Initiatives towards a participatory smart city. The role of digital grassroots innovations

Abstract

[EN] In this paper we explore the role of Digital Grassroots Innovation (DGI) in the construction of a more participatory smart city. 18 DGIs from four Spanish cities (Santander, Valencia, Bilbao, and San Sebastián) were analysed. They belong to 4 different types of digital innovation: Open Hardware: understood as projects inspired by the maker movement; Open Knowledge: large groups of citizens who join through online platforms to collectively create a new type of knowledge or social projects; Open Data: innovative ways of opening, capturing, using, analysing and interpreting data; and Open Networks: networks of citizens who are developing new networks and infrastructures, to collectively share resources and solve problems. In all cases, the DGIs constitute a varied repertoire of initiatives where the purpose of digital innovation is not only to solve problems that affect citizens, but also to make spaces for the creation and empowerment of critical citizens that are vigilant of the actions of public and private powers. In this sense, innovation not only refers to the design and materialisation of new products or processes, but also to the contribution that the DGI is making to the construction of citizenship and, therefore, to the construction of democracy.