One year ago, E-Government Bulletin published a special report on BeNeighbors.org, an initiative from the pioneering non-profit E-Democracy.org to connect communities in two neighbouring US cities – Minneapolis and St Paul, known as the Twin Cities – using online forums (see E-Gov Bulletin 346: http://bit.ly/XnE5T0). Funded with a 625,000 US Dollar grant, the project had [...]

A project to equip a town centre with free Wi-Fi is on track to meet its target fund after setting out to be “crowdfunded” online, E-Government Bulletin has learned. The “Make Mansfield Your HotSpot” project was developed by Mansfield Business Improvement District, a partnership between the council and local business community. It is being run through [...]

By Tristan Parker Can our environment be improved by better access to information? A digital participation project in Barcelona aims to prove it can. The Smart Citizen project (http://smartcitizen.me/en/) begins by measuring and recording environmental data such as air quality and temperature, using low-cost sensors. The data is then uploaded to an online Smart Citizen platform, where [...]

A new pilot project is allowing citizens to see local service information such as planning applications and food hygiene ratings of cafes projected live onto images or videos of their local area using “augmented reality” (AR) software. Data can be seen overlaid live onto locations by pointing a smartphone or tablet computer with a camera running [...]

A project using technology to engage local people to help reinvigorate a run-down inner city shopping area is one of 31 new “community hubs” being funded by the national digital inclusion network UK Online Centres ( http://www.ukonlinecentres.com/ ). The initiative will use Facebook, Twitter and SurveyMonkey (an online survey creation tool) to gauge local opinion, [...]

The first GovCamp specifically to focus on the challenges of digital participation in island communities, IslandGovCamp 2012, took place in Orkney (and on the internet) recently, writes Sweyn Hunter. It was organised by the Orkney ICT Forum, a professional association for people and organisations offering web, ICT and media and communications services in Orkney, which [...]

Whether it’s advising a concerned mother on how to slow down local traffic or boosting takeaway pizza sales to kick-start a restaurant business, a new network of community forums is proving the real-life benefits that networked neighbourhoods can have for local communities and their residents. Developed by Steven Clift, founder of the non-profit community networking [...]