handbook, methodology.

Scan a beverage can/bottle barcode, deposit in the yellow bin (or RVM), photo-confirm. Earn RECICLOS points redeemable for prizes, raffles, or NGO donations. Built by Ecoembes (the producer-responsibility org).

Council-funded mobile app that auto-detects walking, cycling, bus, train, car-share trips and converts to BetterPoints redeemable at local retailers. Councils customize challenges per borough.

Run by Plante et Cité + Office Français de la Biodiversité. Annual themed competition (2026 theme: nature restoration) where French municipalities document their best biodiversity practices through regional workshops and a national jury.

A 2-hour simultaneous cigarette-butt collection 'sport' challenge where French cities mobilize teams to beat a shared world record. Includes recycling pipeline via TchaoMégot.

Month-long competition between residence halls (dorms) on percent reduction in electricity and water vs baseline. Tracked via real meter data, often visualized on color-changing orbs (Oberlin BuildingOS).

Global cleanup day coordinated by Let's Do It! World (Tallinn, Estonia). Each country has a national lead organization that runs its federation of local team events.

Intelligent Health turns a whole town into a 6-week board game. ~60 contactless 'Beat Box' sensors are mounted on lampposts; residents tap an RFID card/fob between boxes (must be within 1 hour) to score points. 1.9-2M players to date across 200+ places; £321.80/adult social value (2025).

21-day campaign by Klima-Bündnis e.V. where cities and rural districts compete on how many bike-kilometers their residents collectively log via app. Schools, clubs, companies, citizen groups form sub-teams under their municipality's banner.

Free 'Healthy Cities' app: register 6,000 daily steps, choose a city/commune to support. Bupa Foundation channels funds into local nature-restoration projects in each participating district. Chile 2025 funded 7 commune legacies: San Bernardo, La Florida, Coquimbo, Maipú, Renca, Viña del Mar, Huechuraba.

Paths for All / Walking Scotland's national 4-week team walking challenge. Teams of 5 (workplaces, community groups, council departments) compete on cumulative steps. Big Team Challenge and Stridekick are commercial backends used by councils to run city-vs-city or department-vs-department editions on virtual maps (London, Route 66, Great Wall etc.).

Pupils log their daily mode of travel on the WOW Travel Tracker; those who actively travel at least once a week for a month earn a themed collectable badge (recycled plastic, made in Cornwall). Schools achieve 59% fewer car journeys and 18% more walking on average.

aruku& (ONE COMPATH) and ALKOO by NAVITIME are gamified pedometer apps that municipalities adopt to run citizen step competitions. Walkers gain points, redeem for local prizes/discounts. Miyagi prefecture's 'Health Walk' explicitly ranks municipalities (市町村) against each other.

City-wide May festival run by Bristol Walking Alliance with multiple parallel challenges: walk 100km across the city's parks (visit listed parks), walk Slow Ways routes that link Bristol to surrounding towns, and a 3,000-step-a-day pledge challenge.

Jahmal Cole's nonprofit fights Chicago segregation by physically moving young people across neighborhoods. The 5K randomly assigns each run group a different neighborhood to run through; Explorers takes after-school cohorts from one South/West Side block to enrichment activities in other parts of the city.

Free national network where volunteer Walk Organisers ('Red Striders') lead local walking groups. Goal: 400,000 Australians taking extra steps. Heart Foundation runs paid 'Just Walk It' national challenges layered on top.

WeWard rewards walking with 'Wards' (redeemable for cash/vouchers). 'Cards' are local geo-pinned waypoints (~500m from home) acting like a treasure hunt. Users can form friend leagues and 'develop a community of walkers in their neighborhood'.

Runners meet weekly at an Area base, run to a community project (sheltered housing garden, foodbank, park), do manual work for an hour, then run back. Area Activators are paid local coordinators; missions are solo runs to do a task for an older neighbour ('coach run').

People's Postcode Lottery + Strava: Strava users earn 'Crowns' when they run/walk/cycle in their postcode area, unlocking £5M of charity funding distributed by postcode. Charities apply, residents 'vote' by working out locally.

Around 19-23 streets in the Gracia district of Barcelona compete every August for the title of best-decorated street ('guarnit'). Each street picks a fantastical theme (enchanted forests, underwater kingdoms, films, social issues) and transforms itself top-to-bottom using paper, fabric, recycled materials and lights. A jury awards prizes. A parallel decorated-balcony contest lets individual residents compete with ~50 entries.

~750 neighborhood 'casals fallers' (faller clubs). Covering ~25% of Valencia's population. Each commission and build a satirical sculptural monument (a 'falla') up to five stories tall in their own neighborhood. All fallas compete in juried categories (Seccion Especial down to local sections), plus a separate Ninot Indultat popular-vote contest decides which figure escapes burning on 19 March.

Artisan collectives. Many rooted in specific Pasto barrios. Build monumental carrozas (floats) up to 15m long and 10m high over six months. Up to 50 people per collective collaborate on a single carroza. Floats compete in juried categories during the Desfile Magno; 2026 first prize ('Indomable Mujer Guerrera') scored 97.50. The Carnavalito originated in El Ejido neighborhood in 1966 as a children's version.

Seven (sometimes counted as six) bonfire societies. Cliffe, Commercial Square, Lewes Borough, Nevill Juvenile, South Street, Waterloo, and Southover. Each represent a different quarter of the town. Every Bonfire Night they run separate processions, costumed tableaux, satirical effigies, fire sites and firework displays. Societies meet in the Bonfire Council Costume Competition at the Town Hall to compete head-to-head on costume craft.

Neighborhood associations, hermandades, and pena clubs spend weeks building large floral cross altars in their street or plaza. Municipal juries score them on flower variety, balance, distribution, artistic lighting, traditional Andalusian aesthetic, and festive atmosphere. Specific category prizes are awarded (e.g, Penarroya-Pueblonuevo 2024 winners: Calle Sevilla, Futuro Singular, FAISEM).

Siena is permanently divided into 17 contrade (Eagle, Snail, Wave, Panther, Tortoise, Owl, etc.), each a geographic ward with its own colors, symbol, church, museum, and social club. Ten contrade race horses bareback in Piazza del Campo at each Palio. But the contrada is also the year-round home of feasts, baptisms, choirs, children's groups, and mutual-aid funds.

~50 'squads' of about 20 guizers each. Organized largely along neighborhood, workplace, and friend-group lines. Create their own themed costumes, perform satirical acts at 11 host venues across town through the night, and torch a Viking longship together. The Jarl's Squad leads; other squads pick historical, satirical, or topical themes (recent ones: Star Wars, Vikings, politics).

34 carved wooden danjiri floats. One per neighborhood. Are pulled at high speed by teams of hundreds through Kishiwada's narrow streets. Each neighborhood guild maintains its own danjiri, designs its happi-coat color scheme, and trains its pullers. Crews compete on speed, cornering skill (the famed 'yarimawashi'), and team coordination.

30+ permanent sound systems (Aba Shanti-I, Disya Jeneration since 1985, Killerwatt, Channel One, Rampage, Arts-A-Light, etc.) take over specific street corners across Notting Hill, Westbourne Park, and Ladbroke Grove for the carnival weekend. Each system is a long-running crew with home turf and stylistic identity (roots reggae, ragga, dub, soca, UK garage). The parallel Panorama is the formal UK National Steel Pan Championship between steel-band crews.

Mural Arts Philadelphia runs 50-100 community mural projects per year, each anchored to a specific block via a 3-block-radius consultation. Every mural is co-designed with block captains, town watch groups, library leaders, and district leaders. The program employs 300+ artists and has produced over 3,600 murals across Philadelphia neighborhoods including Kensington, Northern Liberties, and the Gayborhood.

Every May, residents in 500+ cities lead free, neighborhood-led walking conversations on their own block, route, or theme. Anyone can register a walk. The Academy of Urbanism and other partners run callouts and award recognition to standout walks/cities. Themes range from local history and architecture to homelessness, queer history, and skid-row planning fights.

Olinda's iconic giant puppets ('bonecos gigantes'. Homem da Meia-Noite, Mulher do Dia, Menino da Tarde, plus 200+ others representing local and global figures) are run up Olinda's steep colonial hills in a juried race. 2026 added a new modality. Curator-selected runners compete sequentially in feminine and masculine categories, judged on technical criteria including puppet weight class and performance. Encontro dos Bonecos Gigantes meeting is held in Guadalupe neighborhood.

Open-data platform that ingests half-hourly electricity and gas meter readings for ~620+ schools and turns energy investigations and saving actions into points. Public national, regional (London, North-West England, etc.), Multi-Academy-Trust, and Local Authority scoreboards rank schools in real time across the academic year. Cash prizes for top schools are spent on a sustainability project the school chooses.

Madison-based non-profit running a 4-6 week online sustainability game where employees of companies, school districts, and municipalities form teams. Players log daily 'cool choices' (carpool, line-dry laundry, unplug devices) which are translated into points on a public scoreboard. Originally a deck of physical cards at Miron Construction; now web/mobile. 9,471+ players, 334,201+ sustainable actions reported.

Five-month, nine-meeting structured program where 5-8 households on a city block work together on carbon reduction, disaster resilience, water stewardship and neighbourhood livability. A city launches a campaign and recruits Cool Block Leaders, who invite neighbours onto a team. Block teams then aggregate into 'Cool Neighbourhoods' of ~10 blocks. Pilot achieved 32% average household carbon reduction and won NASA's outstanding sustainability solution.

Sant Cugat splits its participatory budget into six neighbourhood processes on Decidim (Centre, Les Planes, Mira-sol, La Floresta, Valldoreix, Sud-Oest). Each neighbourhood gets its own micro-budget envelope and a parallel process where residents propose, debate at Neighbourhood Councils, and vote on local projects. 2022-23 cycle: 815 proposals across 6 neighbourhoods; Centre alone got 226 proposals and 6,247 supports. Children/youth budget envelope of €140k for 2025-27.

Polco is a civic engagement and benchmarking platform for local governments. The Track dashboard lets a city/school district pick up to 9 peer jurisdictions and compare side-by-side on community survey results (NCS), financial health, demographics, and policy outcomes. School-district dashboards filter survey data by neighbourhood, race, gender, age. Layered onto Polco's survey/budget-simulation engagement tools.

Belgian civic-engagement SaaS used by cities across Europe to run consultations, ideation, participatory budgeting. The Representativeness Dashboard compares each participating cohort's demographics (age, gender, neighbourhood, education) against the underlying ward/postcode-level population so cities can see which neighbourhoods are over- or under-represented in real time, and target outreach.

Civic crowdfunding platform combined with grassroots coaching. Local 'Leaders' propose neighbourhood projects (community gardens, murals, after-school programs). City partners offer 'Match Funds' (e.g. One Northside Crowdfunding Challenge in Pittsburgh, Lorain County Match Fund) where neighbourhoods compete for matching capital pools. Average donation $35, $21M+ raised, most donors live within 2 miles of the project.

Gamified exploration platform that ingests Strava activities, compares against OpenStreetMap road/path data, and tells users which streets in their city/neighbourhood/county they haven't yet covered. Awards milestones at 25/50/75/90/99% completion of geographic areas. Includes public leaderboards by area showing top Wandrers for each city, neighbourhood, county.

UK volunteer movement where members run/walk/cycle from a weekly start point to do a physical task for a community group (sorting foodbank, weeding allotments, painting community centre) or visiting an isolated older neighbour. Organised by borough teams (GoodGym Westminster, GoodGym Barnet, GoodGym Islington, etc.). Tasks logged on the platform with photos, totals, and reports.

Decidim's 'process groups' feature is explicitly designed for grouping parallel participatory budgets per district/neighbourhood. NYC's PB ran in 30 of 51 council districts in 2021-22, each with at least $1M to spend, residents drop pins on a map to pitch ideas. Helsinki's OmaStadi splits city budget by area (Itäinen, Eteläinen, Pohjoinen, etc.) with separate ideation, deliberation and vote per area.

Hyperlocal email/web forum, one per town or neighbourhood. ~800/1000 households in Vermont are active members. Center for Media Engagement found 81% of users say FPF makes them more informed (vs 26% for Facebook, 32% for Nextdoor). One rural town hit 50% subscription after 1 year with 66% posting, breaking the 90/9/1 lurker rule (34/44/22 instead).

Brazilian civic-engagement app where residents photograph and post urban problems (dengue hotspots, potholes, broken streetlights) geotagged to neighbourhoods. Reports flow to city hall for action and are visible to other residents who can upvote/comment. Won UN award as best urban app and a top-5 Government & Participation app.

Town-wide gamified active travel intervention created by GP Dr William Bird (Intelligent Health Ltd) where residents tap RFID 'Beat Boxes' on lampposts while walking/cycling/wheeling between them within an hour windows to score team points. Runs as 6-week community-wide tournaments. 1.9M+ participants across UK and abroad. Multiple peer-reviewed pilot evaluations (Coombes & Jones 2018, Harris et al. 2023 in Health Promotion Practice).

Federally-backed (Public Health Agency of Canada + provinces) loyalty-points health app that added 'Step Together Challenges'. Teams of partnered users earn shared incentives only when both partners collectively hit individual daily step goals 10 times in 7 days. 24-week matched case-control study (n=20,254 STC users vs ~13,150 controls) found STC group gained +537 mean daily steps over controls (~3,759 extra steps/week).

Royal Horticultural Society-run nationwide horticulture/community competition with 1,600+ entered communities annually. Groups are judged on three pillars: Horticultural Excellence, Environmental Responsibility, Community Participation. Regional rounds (Heart of England in Bloom, South & South East in Bloom, London in Bloom etc.) feed UK finals. Backed by Saga/RHS academic-grade community-impact studies.

Department of Rural & Community Development annual competition, organised since 1958, where ~900 towns/villages compete on environment, biodiversity, tidiness, and community participation. Studied by Interreg Europe as a 'good practice' for community-led regeneration; 30,000+ volunteers logging 1M+ hours annually.

Location-based geogame by Alenka Poplin (Iowa State / now Cornell) where neighbourhood residents play tree-selection and tree-placement scenarios over their actual block. Part of a broader Geogames research agenda (Poplin 2012/2018/2025) including Climate Geogames for urban heritage sustainability. Validated through workshops in Ames, Iowa.

Wilson Center + BRAVA Foundation (Brazil) serious game where Brazilian teens become mayor of a city and balance policy goals vs fiscal reality. 35,000+ players, 2,500+ engaged students; 67-69% of players report increased political interest/efficacy after play. Spawned real 'Mayor for a Day' partnerships in cities like Jundiaí, where 3 students presented neighborhood flooding to their actual mayor.

TUM research on gamified urban-planning participation. Three-phase methodology, prototype tested on-location with members of the public. The 'avatar' element was empirically shown to affect perceived task meaning, perceived competence, and social relatedness. First empirical evidence linking specific game elements to civic-participation motivation.

EU-funded Horizon project (euPOLIS) gamified VR/AR co-design tool for nature-based solutions in urban neighborhoods. Open-source GIS + Godot/Blender pipeline; demoed at TNOC 2024 with 30 architects/citizens/planners. Documented in MDPI Smart Cities, March 2025.

Metaverse-on-mobile platform by Prismo Studio that digitally gamifies a real commercial neighborhood (SOLANA). Generates behavioural and check-in data tied to physical locations. Studied as a case in Buildings/MDPI on socially-sustainable urban space, June 2025.

Swedish movement (plocka upp + jogga). Pick up litter while jogging. Now a globally networked grassroots community with 20,000+ daily participants in 100+ countries. Studied as a behaviour-change intervention combining exercise and environmental stewardship.

Serious pervasive game in Barcelona Raval (a gentrifying immigrant neighborhood) where teams of players move through real streets engaging with situated audio/visual storytelling about gentrification and immigration. Documented in Springer's 'Authoring a Serious Pervasive Game for Reflecting upon Urban Spaces' (2018) and cited in JMIR Serious Games 2023 systematic review.

Decentralized dashcam mapping network where drivers earn HONEY for road imagery. Customers (map data buyers) can post 'Bursts' / Areas of Interest bounties. HONEY put up for grabs on a defined city or polygon. When 100% coverage is achieved, the bounty is split among ALL contributors who helped, forcing local drivers to coordinate. Cities compete on the Global Map Progress dashboard, and region multipliers can be tuned up for under-mapped or high-value areas.

Helium Mobile subscribers opt into Discovery Mapping: walking/driving with the app maps eligible H3 hexes (~2 basketball courts each); subscribers must hit 40 hexes/day to earn. The data drives Boosted Locations. High-footfall hexes where hotspot deployers earn extra MOBILE rewards. LA was the first city specifically targeted with a city-wide boosted-location rollout.

Community-owned weather network: ~9,500 stations deployed by individuals. Owners earn $WXM daily based on Quality of Data and Proof of Location. Station density per cell is visible on a public explorer, and the protocol uses 'cell' geometry to reward (and cap) stations per area.

Cabin built a directory where coliving properties register as Outposts (informal listings) and can be promoted to official 'Neighborhoods' once they meet criteria (≥4 bedrooms, 20mbps) and accumulate 1,000 ₡ABIN votes from the community. The token treasury was distributed when the DAO wound down in 2025, but the directory and the Neighborhood/Outpost framework remain.

Month-long pop-up city run by the Crecimiento movement. 2024 hosted 67 startups in an experimental regulatory sandbox; 2026 edition runs March 4-26 at Aleph Hub (Vedia 3892) plus citywide activities (asados, summits, wellness, tournaments).

Edge City spun out of Zuzalu/ZuConnect and runs serial month-long villages in different geographies, each branded around the host place's identity. Edge Esmeralda (Healdsburg, CA), Edge City Lanna (Chiang Mai), Edge City Patagonia. The company became cash-flow positive in 2024.

Spanish-language city-DAO project in Colonia, Uruguay. Property purchase grants a governance token; residents vote on district-level decisions (budgets, public works) using a token-weighted system. Pitched as a hybrid of physical real-estate ownership and on-chain neighborhood governance.

Citizen Wallet is an open-source 'WordPress of Web3' wallet stack any community can fork to launch its own local token. Zinne is the live Brussels deployment - 1 Zinne = 1 EUR, spendable only at participating local Brussels businesses; received Zinne must be re-spent locally.

Token-gated social DAO with a 'City Keys' grant program that funds regional in-person gatherings, plus 'Event Keys' that let any member spin up a local meetup with treasury support. Discord has restricted regional sub-channels per city.

Token tied to a city: 30% of mining yield went to the city government's wallet; holders could signal local priorities via the Miami Voice app. NYC briefly launched a NYCCoin variant. Real money flowed to Miami's treasury before the program lost momentum.

Decentralized 'Internet of Cameras': drivers use the Drive& smartphone app or VX360 dashcam to capture geospatial imagery and earn NATIX tokens. 243k+ drivers across 171 countries; 153M+ km mapped. Partnered with DIMO for cross-rewards.

FOAM lets users curate a decentralized map of Points of Interest by staking FOAM tokens on each POI; bad POIs can be challenged. Each region's POI density and quality is visible on the public map. Originally paired with a planned 'Proof of Location' radio beacon network.

UK's largest inter-school active-travel challenge run by Walk Wheel Cycle Trust (Sustrans). For two weeks, schools log every walked, wheeled, scooted or cycled journey via a school portal; a school's best five days determine final position on a national leaderboard, with badges and certificates.

Towns are turned into giant 6-week games. Contactless Beat Boxes on lamp-posts give points when players tap a card; teams (schools, workplaces, community groups) compete on live leaderboards. Over 1.9M players, 5,000+ schools, 116 towns.

National accreditation scheme that publishes league tables ranking local authorities by percentage of schools holding a Modeshift STARS travel plan (Bronze through Platinum). Bucks and South Gloucestershire repeatedly top the large-authority table.

Six-week head-to-head competition where schools install an eGauge real-time electricity monitor and compete to cut kWh use vs baseline. Points awarded for energy reduction AND completed actions (audits, advisor meetings). Cash prizes; aggregate kWh saved exceeded 120,000 in some districts.

Free team-based virtual challenge where school/community teams log physical-activity minutes, which convert to kilometres powering their team along an Olympic-themed virtual world map. Teams collect prizes en route.

Ireland's national Eco-Schools programme, co-run by An Taisce and individual county councils. Schools work through themed Green Flags (litter, energy, water, biodiversity, travel, global citizenship) over 2-year cycles, with county council prizes and ceremonies.

Free pupil-led programme where school teams complete 5 objectives (audit, swaps, campaign, etc.) to earn Plastic Free School status. Connects directly to SAS's Plastic Free Communities so the school feeds into its town's status.

Middle-school teams design a future sustainable city (essay, scale model, presentation) addressing a yearly challenge (e.g. waste-free, climate adaptation). Runs through regional competitions feeding a national/international final.

Pupil-and-parent-led monthly Friday roadblocks (first Friday of each month) demanding pacified school streets. 75+ schools across 8 cities have organized. Forced the city to expand its Protegim les Escoles programme from 26 schools toward all schools.

School-based Undokai pits in-school teams (Red/White) - but the parallel October community Undokai held in chocho (neighborhood association) parks pits neighborhood teams against each other in relays, tug-of-war and dance contests, with parents, retirees and students competing for the chocho.

Ministry-backed contest valorizing student-led gardening and floral projects at school and around the school. Two-stage: department-level juries select winners who progress to the national prize, with special prizes for cooperative pedagogy, biodiversity, citizenship.

Planet Ark's National Recycling Week schools programme provides activity guides and event ideas; in regions like Hervey Bay (QLD) Express Recycling runs a Battle of the Schools where schools compete by weight collected with $500 cash prizes.

Official app for the UNESCO-recognized Festa dei Gigli, where eight enormous wooden obelisks (gigli) representing the historic guilds/neighborhoods of Nola are carried through the streets by paranze (crews of ~120 carriers each). Features live geolocation of each giglio, AR/3D content, an 'identity card' for each giglio (name of paranza, song lyrics), and the standout 'Fantagigli' fantasy-football-style game with a public leaderboard where users build teams from real paranze and earn points based on their performances. Built by Esthar startup with University Federico II Naples Physics Department.

Official app from the Junta Central Fallera (governing body of Valencia's Fallas) that tracks all 384 fallera commissions live during the two-day Ofrenda de Flores parade. BLE 5.0 chips are inserted into each commission's banner (estandarte/cruceta) to measure passage times and current location along the two parade routes (San Vicente and La Pau). Users get push notifications when their chosen commission passes checkpoints. Same chip technology is used in Madrid/Barcelona/Seville marathons.

Ecosystem of dedicated SaaS platforms for managing Valencian falla commissions (the neighborhood associations that build the Fallas monuments and run festivities). Each comisión gets a branded app for members to pay cuotas, register for events, get QR/NFC wristband event entry, manage the bar/casal tab, see news, etc. Coexist alongside the JCF Ofrenda app to form a hybrid traditional-digital stack.

Cloud platform for Karnevalsvereine (carnival associations) and Veedelszöch (neighborhood district parades) in Cologne. Handles member management, dues, ticket and table sales for sessions, push notifications, parade-participant rosters and safety documentation, and a planned GPS tracking module for parade routes. Sister product Jeckplan offers similar capabilities. AppSolut Jeck adds a public-facing news+calendar app.

Full-service platform for Mardi Gras Krewes (the parading social organizations that anchor New Orleans neighborhoods and parade routes). Provides each member a Personalized URL (PURL) showing dues status, lieutenant assignment, costume size, float position, throw orders, and event tickets. Lieutenants get sub-org dashboards over their squads. Also handles throws inventory and parade-day logistics.

Mobile app providing live GPS tracking of all 55 official mas bands during Notting Hill Carnival (Europe's largest street festival). Users follow their band's progression along the route, time meet-ups, and hop between sound systems. Operates alongside the official NHC band registry which already differentiates Children's, Dutty, and Adult Mas categories.

Seville's municipal app added a Holy Week module for 2026 that GPS-tracks each cofradía (hermandad/brotherhood) minute-by-minute from Viernes de Dolores to Domingo de Resurrección, showing the position of the cruz de guía and each paso, plus a public density 'traffic light' powered by 40 city sensors signaling crowding by zone.

Official municipal apps for two traditional Japanese matsuri. Shinjo's app attaches GPS devices to each of ~20 ornate yatai floats (each owned by a wakaren/young men's neighborhood association), shows them live on a map, plus quizzes about each float and photo frames. Yamada's site does the same for omikoshi/floats with a real-time browser map. Both function alongside the chōnaikai/ujiko (neighborhood association / shrine parishioner) structure.

Family of apps tracking the locations of multi-ton wooden danjiri floats during festivals where neighborhood teams race them through narrow streets at full sprint. 'Danjiri Ima Doko GPS' covers Kishiwada Matsuri (one of Japan's most intense float festivals); Tadaoka Danjiri Navi covers the Tadaoka town festival; Otori Danjiri Association uses GPSnext to track multiple floats.

Family of municipally-run annual contests where neighborhoods/barrios (organized via neighborhood associations) compete on Christmas illumination and façade decoration. Categories explicitly include 'parishes/neighborhoods' as a unit (alongside individuals). Most run hybrid digital intake (online registration, social media voting, judging visit scheduling) layered on a centuries-old block-decoration tradition.

Climate Alliance's nationwide 21-day cycling competition where 3,000+ German municipalities compete on a public leaderboard by total km cycled. Members of local parliaments are explicitly invited to form teams with citizens. In Stuttgart 2026, 8,809 participants logged 1,799,418 km in 21 days.

A whole-town real-life game turning lamp-posts into 'Beat Boxes' (RFID sensors). Players tap cards at boxes while walking/cycling to score points. Run as time-limited campaigns (4-6 weeks) covering an entire town or city zone. Over 2 million participants across 200 communities.

Olio's Food Waste Hero programme ranks both the top 100 individual volunteers AND the top 100 postcodes monthly by quantity of food rescued and shared. Postcodes compete on a live dashboard accessible to volunteers.

3-week seasonal 'leagues' where players form teams of 6+ (schools, workplaces, neighbourhoods, families) and earn/lose points completing 50 bonus eco-challenges (e.g, zero-waste meal, organising a clean-up) and avoiding 20 penalty actions. Over 5,700 participants and 75,650 challenges completed across editions.

App for residents who clean their own neighbourhood ('Wijkhelden' = neighbourhood heroes). Users log cleanup routes, see other heroes' routes in their wijk, and coordinate cleanup coverage. Backed by Dutch waste authority DAR.

First-of-its-kind Strava activation by People's Postcode Lottery: completing monthly Strava community challenges unlocks £50 of charity funding per participant (cap of 30k participants per challenge), targeting £5M total. Five charity partners include Mind, Hospice UK, Guide Dogs.

City-run interactive citywide scavenger hunt on the Goosechase platform. Missions are tied to local environmental themes (recycling drop-offs, native plant tours, river clean-ups). Participants submit photo/video proof and climb a public leaderboard.

Keep Scotland Beautiful's #SpringCleanScotland Litter League turns the annual cleanup month into a regional competition: groups log litter picks, and winners are announced by Scottish region (Edinburgh & Lothians, Highlands, etc.). Clermiston Litterati - a residents' group - won their region in 2024.

MARC-coordinated annual October plogging contest where counties and cities across the Kansas City metro compete for most participants and most litter picked. Virtual ploggers can sign up to clean their own neighbourhood any day in October; cities like Overland Park run their own sub-campaigns.

RHS-run national tiered competition: 1,600+ UK communities (villages, towns, suburbs, neighbourhoods) compete at local, regional then national level on three pillars: Horticultural Excellence, Environmental Responsibility, Community Participation. Volunteers are colloquially 'bloomers'.

iPhone app that turns Berlin's ~190 Kieze (named micro-neighbourhoods) into a collectable set. Players visit Kieze in person to 'collect' them, unlock achievements for traversing whole districts, and see neighbourhood borders in AR.

Network of neighbourhood shopkeepers (boulangerie, café, hairdresser etc.) who pledge specific small services to homeless people - a glass of water, toilet access, a phone charge, a free haircut. Identified by visible Carillon sticker on the window; mapped per arrondissement.

Free 6-week town-wide walking/cycling game where residents tap RFID 'Beat Boxes' on lampposts. A whole town's beat-the-street game pits schools, workplaces and community groups in that town against each other on dual leaderboards (total points and average points). Each game becomes a town/borough-wide health intervention commissioned by NHS ICBs, councils, or active-travel partners (e.g, Reading Borough Council, Hammersmith & Fulham, South Derbyshire, Wokingham). Over 1.9m participants across 5,000+ schools in 10 years.

Every June, Canadian communities (cities, towns, First Nations, rural municipalities) log physical-activity minutes via the ParticipACTION app to compete for the title of 'Canada's Most Active Community' and a CAD $100,000 prize, plus 12 regional prizes ($5k-$10k) for the most active community in each province/territory. Quebec City won the 'most active community in Quebec' prize multiple times. Over $1.5m awarded to 49 communities since 2019; $7.2m in grants for follow-on local sport initiatives.

Run by Klima-Buendnis (Climate Alliance), 1.2m+ Germans log kilometres cycled over a self-chosen 21 consecutive days between May-September. Although billed as a climate campaign, it doubles as a population-level physical-activity intervention - municipalities sign up officially and their citizens, employers, schools and local councillors form teams. Stuttgart 2026: 8,809 participants, 1.8m km.

Annual Aug-Dec competition where 20+ Big Ten universities (and by extension their host cities/regions - Lincoln NE, State College PA, Madison WI, etc.) compete to collect the most blood donations from their student/community base. The winning school's community gets $1m from Abbott for student/community health. 2024 winner Nebraska collected enough donations to save ~60,000 lives across Big Ten regions.

911-connected app that, when a public-place cardiac arrest is dispatched, alerts every CPR-trained user within ~500m of the patient and routes them to the nearest registered AED. >4m users; ~1m responders dispatched to 294,000 cardiac-arrest events by Nov 2024. Cities/counties/agencies adopt PulsePoint as a public-health infrastructure.

Victorian state government runs a 30-minutes-a-day-for-30-days April pledge with a free app. Record year: 124,913 Victorians, 5,000+ teams, 2,000 families. Every signup gets 10 free YMCA gym passes or local-council leisure passes. Local Government Areas (Merri-bek, Ballarat, Hepburn Shire, etc.) run their own launch events and parallel team competitions.

Yorkshire Ambulance Service Charity-run scheme where secondary schools, colleges, and community organisations apply for Bronze/Silver/Gold accreditation based on the share of staff and students CPR-trained, AEDs registered with the ambulance service, and community-resus events they host. Tied into the global 'Restart a Heart Day' (16 Oct) which streams a live mass-CPR lesson - 130,000+ viewers in 2024.

Free monthly walks anchored at parks/trails, each led by a local doctor or medical student. Format: 5-minute health-topic talk by the doc, then 45-60 min walk together. Designed for social connection + nature + physical activity + health education simultaneously. Open chapter model means anyone can start one.

Elche city council runs a 3-month community challenge targeting childhood overweight/obesity in two specific peripheral neighborhoods (Carrús and Los Palmerales), where families register and log healthy-eating and physical-activity targets together. Designed around 'barrio' identity - the neighborhood as the team.

Month-long September challenge: teams of 4 hit 10,000 steps/day each, raising funds for cerebral palsy research. 2,000+ workplaces in Australia. Live leaderboards at individual, team, organization and state level inside the app.

Founder Bryony Gordon's network of monthly Sunday Walk-and-Talks for people with mental-health issues, organized by local volunteer hosts in 150+ UK locations (Cambridge, Royston, Highams Park, etc.). Free, no booking, judgement-free.

Quebec-wide 6-week challenge each spring run by Capsana, asking citizens to commit to '5 portions of fruit/veg, 30 min activity, 2 hours quality sleep daily.' Municipalities sign up to mobilize residents, and the campaign awards 'Municipalites Championnes' status to top-performing towns and pays out ~$20k in prizes for citizen events. 21 municipalities crowned champions in a single recent edition.

A mobile app that turns local streets, parks and landmarks into a virtual playground. Teams of up to six collect location-based tags and activity points by walking, running, cycling or rolling, then climb a seasonal community, school or workplace leaderboard.

A sports-based climate campaign where supporters choose practical environmental pledges and attribute the resulting estimated emissions savings to their club. Those contributions accumulate into a public league table, giving fan communities a shared sustainability score.