On Digital Citizenship and Data as a New Commons: Can We Design a New Movement?

Junto con la urgente necesidad de reinventar nuestra sociedad, una serie de cambios de paradigma ya están dando forma a las transiciones hacia una sociedad más participativa y digital. El trabajo actual hace un balance de la promesa de los datos abiertos (open data) como un nuevo recurso y elabora sobre el movimiento creador, que ha estimulado la capacidad de las personas para participar y ha proporcionado herramientas e infraestructuras para liberar la capacidad intrínseca de las personas para crear e innovar. Exploramos cómo los datos abiertos pueden ser nuevos comunes, discutimos cómo las hackatones pueden apoyar la ciudadanía digital y reflexionamos sobre el papel del Diseño para la Transición en la creación de ecosistemas en torno al recurso común y en la creación de capacidad.Along with the urgent need to reinvent our society, a series of paradigm shifts are already shaping transitions toward a more participatory and digital society. The current work takes stock of the promise of open data as a new resource and elaborates upon the maker movement, which has spurred people’s capacity to participate and has provided tools and infrastructures to unleash people’s intrinsic ability to create and innovate. We explore how open data can be a new commons, discuss how hackathons can support digital citizenship, and reflect on the role of Transition Design in creating ecosystems around the common resource and in building capacityJunto com a urgente necessidade de reinventar nossa sociedade, uma série de mudanças de paradigma já está dando forma às transições até uma sociedade mais participativa e digital. Este trabalho faz um balanço da promessa dos dados abertos (open data) como um novo recurso e fala sobre o movimento criador, que estimulou a capacidade das pessoas para participar e proporcionou ferramentas e infraestruturas para liberar a capacidade intrínseca das pessoas para criar e inovar. Exploram-se como os dados abertos podem ser novos comuns, como as hackatones podem apoiar a cidadania digital e reflete-se sobre o papel do Design para a Transição na criação de ecossistemas em torno ao recurso comum e na criação de capacidade.&nbsp

DIY networking as a facilitator for interdisciplinary research on the hybrid city

DIY networking is a technology with special characteristics compared to the public Internet, which holds a unique potential for empowering citizens to shape their hybrid urban space toward conviviality and collective awareness. It can also play the role of a “boundary object” for facilitating interdisciplinary interactions and participatory processes between different actors: researchers, engineers, practitioners, artists, designers, local authorities, and activists. This position paper presents a social learning framework, the DIY networking paradigm, that we aim to put in the centre of the hybrid space design process. We first introduce our individual views on the role of design as discussed in the fields of engineering, urban planning, urban interaction design, design research, and community informatics. We then introduce a simple methodology for combining these diverse perspectives into a meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration, through a series of related events with different structure and framing. We conclude with a short summary of a selection of these events, which serves also as an introduction to the CONTACT workshop on facilitating information sharing between strangers, in the context of the Hybrid City III conference

Conversations on a probable future: interview with Beatrice Fazi

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What Citizens Want to Know about their Government’s Finances: Closing the Information Gap

There is an information gap between citizens and their governments when it comes to government finances. The inherent complexity of fiscal policy makes it exceedingly difficult for effective public participation. Effective public participation in fiscal decision making must address informing or educating the citizenry with accurate and meaningful government financial data. Better understanding citizen wants and perceptions is critical to closing the information gap between users and providers of financial information. This study uses information gathered from focus groups with residents of Norfolk, Virginia that asks what government financial information they want and how to make that information useful. Results suggest that citizens are interested in some types of information over others and that such information must be timely, made relevant and contextualized

Amplifying Quiet Voices: Challenges and Opportunities for Participatory Design at an Urban Scale

Many Smart City projects are beginning to consider the role of citizens. However, current methods for engaging urban populations in participatory design activities are somewhat limited. In this paper, we describe an approach taken to empower socially disadvantaged citizens, using a variety of both social and technological tools, in a smart city project. Through analysing the nature of citizens’ concerns and proposed solutions, we explore the benefits of our approach, arguing that engaging citizens can uncover hyper-local concerns that provide a foundation for finding solutions to address citizen concerns. By reflecting on our approach, we identify four key challenges to utilising participatory design at an urban scale; balancing scale with the personal, who has control of the process, who is participating and integrating citizen-led work with local authorities. By addressing these challenges, we will be able to truly engage citizens as collaborators in co-designing their city

A Seat at the Table: Including the Poor in Decisions for Development and Environment

Presents case studies of the access to information, public participation, and justice for the poor in environmental decision-making processes and barriers, including issues of literacy, costs, risk, and cultural context. Makes policy recommendations