Many new innovations that tackle social problems are being developed online, using apps, platforms and data systems. This exciting area is called Digital Social Innovation (DSI): digital innovations for social purposes.
Digital Social Innovation in Europe (DSI4EU) supports digital social innovation networks in Europe. The aim of DSI4EU is to support communities in sharing data, distributed technology and new economic models. Social entrepreneurs, hackers, communities and academics are brought together in important DSI areas that focus on themes such as the maker movement, the sharing economy, open democracy and digital rights. This includes a disruptive approach to scale, expansion and interconnection of the DSI network in Europe.
DSI4EU takes the next step in the development of digital social innovation by focusing on social goals. The project defines six thematic ‘clusters’, each of which is provided by another project partner. The clusters are:
- Migration and integration (Betterplace Lab)
- Food, environment and climate change (Waag)
- Care and health (WeMake)
- Skills and education (Fab Foundation)
- Digital democracy (ePanstwo Foundation)
- Urban development (Barcelona Activa)
This thematic approach enables the project to make new connections in the growing field of digital social innovation. The project can also make the DSI idea familiar to those involved within the themes that are not yet aware of the digital social possibilities.
Waag is responsible for the involvement of the communities, the mutual exchange of knowledge and the publication of results. Within DSI4EU, Waag also published the paper ‘A strategy for urban data‘ on data commons, in collaboration with AMS Institute.
All papers published by DSI4EU are listed on the Waag website.
DSI4EU, formally known as DSISCALE, is supported by the European Union and funded under the Horizon 2020 Programme, grant agreement no 780473.