Smart Cities Summit, June 2020

DOT: Digital and Open TransformationProf. Flavia Marzano
DOT:
Digital and
Open
Transformation
after Coronavirus… loading J
June 17th 2020
1

Who
I am
I am a #WhyNotter J
o  Computer scientist (nobody is perfect)
o  Director of Smart Public Administration Master
and Professor at Link Campus University
o  Advisor for Public Administration on digital
transformation
o  Founder of the WISTER network and of the
General States of Innovation and Eutopian
o  Former Rome City Councillor deputy for: smart city, innovation,
participation, inclusion, active citizenship, digital transformation
o  Other tags: open source, open data, smart land, equal opportunity
for all, SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)

In such a difficult time we must look
further, to understand how this can
become a great opportunity to change
planning right now
future developments!

http://highscalability.com/blog/2014/3/11/douglas-adams-3-rules-that-describe-our-reactions-to-technol.html

Technologies create a new ecosystem and new
lifestyles, they are neither good, nor bad, nor
neutral, but, in order to protect people’s rights,
require:
•  competences
•  strictness
•  ethics
•  discipline

•  do not adapt technologies to the
processes, but redefine processes
•  change roles (vertically and horizontally)
•  change work environments
•  listen
•  foster mutual trust
•  be an early adopter

DURING THE QUARANTINE YOU
CAN FINALLY REST
I’M A COMPUTER SCIENTIST

Guide to the online services of
Roma Capitale to help citizens
in the use of the services
available on the website.
https://www.statigeneralinnovazione.it/online/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Vademecum_Servizi_Online_RC_b.pdf

We use internet everyday to keep in touch with family
and friends, to shop, to get informed, to get directions
on where to go, to pay bills, to listen to music...
But internet hides pitfalls. There are constant attempts
to get information about us without our consent and
persecutory acts against women.
Simple actions can be taken to be protected: we wrote a a
Digital Self-Defence Manual containing some simple
suggestions for a more conscious use of the smartphone,
social networks, passwords, apps, e-mail, chats,...
Written in non-specialist and easy-to-use language, to avoid bad habits and
learn good practices in using the net!

17 different webinar platforms!

Hope always dies last
in latin: “spes ultima dea”

3 points on the nature of technological
adoption (Douglas Adams):
1. Anything that is in the
world when you’re born
is normal and ordinary and
is just a natural part of
the way the world works.

2. Anything that’s invented
between when you’re
15 and 35 is new and
exciting and
revolutionary and you can probably
get a career in it.

3. Anything invented after you’re 35 is against
the natural order of things…
and only after being in circulation for at least 10
years can it be considered quite normal…

DOT after CoronaVirus?
10 years,
10 months,
may be less...

… so what can be done?
•  Digital Transformation
•  Usability and Accessibility
of public websites
•  Open data and Open
Source in any Public
Administration
•  Simplification of regulations
and services
•  Digital inclusiveness
•  Open Government:
Participation, Openness,
Transparency, Accountability,
Communication, Collaboration
•  Infrastructures: Connectivity,
Broad band,…
•  PPP: Private Public
Partnership
•  Agile life, job, relationship

Let's turn problems into opportunities
•  Smart & Agile working (rules, training, tools, …)
•  Overcoming the infrastructural and socio-economic-
cultural Digital Divide
•  Open Data
•  Open Source
•  Open Innovation
•  Open … mind
Minds are like parachutes; they work best when open (A. Einstein)

Let’s take this opportunity…
…and move on from
“digital first” to
“digital only”
…IT COULD WORK! J

Innovation:
new visions not just new
technologies

Vision and change: now or never!

Common mistakes (1)
Not Invented Here (NIH) Syndrome
I prefer: standing on the shoulders of giants…
Proudly Found Elsewhere (PFE) J
NIH vs PFE!
2
3

Common mistakes (2) we always
acted this way

Common mistakes (3)
working in silos

What we see is mainly
based on what we look for
(John Lubbock)
Common mistakes (4)
the finger and the moon

The users are considered
as mere faceless objects
for who the systems
are designed
Reframing Humans in Information Systems Development (H. Isomäki, S. Pekkola)
Common mistakes (5)

Common mistakes (6)
Co-design?
https://guycookson.com/2015/06/26/design-vs-user-experience/

We need a Smart and Inclusive development
by Design!
Now? Dumb “by design”!

Common mistakes (7) Experts?
Many times experts fail
because they're
experts in the past
version of the world.
(Vinod Khosla)
http://www.prioritysystem.com/images/fig45.gif

“In the most corrupt
state there are too
many laws”
Corruptissima re publica,
plurimae leges!
(Tacitus Annales, Libro III, 27)
Common mistakes (8)

Openness
Did we forget this?

Yet another big problem

“None of us will see
gender parity in our
lifetimes, and nor likely
will many of our children.
That’s the sobering
finding of the Global
Gender Gap Report 2020,
which reveals that gender
parity will not be attained
for 99.5 years”

Flavia Marzano

Women are under-represented
in the digital economy

Representation in FTSE100 boards
improves steadily (01 May 2020)

John Hopkins
Diversity Wheel

I would say that we are lucky now…

“we have accessible technologies,
with unifying characteristics,
potentially universal, easily
distributable and, above all,
centered on the present most
important raw material for the
generation of value:
information!“ (P. Zocchi, 2003)
We are at a crossroad…

SCEPTICS? … I love acronyms J
Stakeholders
Community
Ecosystem
Participation
Technologies
Innovation
Collaboration
Smart city for all
4

We are in an
ecotone:
this can be
a great
opportunity!

Ecotone?
An ecotone is a transition environment between two
ecosystems, and more generally between two adjacent
environments. Ecotones contain species belonging to
neighbouring communities and exclusive species of the
ecotonal area itself, and therefore possess a high
biodiversity and wealth. These peculiarities make the
ecotone indispensable because the connection between
very different environments takes place through these
structures (woods-meadows, lakes-forests, fresh waters-
salt waters).
“the zone between two major ecological communities” (Collins)

In order to enable innovation we should think
and work "outside the box”

New VISION
•  View from different perspectives
•  Involve (bottom up)
•  Share (knowledge, ideas, software, data,…)
•  Imagine (no constraints in thinking)
•  Organize (ourself first)
•  Navigate (drive your collaborators)
… yet another acronym
5

Sharing
•  What do we loose?
•  What will we gain?

Sharing… multiplies!

USER
•  Unique
•  Sensible
•  Engageable
•  Reactive
6

•  Engagement is a value ad creates value
•  Technologies are not always the solution
•  Participation through technologies often reproduces
the dynamics already existing in the politician-citizen
relationship
•  Awareness: Citizens (rights), Politicians (duties)
Albeit with some attention

https://digitalfreedomfund.org/the-digital-rights-future-we-want-
imagining-a-universal-declaration-of-digital-rights/
Rights!

Smart Cities for all
•  Digital Inclusion
•  Reduction of the digital divide (not only
technological but also socio-economical, cultural
and gender related)
•  Use of indicators is essential for a public
administration able to work with concrete,
measurable goals
http://www.hercampus.com/sites/default/files/2015/04/26/breaking-glass-ceiling-e1409686294687.jpg

All that is valuable in human society
depends on the opportunities for
progress that are granted to each
individual (A. Einstein)

What’s still missing
•  More access
•  More (mutual) trust
•  More innovation
•  More political will
•  More cohesion
•  More collaboration
•  More laicity
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xamad/299972023/

New questions, new answers!
Without awareness of new dynamics we risk to
govern new processes as a simple quantitative
extension of the old ones.
The services must be redesigned by people
having the awareness of new questions and new
answers.

What to do?
•  Multistakeholder forum for permanent
consultation on the main topics (e.g. digital
innovation)
•  Participation in the definition and monitoring of
strategic decisions - publication of drafts of the
most important initiatives, from which a structured
consultative path is developed
•  Opening of online platforms for the proposal of
ideas (widespread legislation)

We need a DEAL
and teamwork
Involving all the actors in the area:
-  Administrations
-  Companies
-  Universities, schools, research centres
-  Social and cultural associations

DEAL
•  Democracy
•  Empowerment
•  Accessibility
•  Literacy
8

In summary we must be able to interpret the DOT:
•  25% Sustainability and Resilience
•  25% Openness & Transparency
•  25% Participation & Collaboration
•  25% Connectivity & Creativity
A deal: shaked, not stirred J

We prefer #WhyNotter to #YesButter

Let us not look back in anger,
nor forward in fear,
but around in awareness.
(J. Thurber)

Last but not least J
ICSABINRWTM
I Can't Stand
Acronyms Because
I Never Remember
What They Mean
9

4 A
Let’s stay:
Aware
Awake
Accepting
Attuned

“The term utopia is the easiest way to get rid of
what you are not able or daring or willing to do.
A dream looks like a dream until you start to do
something. Only then it may become something
infinitely greater.”
(Adriano Olivetti)

Thank you for your attention!
f.marzano@unilink.it
https://twitter.com/flavia_marzano
https://www.linkedin.com/in/flaviamarzano/
…knowledge sharing…
This presentation, in its original parts, is covered by a license
Creative Commons Attribution, Share Alike
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/it/legalcode

Smart Cities Summit, June 2020

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