Digital Social Presence '23

1. Digital Social
Presence:
Opportunities & Challenges in
virtual/physical spaces

2. What’s coming
1. Examples of
• Inner city regeneration
• Green initiaitves
• Community
• Collaboration
2. Smart SE (Smart South East)
• SETU
• Walton Institute

3. Background
• Waterford (South East Ireland)
• 55k population
• 20 mins drive to mountains
• 15 mins to the sea / beach
• 15 mins to drive from one side to the other
• 10 mins to country side
• Famous as Ireland’s oldest city
• Vikings
• Waterford Crystal Glass
• Irelands favourite – Waterford Greenway
• Home to SETU(formerly WIT)

4. Waterford Greenway
• 46 klm
• Walking and cycling
• Revitalising
• an old disused railway line
• “Sleepy” towns
• Kilmacthomas
• Dungarvan
• Massive increase in tourism
• “Walk Meetings”
• Led to the Walk Waterford movement

5. Social Presence
Building communities
Sense of belonging
Shared and emotional sense of
Connection
(Osterman, 2000)
Community “provides a place in which
individuals are free to express their
identities”
(Rovai & Wighting, 2005)

6. Online Social Presence
Key feature - to make your virtual self feel “real” to others

7. Digital Social Presence - Examples
1. Bluetooth
Bridge
2. Street
Screen -
Living Canvas
3. Waterford
Walls
4. Spraoi 5. Winterval
6. VIKING
Triangle
Combining Arts, Technology, Education, and Business for Community Building

8. 1. Bluetooth Bridge
– Pont de l’Alma
• Under a bridge, in a tunnel, or public space
• “This is just an ugly underground tunnel to
avoid passing on top of Alma Square”
• Array of speakers with Bluetooth connector
• Citizens can connect to the system from their
phone for all to hear
• Diddle Ei music in Paris

9. 2. Street Screen – Living Canvas
• High Profile, Giant Digital wrap around screen
• Living canvas summer programme
• Sound accessed by on site QR code

10. 3. Waterford Walls

11. Waterford Walls
• Brightening up our inner
city with street art
• Community volunteers
working with
commissioned artists
sponsored by business

12. Waterford Walls

16. 4. Waterford Spraoi
• Ireland's Summer Street Party
• This is not a gated community, its a community of fun-loving people
enjoying the craic.
• First weekend in August (4,5,6)
• But year long community building the next event (engineers/artists
etc.)

17. Waterford Spraoi

18. Waterford Spraoi

19. Waterford Spraoi

20. 5. Winteral
Ireland’s largest Christmas Festival

21. 6. VIKING TRIANGLE
• Purple Flag - Safe at Night

22. Digital Support
• QR Codes
• Apps
• WIFI
• Web Site
• Lighting
• Projection Mapping
• AR / VR
• Blockchain
• Design
• LED
• Remote monitoring
• Digital security
• Reducing Energy
• Increasing Sustainability

23. SmartSE

24. Smart SE (Smart South East)
• New to Ireland
• Based on:
• Colab in Germany
• The Copenhagen Solutions Lab
• SmartCity Innovation Lab in Utah
• Overarching objective
• create thematic citizen engagement platforms
• Utilising open data
• enable greater citizen engagement in the future
imagining, planning and construction of the City

25. Smart SE (Smart South East)
• Building upon the ‘Living Lab’ concept,
smartSE views the ‘City/Region as a Platform’
that engages all regional stakeholders
• Location – an old newspaper printworks
• Level 1: Citizen Engagement
• Level 2: Integrated Smart City Control Centre
(Data Analytics) & Research Laboratories
• Level 3: Experimental Lab
• (sandbox for future urban innovation, innovation that is
social, spatial and economic impactful)

26. SETU
• Dept of Computing and Mathematics
• Walton Institute (formerly TSSG)

27. Waterford
South East
Ireland
setu.ie 27
3 technology
gateways
• Software
• Manufacturing
• Pharma

29. Walton Institute
• Mc Donalds
• AI driven Menu Boards
• Most popular meals for that
time/day/location
• Speeding up the drive through
reducing traffic.
• Tech Startup Acquired
• EI funded
• TU supporting the startups
setu.ie 29

30. Walton Institute
• Health / Wellness
• Buying local
• Delivery Apps
• QR Code on packaging
• Blockchain for track and tracing of
how that food gets to the table.
• Proof of organic status
setu.ie 30

31. Walton Institute
• Clothes
• Blockchain
• Ethics
• Trust
• Transparency
• Where is everything being sourced
setu.ie 31

32. Reseach
Themes

33. BEWARE
ABUSE OF
DATA
setu.ie 33
Challenges
1. London
2. Remote Work
Participation
“BOSSWARE”

34. 1. Restricting Cars in the cities
• automated license-plate recorders (ALPRs)
• surveillance could be leveraged to attack disfavored
minorities
• E.g. London
• Positive
• air quality
• reducing traffic
• improving journey times for public transit
• Negative
• Data and surveillance abuse by MET to infiltrate trade
unionists, activists, climate groups, etc

35. 2. “Bossware”
• Software to monitor employees

36. Digital Social Presence - Opportunities
• togetherness
• communities
• can be digitally mediated,
• Benefits seen in the learning space already

37. Digital Social Presence - Challenges
• In learning space
• Proprietary LMS own student data to be sold!
• Initially went with Google Analytics in Tutors
• to learn more about students interaction patterns.
• appalled by the data that it revealed
• shut it down and developed our own much more limited but respectful way
of gaining student insights
• KEEP DATA AND SYSTEMS OPEN & TRANSPARENT
• CITIZEN PARTICIPATION

38. Thanks
tutors.dev
bit.ly/tutorstack