ICT impact on family and
community: reflections from
personal experiences
Social Impact of ICT workshop
Brussels, 30th June 2009
David Osimo - Tech4i2 ltd.

Main points
• a theoretically robust, scientific view
reflections on daily practice of the web
• does ICT matter for family and community?
stories from INCA award
• how does ICT matter? Bridging or bonding
social capital in Twitter
2

Does ICT matter? Let’s see
what people build
• INCA award: stimulating users to build
“socially useful applications”
• one month, 20K Euros prize: 35 working
applications submitted
• 15 out of 35 deal with interpersonal and
family relations
www.inca-award.be
3

http://www.ikkanhet.be/ 4

http://www.tvtweets.be/ 5

http://www.hupskadee.be 6

http://research.edm.uhasselt.be/~twoddler/ 7

How does ICT matter?
Bridging vs bonding social capital
in Twitter
8

Bonding
9

Bridging
10

Wrapping up a practice-based
view on family/community
• ICT matters and increases both bridging and
bonding social capital
• borders between the two are blurred but
these remain key categories for analysis
• robust quantitative evidence arrives too late
to be policy-relevant
david.osimo@tech4i2.com egov20.wordpress.com 11