NET is a service that provides short workshops which help non tech-proficient people break the ice with technology in a practical way and in partnership with local activities. NET is deeply entwined with the local community and offers flexibility in building the learning path and the follow up activities. The service leverages gamification and group dynamics, considering technology as a medium to enable people in daily life and empower their creativity and not as the final goal.
National
Italy
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Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Francesca Last name: Masnaghetti Gender: Female Age: 25 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Italy Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Vicchio 11 Town: Faenza Postal code: 48018 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 345 325 5450 E-mail:francescamasnaghetti@gmail.com
First name: Elena Last name: Iannella Gender: Female Age: 25 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Italy Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Corso Sempione 77 Town: Milano Postal code: 20149 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 331 319 8767 E-mail:eleiannella@gmail.com
First name: Angela Last name: Stellaccio Gender: Female Age: 25 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Italy Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Nazario Sauro 12 Town: Palagiano Postal code: 74019 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 346 335 4167 E-mail:angela_stellaccio@libero.it
First name: Marcella Last name: Gadotti Gender: Female Age: 29 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Brazil If relevant, please select your other nationality: Italy Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Pietro Ceoldo 12 Town: Padova Postal code: 35128 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 349 835 5896 E-mail:marcellagadotti@gmail.com
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Yes
New European Bauhaus or European Commission websites
NET offers in presence workshops, online workshops and printed booklets to do follow ups. Each workshop lasts 2 hours and is guided by a tutor with the possibility to have a special guest who is an expert in the suggested topic.The structure of each workshop is the following: first, there is an explanation of key contents, in an easy, concrete way, through everyday examples and in a friendly, cafe atmosphere. In the second part, the user has a more active role, even though he is guided through exercises by the tutor with increasing difficulty. Here the tutor makes sure everybody got the core contents and solves individual problems. In the last part, the workshop turns into a playground, with group games and funny challenges, which help the user remember the contents.NET is a service deeply entwined with the local community. Hence, to enhance the city businesses and services, our in presence workshops, which are meant for maximum 15 people, can be held in various locations in Milan like local shops, activities and places in the topic.The online workshops are meant for users with a higher basic knowledge. They are run via streaming on Zoom for a maximum of 10 people, since interacting online can be more difficult than in person. At the end of an in presence workshop it is possible to buy a printed booklet which contains all the explanations and the contents to acquire the desired skill.
Unlike other services, NET offers much more flexibility in building the learning path and the follow up activities. It leverages gamification and group dynamics, considering tech as a medium to enable people in daily life and empower their creativity and not as the final goal, valuing technology in a local perspective. Everyone is free to either attend only one workshop or to create a unique learning path following their passions.
digital education
digital divide
technology
seniors
local
The project was conceived in the social innovation field with a particular focus on sustainability. After conducting two parallel researches about wellbeing trends and users’ perception of digital services, we compared the results and a contrast emerged. On one hand, a smart futuristic city where technology and IoT are everywhere, while on the other side people who do not have sufficient tech skills to access their city services. The recent health, economic and social emergency has helped raise awareness among Italians about the environmental crisis, orienting consumer choices toward greater sustainability. It confirms the fact that digital transformation is one of the main enablers for building more sustainable economies and societies, thanks to its current and future potential in enabling new models of consumption, production and labor. Since technology is a central element in the innovation matrix and can be used in a systemic sense as a tool to support future environmental, economic and social choices, it cannot do without digital transformation. So a question arose: in a digital city, what happens to those who are not digitally proficient? Making every city service digital while assuming that everybody is able to use technology cuts out all those who do not know how to use digital services and devices. As a consequence, in a future where everything is digital, these people could be deprived of the possibility of exercising their citizenship rights. This problem led to the following question: how might we provide people who lack tech skills with the possibility to use digital city services? NET is a service that provides short workshops which help non tech-proficient people break the ice with technology in a practical way and in partnership with local activities. Its offer also includes workshops which allow people to use technology in their daily life or as a support to their passions, enabling them to fully live the tech-dimension of the city.
The whole service was designed using a design thinking approach, which puts the user at the core of the design and implementation of the service. Specifically, users from a local senior centre participated in interviews and activities with designers, with the aim to extrapolate insights on their needs. They also tested the project with us during several iterative prototyping workshops.
All of the artifacts (video presentation, booklets, teaching materials, promotional materials, website…) were designed using the same coordinated image, which gives NET a strong and coherent identity across all of the touchpoints. The website has a simple and minimal interface, which makes the website easy to browse and which highlights the ways to contact customer support and seek assistance for those who are not digitally proficient.
NET leverages a local network of activities, businesses and professionals in order to create a service that is deeply entwined with the local community. The aim of this is to reinforce the participation of local citizens, who can experience learning in places they know or even places close to their heart within their town.
Workshops, which are structured in more parts to make the experience effective and memorable, are a playful and gamified experience. Group dynamics are exploited to make workshops a positive peek in the user experience and to consolidate knowledge about the topic of the workshop. Users have fun while learning, taking contents in playfully. The cultural benefits of this service are related to both improving users’ tech skills (so that users can live their city fully and benefit from its digital services) and the locations and people who get in touch with NET. On one hand NET benefits from having a unique offer which mirrors the peculiarities of the neighborhood or the city it operates in, while on the other guest partners have the possibility to promote their business and potentially gain new customers.
The more cities become smart, the more they become inaccessible for people who cannot use technology, who become excluded and cannot contribute to society, nor leverage the opportunities which technology provides to make life simpler, so their life gets more difficult. As a consequence of this, in a future where everything is digital, these people could be deprived of the possibility of exercising their citizenship rights. How might we provide people who lack tech skills with the possibility to use digital city services? We believe that feeling included, being able to participate in future cities and feeling part of a community thanks to technology and not despite it are beneficial to older citizens. Additionally, due to the pandemics, those who are not confident are marginalized even more. NET’s workshops aim at teaching one or more basic tech skills to the users. The skills have been selected taking into account sources like the EU’s Digital Competence Framework, which identifies the key components of digital competence, and results from interviews with target users who stated what they would like to know. The user experience on the NET website is designed to be suitable for different kinds of personas, which were crafted in order to guide the development of the project. The methodology used in NET workshops allows people to make the most out of the lesson, with three distinct parts and a gamified approach to the topics. Users are encouraged to take few notes during the workshops. The reason is that NET promotes live interactions and practical learning, minimizing the time for taking notes and isolating from the environment. In fact, each user can download a brief summary of the workshop contents after attending one directly from their profile. NET makes sure to support and accompany its users throughout the whole learning experience even after the end of the workshop. Booklets with ready-to-use material for after lessons-follow ups complete the service offer.
One of the ways in which NET differentiates itself from its competitors is by taking advantage of local resources. Workshops are held in places which are familiar to the users (such as senior citizens centres), while guests come from local activities, businesses and initiatives (such as shops, restaurants, producers, libraries...). In this way, on one hand NET benefits from having a unique offer which mirrors the peculiarities of the neighborhood or the city it operates in (this will be even more evident when the service scales up and reaches different cities), while on the other the partners have the possibility to promote their business and potentially gain new customers.
As it scales up, the catalog of the offer will be expanded with new workshops and, as a consequence, more tutor and guests are going to be recruited. The number of local partners will also be increased, in order to broaden the offer and be able to run many more workshops at the same time and in multiple locations throughout the city. Even the same workshop will be held in several venues across the city. In this way, each neighborhood will provide a wide choice for users, and NET will become as widespread on the territory as it is intended to be.
At the local level, we interviewed a professional digital facilitator who teaches seniors how to use the computer, the smartphone and the Internet and holds her classes in a senior centre in Milan. She developed a method of her own, where she stressed the importance of approaching tech as fun and practical: when asked how teaching to elders should be approached, she states that her method succeeds in keeping students motivated. From her we learnt that, by making lessons neither too easy nor too difficult, the level of engagement is quite good and both creativity and conviviality play an important role.
Both at the local and national level, we engaged over 60 years old people through interviews and a survey. Our aim was to understand their most urgent needs regarding digital technology (e.g.: shopping online, using Google Drive…) and what our final concept should be like (e.g.: it should be an indoor info point inside the local supermarket where people can ask for assistance, or lessons held by a tutor at a local bar…). With their help, we found out that, rather than having someone solve problems for them (as in the indoor info point), people would like to have a dedicated space where they can learn digital skills with others.
The design and development of the concept followed a design thinking approach which, according to the Interaction Design Foundation, is “a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test”. This was reflected in our research on and with our target users, aimed at finding out what they wanted to learn regarding technology and how they wanted to learn, and our constant iteration of the concept until we prototyped the final solution. Regarding our interaction with users, we specifically employed participatory design, “an approach to design that invites all stakeholders (e.g. customers, employees, partners, citizens, consumers) into the design process as a means of better understanding, meeting, and sometimes preempting their needs”. During our project, we designers, as experts in design thinking, interacted with users as “experts on their own experience”. The reason behind this approach was to design a final product which could be as useful and accurate as possible to the final users. The user research was in fact conducted in almost every stage of the project, in order to always reconnect to the actual user needs and wants. Since the project was conducted with a practical approach, as if this concept was about to become a real startup, the whole structure was analyzed from a business perspective too, with tools such as business model canvas, analysis of the investment and hypothesis of scaling up.
Moreover, the professional digital facilitator who teaches seniors and who helped us developed a method of her own, where she stressed the importance of approaching tech as fun and practical: the design thinking approach allowed us to study her method and then focus on didactics to find the method which best addressed our users’ needs and which we could use within NET’s learning activities.
Unlike other courses which use a traditional methodology based on learning, homeworks and frequency, NET offers one shot, flexible group workshops with a gamified approach and individual independent follow up through quizzes, group games and booklets.
Moreover, rather than focusing on tech and on devices functions per se, NET workshops focus on devices as a medium to enable people in daily life and empower their creativity.
However, NET’s most notable difference is the fact that, in order to supply workshops, it takes advantage of local resources and activities, for example by making partnerships with local businesses or community centres such as local senior centres and labor unions.
At the current stage, NET takes place in the city of Milan. However, since its goal is to fight the digital divide, at some point new branches will open in other Italian cities too, one after the other.
As it scales up, the catalog of the offer will be expanded with new workshops and, as a consequence, more tutor and guests are going to be recruited. The number of local partners will also be increased, in order to broaden the offer and be able to run many more workshops at the same time and in multiple locations throughout the city. Even the same workshop will be held in several venues across the city. In this way, each neighborhood will provide a wide choice for users, and NET will become as widespread on the territory as it is intended to be.
Moreover, to make each NET even more relevant to each local context, parts of the design thinking process could be iterated, for example by engaging local users through surveys, interviews and focus groups to understand what they would like to learn the most, in order to create a customized local offer in parallel with NET’s basic offer.
NET addresses the problem of the digital divide in increasingly smart cities. The more cities become smart and digital, the more they become inaccessible for people who cannot use technology. Therefore, these people become excluded and cannot contribute to society, nor leverage the opportunities which technology provides to make life simpler, so their life gets more difficult. In a post-pandemic world, this problem is particularly relevant, because of the digital acceleration we have and are experiencing.
Ultimately, NET’s aim is one of wellness, since we believe that feeling included, being able to participate in future cities and feeling part of a community thanks to technology and not despite it is beneficial to older citizens.
