Martel Innovate presenting the Digital Social Innovation Fair 2017

Digital Technologies and Next Generation Internet at the service of Social Innovation 

Rome (Italy), 1-2 February 2017

Martel Innovate is one of the main organisers of the Digital Social Innovation Fair 2017 which kicked off yesterday 1^st February at the Campidoglio, in Rome.

Dr. Monique Calisti, Executive Director and Partner of Martel, was on stage to present the first day of the event that offered a rich agenda with several plenary panels and keynote sessions, 3 workshops and 2 parallel events.

We are excited to share the numbers at the end of the first day: 400 registered from 30 countries, 35 speakers and 3 workshops; #DSIFAIR2017 generated 1,935 tweets, 6.7mio twitter impressions with 440 people active; the online live streaming engaged 1,350 views for 15,000 minutes played; www.dsifair.eu website got 500 visits for 1,100 page views from 31 countries.

“I feel honoured and excited to have the opportunity to be part of this event and guide you through the Digital Social Innovation Fair 2017 agenda” said Monique opening the event and welcoming the audience in the magnificent Campidoglio settings. “We researchers, innovators, scientists, activists, journalists, policy makers, we citizens are all responsible to make sure digital technologies are at the service of our society and help addressing some of the most pressing needs Europe is facing nowadays”.

Digital technologies and the Internet are rapidly and radically changing the dynamics of collective human experience. This represents a unique opportunity to address some of the most pressing society’s challenges. Across Europe, a growing movement of people is exploring these opportunities and Martel, through its active involvement in the CAPS (Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation) European programme is engaged to make it happen.

By gathering together digital social innovation experts, practitioners, as well as policy makers and civil society players, the DSI Fair 2017 aims to tackle and address the research and innovation challenges associated with the deployment and development of Internet technologies for empowering the Digital Society.

The day was rich of contents, stimulating debate and inspirational projects success stories. It clearly brought to light that while Information and communication technologies are transforming everybody’s life, there is a need to implement clear policies that shall boost the positive impacts of technology while controlling its corrosive effects.

The digital social innovation policy makers need to send clearer signals to support network investment and innovation while safeguarding an open and non-discriminatory Internet. The European community as a whole, with a multidisciplinary approach, must contribute to shape the Next Generation Internet, where inclusion, protection and opportunities are open to all the stakeholders. Sustainable development can only be achieved engaging the local communities sustained by cross-border cooperation and common policies. Inclusiveness is the key to make the data revolution sustainable and avoid an excessive concentration of technological and economic power in a few major players’ hands.

The lessons learnt during the DSI Fair 2017 will help the Horizon 2020 ChiC project, which Martel coordinates, to push the way forward the creation of a Manifesto for Digital Social Innovation. This manifesto is an EU level policy outreach document, which includes a set of recommendations for policy-makers, aiming to facilitate innovation for the digital society to drive the Digital Agenda to become the core Innovation engine of the whole European society. A dedicated Manifesto workshop will be held on 23 May in Rimini (Italy), so stay tuned much more to come in the next few months.

To conclude, even if it is still early to draw final conclusions, as we have one more intense day ahead, still, something is clear: the Digital Technologies and the Next Generation Internet bring major opportunities along with new challenges, which no single stakeholder can tackle without a wide cooperation and trustiness. A lot of work to be done and Martel is looking forward to actively contribute to that!

Follow us on Twitter @CAPSSIEU #DSIFair2017 and stay tuned for further news about CAPS and DSI though the CAPSSI portal featured and run by Martel!

ChiC project is run by the University of Thessaly (Greece) and T6 Ecosystems (Italy), coordinated by Martel Innovate.