Integration of physical and virtual dimensions

The e-innovation environment is conceived to serve the effectiveness of actions on the ground, in the physical world of people’s trying to improve themselves and the world though education, innovation and inclusion. The structure of an e-Innovation environment is multi-faceted since it is not limited to networking, or academic e-learning, or collaboration in the generation of a technical product, even a mass-movement product such as Wikipedia. Its purpose is to support grass-root digital literacy and innovation processes that enhance the quality of people’s lives. The realization of such change-oriented environment requires the structuring of multiple aspects. In particular, it requires structuring of:

•      online platform with all the required functionalities and content to facilitate the creation and/or improvements of concrete social and educational processes

•      flows of human, financial, material (tangible and intangible), time and space resources. Here human resources include not just knowledge and expertise but also reputation, values and feelings such as solidarity, fraternity, equality, compassion, unity, etc.

•      strategic thinking, understanding and support of digital literacy and innovation processes, resulting in collaborative strategy-making and resource-finding aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of such processes.

•      instrumentalization and operationalization of scientific understanding on the nature of ICT-based innovation processes to facilitate collaborative learning, strategy-making and constituency-building of grass-root processes.

•      mechanisms and processes enabling social and educational innovators to both: (i) contribute structured knowledge, lessons and information about the nature and state of development of their processes, and (ii) initiate collaborative strategy-making and constituency-building actions around their processes.

•      communities of people capable and willing to provide collaborative support to grass-root processes.

•      promotion and exploitation of synergies between the many different grass-root efforts and processes for mutual benefit and for the strengthening of a programmatic movement realizing the scaling-up of good practices

Illustration of a functional e-innovation environment

The Foundation has taken steps in the direction of the virtual dimension (e-innovation environment), by using the Moodle e-learning platform as well as developing “knowledge objects” in the form of survey and assessment tools, and case studies processed at four levels of communication: (i) short videos, (ii) edited collection of short case studies, (iii) deeper level of “standardized” case studies and (iv) in-depth processual analysis of ICT-based educational experiences published in the Consortium/Foundation’s series Quaderni di Pensiero. Now the Foundation is beginning to work with Drupal with the aim of getting closer to the full vision of the e-innovation environment.