Helpful Places and Superbloom are excited to team up in order to grow the open-source ecosystem around Digital Trust for Places & Routines (DTPR). This next chapter isn’t just about launching new work. It’s about expanding a shared story: seeing the invisible digital systems around us, building practical tools that make transparency meaningful for everyone, shifting norms, and setting new expectations for how technology is introduced into communities.
Seeing → Making the invisible visible
Every day, digital technologies operate quietly in the background of our physical world: sensor networks in transit hubs, analytics in cultural spaces, smart infrastructure in public parks, traffic management systems and automatic license plate readers on our roads. For most people, these systems are invisible. DTPR helps people see them. It’s a human-centered, open framework inspired by visual languages and the “nutrition label” to make AI and data practices that are part of the built environment and our everyday routines more visible. Consisting of a structured taxonomy, associated icons and design patterns on how to use and present these components, DTPR explains what data is being collected, by whom, and for what purpose. It turns hidden digital infrastructure and processes into something legible and accountable.
Building → Turning principles into practice
With support from the U.S. National Science Foundation, Helpful Places and Superbloom are exploring ways to lay the groundwork for DTPR to scale as an open-source ecosystem. Over the coming months, the partnership will focus on three pillars:
- Ecosystem research: Mapping how DTPR is currently being used, identifying which communities, geographies, and sectors might be interested in using it next, and what barriers might be limiting adoption and contribution.
- Community development: Creating spaces such as workshops, collaboration channels, and convenings where designers, cities, researchers, and civic technologists can learn from each other, engage around governance, co-create, and develop DTPR.
- Shared governance: Designing a sustainable structure so that DTPR remains community-led, open, and adaptable long into the future.
This phase is about learning, listening and figuring out how to make it easy for practitioners and community members to implement DTPR, contribute back, and shape it as a living public resource that serves everyone.
Shifting → From pilots to norms
Transparency shouldn’t be a special project or a nice-to-have. It should be standard practice.
As digital technologies become embedded in everyday places and daily routines - From libraries to transit systems, people need ways to understand and trust the digital systems that affect their lives and communities. DTPR helps create that cultural shift: openness not as a promise, but as an expectation.
“DTPR began as a way to make invisible technologies visible,” said Jacqueline Lu, Founder and CEO of Helpful Places. “Now we’re building the networks and governance that can sustain it, ensuring it remains open, adaptable, and rooted in public benefit.”
“This next phase is about growing DTPR as a living ecosystem,” said Georgia Bullen of Superbloom. “We’re creating the conditions for open collaboration, so communities can build on DTPR and make transparency a shared standard.”
Together, Helpful Places and Superbloom are working toward a world where public technologies are designed with care, accountability, and community at the center.
Want to learn more or be part of the growing ecosystem? Register to attend our workshop at Smart Cities Connect on Friday, November 21, at 9:00 a.m.
Follow along as we share updates, invitations to participate, and stories from the growing DTPR community. Visit: https://dtpr.io
This project, Legible Urban Tech - Digital Trust for Places and Routines, is made possible by support from the U.S. National Science Foundation through the Pathways to Open Source Ecosystems (POSE) program.