DIGITAL COOPERATIVES

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European citizens do not participate equally in the Information society: in fact, the digital gap is moving down from infrastructures to uses. Based on this observation, local authorities in Europe have developed Digital Public Spaces (DPS) promoting e-inclusion. These facilities, mostly localized in libraries or social centres, provide users with training on current use of Internet tools and activities to ease their participation in the Information society. But nowadays, as always more people use digital technologies, there is a deep need for DPS to evolve, to renew and increase their audiences and offer more innovative and collaborative services. DPS could benefit from a network-based organization, both active IRL (“In real Life”) and online, in order to be identified by all types of populations and potential users as useful resource centres in the digital era and a qualified birthplace for local digital projects. In this context, the “E-coop project” partnership, gathering 12 partners from 12 EU countries and representing local authorities and ICT related networks and stakeholders, has expressed the will to investigate how the DPS could evolve, based on mediation between the uses and the users, to become “E-coops” (digital cooperatives) and offer new services interacting in a more collaborative way with the users. Taking an active part in various types of networks, “E-coops” could prefigure a new generation of DPS, considering users not only as consumers of public services, but mostly as co-designers of innovative solutions. Given the importance of ICT tools for the knowledge economy a full participation of all citizens in the information society is crucial for regional and local development of tomorrow. Through studies, thematic exchange seminars, study visits and conferences, the project aims at providing policy makers and relevant stakeholders with compared analysis and recommendations on digital mediation practices, identified within the partner territories, and to identify ways of enhancing regional/local public policies in implementing «E-coops». Each partner will actively associate its local stakeholders via local seminars or digital consultations (E-coop academies). The project will produce a certain amount of knowledge transfer materials, such as brochures and methodological guides, dealing with concrete aspects of defining and bringing into life an E-coop. Partners will test the defined methodological framework validity through concrete micro-implementations of ""e-Coop"" parameters at the territorial level. The final results will consist in -Better awareness of ICT policy makers about the users’ needs and expectations concerning the DPS mediators; -Good practices transfers on mediation to new uses; -Direct impact on public policies aimed at reducing the digital gap; -Enhancing local innovation through citizens’ participation thanks to ICT and digital uses.

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