This document summarizes research on the iCity project in Bologna, Italy which aimed to engage citizens through new technologies but partially failed in technological goals. It succeeded in raising and mobilizing a "new elite of technological citizens". This was likely due to parallel efforts in Iperbole2020, the civic network of Bologna, which engaged developers and shared goals with iCity. The researchers conclude iCity catalyzed reassembling of social networks through skilled citizen relationship management, and could promote digital empowerment if leaders facilitate network relationships of the new elite.

1. New " technological élites" as a tool for the citizens-
relationship management in the smart city. The icity
project in Bologna.
Valentina Bazzarin & Pina Lalli
Dep. Political and Social Sciences
University of Bologna
Corresponding author: valentina.bazzarin@unibo.it
SESSION 17: De-constructing the Smart City, Reassembling Urban Life

2. Aim of this research is to use an empirical
case in order to critically analyse the definition
of a smart city ecosystem. We will focus on
Bologna (Italy) and on the engagement
actions planned in the "icity" project funded by
the European Commission.
Goal of this research
Source: http://www.icityproject.eu/content/presentation

3. European Digital Agenda and the
Smart city ecosystem
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/smart-cities Source: http://iperbole2020.comune.bologna.it/agenda-digitale/

4. Smart cities and smart communities
Source: http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/smart-citiesSource: http://www.icityproject.eu/news-categories/press-kit

5. The civic network and the social capital
Source: http://www.comune.bologna.it/retecivica/galleria_immagini/106:5501 Source: http://www.comune.bologna.it/comunita/

6. Icity main objective is to identify new ways of
collaboration using new technologies. Citizens
are supposed to promote the civic demands to
access public information and open-
infrastructures to re-use it as well as to explore
other ways of offering public services that
usually are guaranteed by public administration
only. In particular, icity aims at building a
common platform where “civic hackers” could
realize a progressive crowd-working to create
smart application.
A research question on the
direction of this processes
source: http://icity-devp.icityproject.com/apiresources

7. Framework - Italy
source:http://ec.europa.eu/priorities/digital-single-market/docs/factsheets/italy_en.pdf

8. Since January 2014 we observed the
engagement actions run by the Municipality of
Bologna. We attended five so-called
"engagement meetings" in Bologna, we
observed the participation processes in the on-
line social platforms and we interviewed in
depth four participants. Moreover, we are
considering the parallel on-going process in
which the civic network of the City of Bologna
"iperbole2020" is updated and re-designed, in
order to compare the activities of participants in
the two processes.
Methodology

9. Why we compare the two
processes?
icity project and iperbole2020 (civic network)
are different but parallel processes. However
they share:
● the vision → market oriented use of
open data and open infrastructures;
● the staff of local promoters;
● the target (developers and civic hackers)
● most of the engagement events and
activities

10. icity: the app gallery
Total APPs developed 8 listed in the website
Most of them are 1.0 version and if you explore the
comments on GitHub or Google Play you can find on
average 3 comments on each proposal. Except
Ucitizens APP.
Sources:: https://github.com/bromagosa/icity-node-demo and
http://icity-devp.icityproject.com/apiresources/appgallery

11. Iperbole 2020: the community and
the app gallery
sources: http://www.comune.bologna.it/comunita/node e http://iperbole2020.comune.bologna.it/bologna-apps/

12. Access in Open Data: Iperbole
2020 the civic network
Source: http://www.comune.bologna.it/comunita/open-data

13. Our results show that although icity project partially failed in its technological aims, it is
succeeding in raising, engaging and mobilizing an important group of people: what we
called a “new elite of technological citizens”. Probably this result is due to the parallel
process of creation of the Iperbole2020, the “brand new civic network” of the City of
Bologna.
In this project we can identify a “skilled citizens-relationship management" able to develop
both social capital - bridging the elite of technological citizens with some local schools, for
instance - and bounding a new community of civic hackers as a new type of social
influencers.
Result: a skilled citizens-
relationship management

14. Concluding we can say that icity project in Bologna
catalysed the reassembling of urban social
networks even failing in its technological
determinism. The long tail of this project could
promote a widespread digital empowerment,
especially if its promoters will be aware of their role
as curators and managers of the network
relationships of the “new technological elite”.
Conclusion
Source: http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/italian-piazzas-the-future-of-public-
space

15. Acknowledgements: part of this research project was funded by Comune
di Bologna and icity project. Icity was funded by the European commission
inside CIP-ICT-PSP.2011.5.1. Moreover we successfully collaborated with
all the civil servants involved in this project (Leda Guidi, Giovanni Farneti,
Daniele Tarozzi, Andrea Iacovitti, Raffaella Gentili and Michele D’Alena)
and the company that was in charge to realize the engagement activities,
Snark, and in particular with one of the founders, Gaspare Caliri. Finally
we would like to mention and to thank all our colleagues, both in Italy and
in Catalunya, friends and families for their support and useful comments.
Thanks for your attention!