When digital becomes social innovation.
On October 28th, we organized the Civic Tech Community Party, an afternoon of discussion, research, and dialogue dedicated to how digital can become a tool for social innovation, active citizenship, and proximity.
The initiative, promoted by our Territories and Digital Communities Group of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Turin, coordinated by Guido Boella and Claudio Schifanella, brought together experts, academics, institutions, and local organizations to reflect on concrete experiences and new forms of collaboration between technology and society.
During the event, we also launched a new community for those who use the digital civic technologies developed by our research group—specifically, FirstLife and CommonsHood—an open space to share results, discuss local applications, and discuss future developments of these participatory tools.
I had the pleasure of moderating the roundtable discussion with Egidio Dansero, and concluded with some reflections on future paths.
A key theme that emerged from the discussion was the value of collaboration: how civic technologies can foster cooperation rather than incentivizing individualism, enabling more “fluid and molecular” forms of collective action, as Ezio Manzini highlighted.
In particular, FirstLife, thanks to personalized mapping, offers an environment for collaboration and sharing, for building and strengthening connected communities.
We have gathered a wealth of material and new questions to continue our research.
Sincere thanks to all the speakers for their contributions and shared perspectives.
