community informatics

25
May
2023

New publication: The Role of Social Capital in Sustainable ICT4D

M. Marais, H. Lotriet, M. Matthee and A. de Moor (2022). The role of Social Capital in Sustainable ICT4D. In L. Stillman and M. Anwar (eds.), Proc. of the 20th CIRN Conference, Prato, Italy, 9-11 November, 2022, pp.128-147.

[Download PDF]

Abstract:

This paper tells the story of an Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) project and a research approach. The research used a novel definition of sustainable development that emerged from South American development philosophies. The concept of Social Capital (SC) is central to this definition and SC was used to study the sustainability strategies of participants in a project to deploy internet access to schools in a rural region in South Africa. A novel support model was developed by selecting local post-school youth for entrepreneurial attitudes and training these so-called "Village Operators" (VOs) as on-site technical support.

… Read more...
Posted by Aldo de Moor in Conferences, Publications, 0 comments
11
Nov
2019

Conference presentation – Citizen sensing meeting community informatics: from power to empowerment?

Last week, I attended the 17th International Community Informatics Research Network Conference in Prato, Italy. This year’s theme was of particular interest to my research & consultancy interests: WHOSE AGENDA: ACTION, RESEARCH, & POLITICS.

This time, I decided to base my talk on a citizen sensing panel discussion at Tilburg Night University I was asked to participate in last month as a “community informatics expert”. In my Prato talk, I expanded my thoughts, thinking through in more detail what are the relationships between citizen sensing, citizen science, and community informatics, from the angle of power & empowerment.

Title: Citizen sensing meeting community informatics: from power to empowerment?

Abstract: Citizen sensing offers much promise in engaging citizens for the common good, such as working on addressing climate change at the grassroots level.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in Conferences, Ideas, Presentations, 0 comments
22
Oct
2019

Community informatics meets citizen sensing: from insight to action

Every year, Tilburg University organizes a “Night University“, a night full of lectures, panels, and events during which the rest of Tilburg can come and get some sense of what exactly is happening within, between and beyond the ivory towers.

One of the panels this year was organized by the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT): “Nudging for Climate Through Citizen Sensing”. Together with representatives from TILT and citizen sensing collective Meet Je Stad, I was to discuss what is going on in this domain and where things are heading:

How can “citizen sensing” stimulate climate-friendly behavior? Together with dr. Leonie Reins & Anna Berti Suman (Tilburg Law School), CommunitySense and “Meet Je Stad”,  there will be an interactive talk on the use of citizen-run environmental monitoring technologies such as smart meters to be placed on roof tops.

… Read more...
Posted by Aldo de Moor, 3 comments
11
Jun
2019

Community(Es)Sense

Last week, I attended the 2019 Communities & Technologies conference in Vienna:

The biennial Communities and Technologies (C&T) conference is the premier international forum for stimulating scholarly debate and disseminating research on the complex connections between communities – in their multiple forms – and information and communication technologies.

It is one of my favorite conferences, and as usual, it was an amazing meeting of minds. See the tweet stream for an impression of the topics discussed. More on the paper I presented in a future post.

After the conference, some of us took a tour of the futuristic new campus of  the Vienna University of Economics and Business. The buildings are phenomenal, however, what really struck me was how the concept of the campus being a community space has been designed into everything, from the overall master plan of the campus area to very specific building details.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in CommunitySense, Conferences, Ideas, 0 comments
12
Apr
2019

New publication: Participatory Collaboration Mapping in Malawi: Making Mike’s Community Informatics Idea(l)s Work

A. de Moor (2018).  Participatory Collaboration Mapping in Malawi: Making Mike’s Community Informatics Idea(l)s Work, The Journal of Community Informatics, 14(2-3):109-115.

Abstract

In this tribute to Michael Gurstein, we first summarize three of his key concepts: Community Informatics, Effective Use, and Community Innovation. We then apply his ideas to a case on participatory collaboration mapping in Malawi. We end the tribute with a reflection and re-iterating Mike’s call for Community Informatics research and action to keep meeting.

Posted by Aldo de Moor in Publications, 1 comment
22
Oct
2017

New publication – CommunitySensor: towards a participatory community network mapping methodology

A. de Moor (2017). CommunitySensor: Towards a Participatory Community Network Mapping Methodology. The Journal of Community Informatics, 13(2):  35-58.

Fig 2 - The Community Network Sensemaking Cycle

Abstract

Participatory community network mapping can support collaborative sensemaking within and across communities and their surrounding stakeholder networks. We introduce the CommunitySensor methodology under construction. After summarizing earlier work, we show how the methodology uses a cyclical approach by adopting a Community Network Development Cycle that embeds a Community Network Sensemaking Cycle. We list some observations from practice about using community network mapping for making inter-communal sense. We discuss how extending the methodology with a pattern-driven approach benefits the building of bridges across networked communities, as well as the sharing of generalized lessons learnt. To this purpose, a community collaboration pattern language is essential.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in CommunitySense, Publications, 5 comments
15
Oct
2017

Tribute to Michael Gurstein – founding father of the Community Informatics Field

On October 8th, Michael Gurstein – founding father of the field of Community Informatics – sadly passed away.

I first met Mike when I stumbled into the wrong” workshop room at the first Communities and Technologies conference in Amsterdam in 2003, the workshop being chaired by Mike. This was the first time I learned about Community Informatics as a field, and I immediately knew I had “come home”.

Mike and I have been good friends and colleagues ever since, bumping into each other regularly at conferences and events, and, of course, having had countless interactions online. Mike has always been a great source of inspiration, a mentor, and role model to me, and has played an important part in mentally preparing me for setting up and defining the mission and approach of my own research consultancy CommunitySense.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in Ideas, 0 comments
01
Apr
2017

Happy birthday, CommunitySense!

10 years ago to this day, I took the plunge. On April 1, 2007, I walked into the Tilburg Chamber of Commerce, and registered my very own company, CommunitySense. From the application form: “CommunitySense is a research consultancy company in the field of community informatics. It offers a range of consultancy services for developing innovative collaborative systems and services for online communities.” An ambitious mission, and I was only at the very start of finding out what that meant in – literally – practice.

It was both exciting and scary to take off as an independent consultant. I had loved my academic environment. I still felt very much an academic at heart, cherishing the wonderful network of people and ideas I had worked with for over 12 years while at Tilburg University, the Free University of Brussels and going for research visits and attending conferences all over the world.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in CommunitySense, 0 comments
12
Mar
2014

Happy 25th birthday, World Wide Web!

World Wide WebToday, the Web’s been around for 25 years, hip hip hurray! In this excellent interview, founder Tim Berners-Lee makes some remarks that should be particularly close to the hearts of fellow community informatics researchers and practitioners, e.g.:

– “I’ve been very satisfied with the international spirit. It’s wonderful how the Web has taken off as non-national thing. I don’t think of it as international, because that’s nations getting
together.”

– “The control thing — we’ve got big companies and big governments. Now in some countries the corporations and the governments are very hard to tell apart. I’m concerned about that.”

– “what I want to see that I haven’t seen is the Web being used to bridge cultural divides. Every day we get people falling for the temptation to be xenophobic and to throw themselves against other cultures.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in Ideas, Tools, 0 comments