Paolo Gerli Senza categoria

Co-imagining Data Intermediation in Scottish Creative Industries

Co-Imagining Data Intermediation in Scottish Creative Industries (CoDiCi) is a new research project funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh as part of their Research Collaborative Grants. The project is led by me in collaboration with my colleagues Dr Paul Oliver (Edinburgh Napier University) and Dr Morshed Mannan (University of Edinburgh).

As part of this project, we are running a series of workshops with creatives and artists across Scotland with the aim of exploring how they currently manage data as part of their work and what we can do together to make data management fairer, more inclusive and more sustainable in the Scottish creative industries. During the workshops, we are using participatory research methods to discuss challenges and opportunities associated with data management in creative industries, and to co-imagine alternative ways to manage the data in the interest of creatives and artists.

The first workshop is scheduled on July 16 in Edinburgh. If you are interested, you can register here.

More workshops will be scheduled in the Summer and Autumn in Dundee, Glasgow, Perth, and Sterling.

Detailed information on our project can also be found in this Participant Information Sheet. If you have any questions about our project, just drop us an email!

Paolo Gerli Senza categoria

What factors facilitate grassroots digital innovations?

With my colleagues at Unity Lab, I have recently started a research project on grassroots digital innovations, i.e. digital innovations developed by local communities, groups of citizens, cooperatives or entrepreneurs. Examples include e-commerce portals run by groups of entrepreneurs, car-sharing services developed by local citizens, or platform cooperatives for riders or touristic accommodations.

Our study aims to understand what factors facilitate and constrain the development of these initiatives, focusing on

  • the actors involved in the start-up and growth of these initiatives;
  • the resources needed in the start-up and growth of these initiatives;
  • the support currently available to grassroots digital innovation;
  • additional support that would help the development of these initiatives.

To collect data, we have been interviewing founders, contributors and experts of grassroots digital innovation across Europe. Our ambition is to expand our analysis to as many cases as possible from multiple European countries, to ensure that we take into account different experiences, including those less well-known and less visible.

If you have any direct experience of grassroots digital innovation (as a founder, member or contributor) or if you have expertise in this area (because you have researched these initiatives, partnered with them, etc.), we would kindly invite you to participate to a 1-hour interview, to be conducted via Teams or any other alternative of preference.

If you are available, please book your favourite timeslot here. For more information, you can contact me at p.gerli[at]napier.ac.uk.

Many thanks in advance to all those that will agree to contribute to our study. We look forward to hearing your insights on this fascinating topic!

Paolo Gerli Senza categoria

Mapping inequalities in smart places

A multidisciplinary research project funded by British Academy and Accademia dei Lincei

More and more municipalities are nowadays embracing digital technologies to rebrand themselves as smart cities or smart villages. By leveraging digital innovation and creativity, these initiatives promise to boost local economies, enhance accessibility and improve the quality of life of residents. On the other hand, there is increasing evidence that the benefits of these initiatives are unlikely to spread evenly across different geographic areas and social groups due to ongoing digital and socio-economic divides. Furthermore, it has been suggested that smart cities and smart villages may even exacerbate existing inequalities, because of biases in their design and limitations in the related regulatory frameworks.

With this in mind, in April 2022, a group of researchers based in Italy and the UK has launched “Mapping inequalities in Smart Places”, a research project founded by British Academy and Accademia dei Lincei as part of their UK-Italy Knowledge Frontiers Symposium. The project is led by myself, Dr Paolo Gerli (UnityLab, Edinburgh Napier University), Dr Mara Ferreri (Politecnico di Torino), Dr Cristiana Lauri (Università di Macerata – European University Institute), Dr Marta Regalia (Università degli Studi di Milano) and Dr Andrew Williams (Saint Andrews University).

The team of “Mapping inequalities in smart places” posing with 3D-printed objects from Palestra Digitale in Modena (Italy)

The aim of this research is to explore how digital and socio-economic inequalities are conceived and tackled in the implementation of smart cities and smart villages, applying an interdisciplinary and place-based approach. To do so, the project team has been conducting a systematic literature review investigating the intersection between legal, political, digital and geographical dimensions affecting inequalities in the context of smart places. Furthermore, empirical data are being collected through 2 focus groups with experts of smart places and 2 field visits in Italy and Scotland, focusing on the following issues:

  • the extent to which local administrators are aware and perceptive of inequalities in the context of smart places;
  • how these inequalities are being measured and monitored;
  • what place-based mechanisms are used to manage the trade-offs between equality and efficiency in the implementation of smart places;
  • the extent to which communities are involved in place-based efforts to address inequalities in smart places

By engaging with experts of smart places across Italy and Scotland, the project has also the ambition to create a space for reflection and knowledge exchange where local stakeholders at different geographic scales can discuss the impact of inequalities on smart places and share the mechanisms that can be adopted to address such inequalities when designing and implementing these initiatives.

In September 2022 we completed the first field work, with a trip to Modena, a middle-sized city in Italy. During our visit, we had a chance to meet with representatives of the public, private and third sectors who have been involved in local smart city initiatives. The field trip was a unique opportunity to observe how the concept and practice of smart city are being developed locally, to reflect on the challenges that digital transformation poses for local communities and to discuss how we can make smart places fairer and more inclusive. We look forward to further investigating these issues through our focus groups and second field trip, that are planned for Autumn/Winter 2022/2023.

If you want to learn more about this project (or you are interested in taking part to our focus groups), please feel free to contact me at p.gerli@napier.ac.uk. More updates will also be shared via Twitter and LinkedIN, with a online event being planned for Spring/Summer 2023 to share the results of our research. Stay tuned!

A view of Torre della Ghirlandina in Modena, where the data collection for “Mapping inequalities in smart places” has taken off in September 2022.
Paolo Gerli Italiano, Research Output

Competenze digitali & fattori psicologici: evidenze dal settore agricolo.

La transizione digitale sta interessando un numero crescente di ambiti e settori, inclusi quelli più tradizionali e meno esposti all’innovazione tecnologica, come l’agricoltura. L’utilizzo effettivo delle tecnologie digitali resta comunque limitato anche (ma non solo) a causa della scarsa diffusione di competenze digitali. Promuovere lo sviluppo di tali competenze è diventato, dunque, una priorità per le istituzioni pubbliche, le associazioni di categoria e le imprese.

Partendo da queste premesse, nel maggio 2021 ha avuto inizio un progetto di ricerca (diretto dall’Unity Lab dell’Edinburgh Napier University), finalizzato a comprendere i processi sottostanti allo sviluppo delle competenze digitali e all’adozione di nuove tecnologie digitali. I risultati di questo studio sono da poco stati pubblicati sulla rivista accademica Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Il testo integrale è disponibile in formato open access a questo indirizzo: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121721.

Prendendo come caso studio il settore agricolo di tre paesi europei (Belgio, Italia e Regno Unito), la ricerca ha coinvolto utenti, produttori e esperti di tecnologie digitali al fine di comprendere come vengono sviluppate e/o acquisite le competenze necessarie per utilizzare dispositivi e applicativi per lo smart farming. Dalle interviste è emerso che:

  • la scarsa adozione delle nuove tecnologie in gran parte riflette una mancanza di fiducia nel digitale, dovuta all’inesperienza o alla paura che le nuove tecnologie possano sostituire i lavori tradizionali o mettere a rischio i dati aziendali;
  • l’utilizzo di tecnologie digitali è maggiore tra coloro che dimostrano una forte curiosità e un’attitudine positiva verso l’apprendimento di nuove competenze.

La nostra ricerca, di conseguenza, evidenzia come lo sviluppo di competenze digitali sia fortemente influenzata da fattori psicologici (emozioni, percezioni e attitudini). In particolare, a fare la differenza è la nostra attitudine verso l’apprendimento di nuove competenze. Questa attitudine è, in parte, innata ma anche influenzata a sua volta dalle nostre percezioni ed emozioni nei confronti delle nuove tecnologie. Nel caso specifico dell’agricoltura digitale, se una tecnologia è percepita come utile, l’imprenditore agricolo avrà maggior incentivo ad apprendere le competenze richieste per il suo utilizzo. Invece, se una tecnologia genera emozioni negative – di paura o rischio – sarà più difficile convincere l’imprenditore agricolo a sviluppare le competenze richieste.

I risultati della nostra ricerca sono allineati con studi pre-esistenti nell’ambito dell’informatica e della psicologia, e contribuiscono a chiarire i fattori che determinano l’adozione di nuove tecnologie. Oltre a questo contributo teorico, il nostro studio ha anche chiari risvolti pratici per tutti coloro che sono impegnati a sostenere la digitalizzazione del settore agricolo.

In particolare, sulla base di quanto appreso nelle interviste, è stato possibile formulare le seguenti raccomandazioni:

Dare agli imprenditori agricoli la possibilità di sviluppare le proprie competenze sul campo, tramite giornate dimostrative, periodi di prova o altre iniziative che consentono l’esperienza diretta di nuovi applicativi e dispositivi;

Integrare i programmi di formazione e incentivazione economica con interventi volti a superare potenziali barriere psicologiche e sviluppare un’attitudine positiva verso l’apprendimento e utilizzo di nuove tecnologie;

Coinvolgere gli imprenditori agricoli nel design di dispositivi e applicativi per lo smart farming al fine di identificare fin da subito questioni tecniche e gestionali che potrebbero creare emozioni e percezioni negative tra gli utenti finali;

Utilizzare tecniche di storytelling nella comunicazione sull’agricoltura digitale al fine di suscitare la curiosità degli imprenditori agricoli verso le nuove tecnologie e creare un’accezione positiva nell’immaginario comune.

Paolo Gerli English, Teaching

Experiential learning and design thinking for digital entrepreneurs-to-be.

As a Lecturer of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, I am committed to create a safe space for my students to experiment with entrepreneurial ideas and explore their entrepreneurial attitudes. I have often used pitch talks and business plan competitions to integrate experiential learning in my teaching and assessment, but my ambition is to push this even further and get my students to develop tangible prototypes of their business ideas.

This can become quite challenging if students decide to develop a smartphone app or digital service as part of their task (which happens most of the time!). I teach in a Business School and neither my students nor myself have expertise in coding or using programming languages.

Therefore I have been long facing this dilemma: how can I support students to develop prototypes for their digital apps and services?

I found the answer thanks to Enterprise Educators UK (EEUK). Early this year I was among the recipients of EEUK Richard Beresford Bursary, that allowed me to attend an online course on prototyping for digital experiences, delivered by IDEO.

IDEO is the Olympus of design thinking, advocating for a human-centred design that keep people at the centre of creative work. Their approach has been truly inspirational for my teaching: I often use some of their design thinking techniques as part of my seminars to stimulate creativity and elicit entrepreneurial ideas. Their course on prototyping for digital experiences has been extremely helpful to understand how design thinking techniques can be applied to prototype human-centred digital services.

Technology is never the startingt point. First of all, you need to map the needs and desires of your potential users. Therefore, developing a digital prototype does not require coding skills or software development tools. All you need is a piece of paper, some markers or crayons, and a good knowledge of who your users are and what they want.

Through the course, not only did I learn about IDEO’s approach to prototyping: I also experienced myself their tips and techniques to unleash creativity and build low-fidelity prototypes for digital services.

  • First, I had to reflect on my own experiences as a digital user and redesign my interaction with a digital service to make it more useful, usable and enjoyable.
  • Secondly I had to pick up a digital experience and audience to design for, using IDEO spinners…

I ended up sketching a prototype for a public transit payment for passionate dog owners. Even if my drawing skills are debatable, I think I did a good job (you can judge yourself, see the pic below).

Definitely this course gave me a lot of insights into prototyping for digital experiences and is going to be a great inspiration for my teaching modules. I feel that now I can push experiential learning even further, showing students how to sketch a prototype for a smartphone app or a digital service. Following the hands-on approach developed by IDEO, students will be able to fully explore and challenge their creativity, creating tangible sketches of their virtual ideas. They will also have a chance to reflect on the importance of design for entrepreneurs and to appreciate how technology is (or should be) developed.

I am very grateful to EEUK for giving me the opportunity to learn new methods for experiential learning that will immensely benefit my teaching. I look forward to bring my new expertise to the classroom and to share it with my new students at Edinburgh Napier University… hopefully they can draw better than I can do!

Paolo Gerli English

Broadband for all, all for broadband

As part of my research, I have recently had an exciting trip to Melling. I suspect most of you do not know this tiny village in rural Lancashire. Neither did I, before discovering Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN).

For those who do not know B4RN, I would suggest to have a look here and here. To put it simply, it is a community project providing ultrafast broadband to connect remote and super-rural villages in the North West of England. Since 2011, people from the local communities teamed up to dig their own network. When I say dig, yes, I mean that! Volunteers are digging the ducts and posing the fibre – rather than just waiting for telcos or public authorities to do it.

Along with the physical roll-out, B4RN runs the ‘Come and Get IT Club’. Every Friday, people are welcome in their office in Melling to seek assistance with routers and tablets over a cup of tea. In a very friendly and passionate environment, anyone can learn the steps to set up a Vonage account or the tricks to boost the wi-fi signal indoor.

One Friday afternoon I joined the Club in Melling and it was one of the most fascinating experience of my researcher’s career. There is no better way to research such projects than being part of it for few hours. Therefore, I immersed myself in B4RN’s world for one day…. and I learn a lot, indeed. Now I can even self-install a fibre termination into my house –  I just need to wait for B4RN to come to Newcastle.

Most importantly, I had the chance to directly experience what communities can achieve when people share their expertise to pursue a communal goal. Listening to the stories of volunteers, employees and customers, I just realised that initiatives like B4RN can really empower local communities, by providing a faster connection and getting people actively involved in the digital revolution.

In the early 2000s, many communities wireless networks were established and scholars viewed those projects as an opportunity to promote both digital inclusion and socio-economic development. Unfortunately, only few of those initiatives have survived to the impediments of wi-fi technology and the difficulties of cooperative projects. However, B4RN proves that community-led networks still have a lot to say and to do. Policymakers and practitioners should carefully listen to such initiatives and learn some lessons.

First, innovative business models can make a difference and challenge our common sense of broadband investment.

Second, people are the most powerful asset when their potential is acknowledged and their contribution is valued.

Third, broadband is definitely not a luxury good for techies and urban elites. Anyone can get the most out of it, when provided with a decent connection and practical skills.

It may be too early to evaluate the long-term impact of B4RN. Nevertheless, this project is forcing policymakers, practitioners and researchers to rethink the dynamics in broadband market and consider alternative approaches to infrastructure delivery. Its implications might go beyond the diffusion of digital services and inspire a new model for social inclusion and economic development.

No need to say that I am excited and proud to research it!