Local Cultures – Global Spaces
Abstract
Practices, experiences and reflections on the ecological and digital transition prove that in order to achieve the hoped-for sustainability, society must mobilize all the resources at its disposal, first of all the ability of citizens to be proactive and collaborative in the regeneration of communities and in the rehabilitation of the relationship between people and the built environment. Can digital technology respond to this challenge? The Civic Digital Technologies can do so by supporting actions of care and proximity. The research group Territories and Digital Communities of the Computer Science Department at the University of Turin has developed two open source tools: FirstLife, a community social network, and CommonsHood, a wallet app based on blockchain technology. These two tools, resulting from the interplay between different disciplines and from codesign with citizens’ groups, put the human being and the community at the centre and enhance the relationship between physical and virtual reality, between people and places, between local and global. How? By giving voice to needs, stories, proposals, allowing people to find their own space, supporting active citizenship, enhancing connections and networks, helping self-organisation, coordination and monitoring of community actions, and supporting the generation and circulation of valuable (including non-monetary) relationships.
Moreover, the digital technologies, until now associated with de-localising and de-skilling, can contribute to re-localising and co-designing enabling platforms to support the participation in all its expressions and the construction of social infrastructures and services.
Background in Architecture and Landscape, is experienced in codesign and participation processes in the field of regeneration of places and rehabilitation of the relationship between people and the built environment. She is a writer and a journalist dedicated to investigate the extraordinary in ordinary landscapes. Currently works in the research group Territories and Digital Communities of the Computer Science Department at the University of Turin, focusing on project design and dedicating to communication and dissemination of results, involving territorial associations and institutions.
Cristina Viano: Background in Political Science and International Cooperation, currently PhD student in Urban and Regional Development (Dept. of Regional and Urban Studies at the Polytechnic and University of Turin). Experienced in design and management of social innovation and research projects. Her research interests regard the socio-spatial implications of civic technologies in urban contexts and local communities, and experimentations with blockchain technologies for social economies and civic participation.
Monica Cerutti: Graduated in Information Sciences at the University of Turin and obtained a master’s degree in Computer Science and Telecommunications at the Polytechnic. Many years of experience in the world of IT work: programmer and analyst first in the industrial automation sector, and then in telecommunications. Long experience as a public administrator, in particular regional councilor of Piedmont on social issues and rights from 2014 to 2019.
Since 2020, researcher at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Turin on social inclusion and participation with digital tools.
2:30 pm - 4:00 pm
Thursday 7th December, 2023