De Blikopener: making community self-reliance concrete in the first 48 hours after a disaster
ArtiShock Productions — the team behind CTXR — and social design studio Arttenders have been selected for phase 1 of the Innovation Impact Challenge "IX for social inclusion and cohesion" by RVO and CIIIC. Together they are developing De Blikopener: a hybrid neighbourhood approach that helps residents, key figures and organisations find each other faster — before and during a crisis.
A national challenge, two themes
The Innovation Impact Challenge "IX for social inclusion and cohesion" is a call from RVO, part of the national CIIIC programme, aimed at entrepreneurs using immersive experiences (IX) to contribute to a more inclusive, connected society. The challenge has two themes: key figures as a bridge between government and citizens, and community self-reliance: connected and resilient communities — the theme Arttenders and ArtiShock Productions submitted an Expression of Interest for. More on the full call is on CIIIC's programme page.
Selected from around 140 applicants
Arttenders and ArtiShock Productions jointly submitted an Expression of Interest around the theme of community self-reliance, and were selected from around 140 applicants to move on to phase 1: a feasibility study into the approach. On 3 September 2026, CIIIC announced the full selection: twenty projects in total, split across both themes of the challenge. Curious about the other nineteen? See the full list on ciiic.nl.
What is De Blikopener?
De Blikopener (a working title) is a hybrid neighbourhood approach that strengthens community self-reliance before and during a crisis. Residents, key figures and organisations jointly map local resources, safe places, routes and informal networks. That knowledge is made accessible through digital tools, physical neighbourhood interventions and community activation — so people find each other faster and can act within the first 48 hours of a disaster, precisely when formal systems are temporarily less available.
The approach deliberately starts before the crisis: in the "cold phase", the neighbourhood gets to know each other and the local resources — who has a backup generator, where an AED is located, who you can count on. In the "hot phase", during an actual emergency, that knowledge is immediately usable.
CTXR: not just location-based, also social
CTXR is built to connect locations to structured, meaningful content — so far mostly applied to city information, routes and city marketing. De Blikopener shows the same underlying approach works just as well for social infrastructure: who a key figure is, where a safe place can be found, which resources exist on a given street — all location-based information, just aimed at a social rather than a touristic purpose.
Within the project, the CTXR platform is being explored as a possible technical foundation for De Blikopener's digital components. For us, this is concrete proof that location-based technology reaches further than tourism or city marketing alone — it can also make a direct contribution to social cohesion and neighbourhood resilience.
Social design and technology in one team
Arttenders is a Rotterdam-based social design studio with extensive experience in public space, community activation and participation, and is responsible within De Blikopener for stakeholder research, co-creation, social design and the physical neighbourhood applications. ArtiShock Productions brings the technical side: IX concept development, technical exploration, and the possible use and further development of the CTXR platform.
Phase 1: a feasibility study
The coming period is dedicated to a feasibility study into the social, technical, organisational and public conditions under which De Blikopener can grow into a workable, scalable method. This includes researching which residents and neighbourhood contexts the approach genuinely benefits, how digital and physical applications reinforce each other best, and what role IX and the CTXR platform can play in that.
For us, IX is the means to build a democratic neighbourhood community of self-reliance.
Curious about the full call? Read the call on rvo.nl. Want to know more about CTXR? See the Services page.