Brief description of project

The aim of NETIZENS project is to explore and demonstrate the use and application of Information Technologies resources with NGOs in Civic Networks environments in order to support individuals, agencies and networks concerned with the promotion of self-employment and teleworking.

The operational objective will be the research, development and demonstration of an average of ten teleservices managed by NGOs in each pilot sites in Spain (Madrid, Cuenca, Barcelona), United Kingdom (Manchester), Italy (Bologna) and Finland (Region of Carelia). These teleservices will be exploited at Local and European levels on a collaborative environments on Internet. The foreseen teleservices are focused on culture interchanges, advise for employment promoters, job databases, advise on social inclusion for people with special risks, regulations and tax issues for organisations, information brokerage for joint ventures, support to social forums and dialogue among citizens, teledemocracy services and mass media and multimedia services for organisations.

A basic team of 16 person will develop the project during 22 months and they will facilitate the extension of best practices and lessons learned throughout a set of material for dissemination purposes. Final results will suppose several materials for third system organisations such as a guide for seeting up teleservices in Civic Networks in Europe, a handbook on best practices for NGOs on employment within the Information Society, a set of posters on Civic Networks and citizens on the net and a CD ROM with a self training system on how to create teleservices for communities on Internet. NETIZENS will develop and adapt a suitable group of technical applications for free use by interested parties. These tools will be implemented on Internet and it will allow permanent communication among partners during whole project life cycle. NETIZENS website utilities will facilitate procedures on areas of work within project such as management, exploratory and research plans, publicity, free access at anytime to available resources from consortium partners and third parties, evaluation actions and organisation of joint ventures and, mainly, the demonstration of teleservices for citizens.

It represents an innovative approach to social integration and reinforces EU initiatives in the area of social policies. Improved access to facilities and services offered via the Internet existing platforms will ensure that Third System organisations and the agencies working to support them within local communities will be better placed to develop their own solutions to promote and consolidate new jobs on transnational context .

The geographical areas of work will be linked with urban areas of Manchester (GB), Madrid (ES), Carelian (FI), Barcelona (ES), Bologna (IT), Cuenca (ES). Pilot sites will be linked to the following organisations: Manchester Metropolitan University & Communities on line in United Kindgom, INMARK, Group "Cinco", Acorde Association and Local City Council in Cuenca (Spain), Raval Net in Barcelona (Spain) and Civic Network of Bologna in Italy. They will coordinate the actions with the organisations and individuals linked with their current activities as well as working with them within Communities Netwoks. The work will be coordinated at the European and local level directly by the NETIZENS consortium staff who will implement the project objectives by using the information technologies and the different participating social structures (neighbourhood centres, telecentres and a range of social agencies). Furthermore the mentioned applications, NETIZENS pilots will offer a wide range of resources and facilities related to specific areas of teleservices such as distance learning services, trade schemes, collaborative areas in the telematic net, tele - assistance for groups of people and individuals with social exclusion risks (drug addicts, cultural and ethnic minorities integration, unemployed and handicapped people (on a geographic and economic basis).

The main social objective, the promotion of employment throughout teleservices & telematics, will be monitored as an on going process which will be completed with the support of a wide range of qualitative and quantitative scientific methods. The qualitative procedures will be based on personal and group in depth interviews and training accompanying measures as well as by the use of a participative methodology based on the direct collaboration with the actors involved in the creation of employment on local communities frameworks and European cooperation.

The research procedures will be based on the analysis of selected indicators and their corresponding trends (new employment types and mapping of Civic Networks by areas of telework whenever available, and more specifically, rates and models on the access to new information resources - the use of the telematic resources- based on offer/demand schemes). A set of guidelines on new employment sources within Civic Networks will be the main results of this research phase.

The demonstration procedures will be based on the application of mentioned set of guidelines and among NGOs within local Civic Networks and within transnational experiences. Capitalisation and dissemination procedures will be based on awareness actions on two European Seminars. A set of promotional materials (posters, CD ROM, portfolios & books) for extending best practices and lessons learned will be delivered in ocassion of mentioned events.

Link between the proposed project and the Commissions' programmes

NETIZENS is strongly based on the communication on the Social and Labour Market Dimension of the Information Society (People First - The Next Steps). It is specially important on the scope of planned teleservices and its demostrative experience which are linked with People First key issues such as the access to the Information Society for all (by promoting equality, enahancing democracy and public services), the new ways of work in the Information Society (by creating adequate framework for telework and supporting Social Dialogue as an instrument for change), and turning the opportunities into jobs (by exploiting the potential for new jobs and by facilitating skills for living and working)

Related European initiatives include EPITELIO & MUNICIPIA Projects under IV Framework Programme on R&D on Telematics Applications of General Interest & INNOVATION Programme, and initiatives under European Social Funds as INTEGRA, ADAPT, EMPLOY and YOUTH. Other initiatives like LEADER II and CARREFOUR will have an special interest in being linked with the NETIZENS. Completion of the project is not dependent on other external results.

Introduction to the subject of the proposal

The context of the present project is related, on the one side with the dynamics of the present emerging job markets in relationship with the use of the information Technologies, and on the other, with the links of the third system as to the construction of the Information Society at local and European level. And particularly, to the emerging phenomenon of the Citizens' Networks as a strategic tool for economically and socially sustained local development.

Present project is strongly based on the communication on the Social and Labour Market Dimension of the Information Society (People First - The Next Steps). It is specially important on the scope of planned teleservices and its demostrative experience which are linked with People First key issues such as the access to the Information Society for all (by promoting equality, enahancing democracy and public services), the new ways of work in the Information Society (by creating adequate framework for telework and supporting Social Dialogue as an instrument for change), and turning the opportunities into jobs (by exploiting the potential for new jobs and by facilitating skills for living and working)

As to the first aspect, that of an emerging job market, the existence and increase of job offers where the technological component is basic to the characteristics of the post to be filled is already a reality.

This profile shows the need to count with labour with general knowledge plus knowledge of the programmes and operations that are developed among computers connected among them through the Internet or through other telematic networks, should they be local (corporate intranets) or of an open architecture with different ways of access control, safety and data management. New emerging employment formulas are growingly accompanied by waves of changes in technologies, which, every 18 months suffer significant changes in information processing speed, in that their greater information storage in devices which are cheaper and smaller. Mobility of a worker using cellular telephones, portable computers and numerous peripherics are growingly making the creation of new jobs a reality . Within them, multimedia language is specially notorious.

Within this panorama there appear genuine jobs in the net, which further than the traditional jobs of software programming, translation services and loading and maintenance of data bases, are opened towards a wider group of persons which will need specific training adapted to these new opportunities, such as distance assistants and trainers, local information producers and managers, web page and other multimedia designers and creators, managers and technicians of telesales and telemarketing processes, etc. Moreover, the use of technologies and distance work is growing in all processes of production, management, storing, commercialisation and publicity associated to the daily life of organisations.

Together with this panorama of the labour market, local development processes are growingly linked to work on nets and, in general, to the emission and reception of information. It is within this interchange process that some ten years ago in the USA and only a few years ago in Europe, the Citizen Networks were born. In all cases the aim is to offer a way of access to citizens to the information society,. The city is reflected on the network as a space where all citizens can know each other, establish and promote work relationships, commerce, educational and health policies, etc. Local citizens and visitors can have access to this city with no restrictions.

We have chosen the Citizens Network as a consolidated working scenario in Europe for two main reasons: first, it offers a low cost technical solution which is controlled and encouraged by the citizens' organisations themselves. Second, it allows the confluence of the local development strategy in all aspects (social, economic, cultural) and at all levels, both local and international

Why Community Networks?.

From the beginning it was clear that, as the American and Canadian experience has proved years ago, a good way to giving tools and education to the people in charge to increase the opportunities for new jobs was through Community Networking.

Began as BBS, then called free nets, and now community networks, they are voluntary grass-root organizations oriented to the providing of telematic services for local communities. They are a lively expression of the civil society in the age of information, the NGOs of the information societies. The literature of these communities is on the Net.

There are a great variety of CNs, Universities, local civic groups, local authorities, non-for-profit foundations, or small entrepreneurs are between the active organizers of this movement. The Community Conector is a good info resource of CNs started at the University of Michigan,

Important reasons of the success of the CNs are:

a) They are civic public spaces in cyberspace.The information society creates a society. It is not only a communication medium. It is an space. Keeping this space public at the local level, this is the main responsibility of the Cns.

b) Their ability to understand that, even in a global information society, more than half of the information you need is local.

c) A third reason of their success is the understanding that in an info - society the people still keep local identities. They (we) like our communities, cities, and nations, and we want to see them digital, not to disappear.

d) A forth reason: CNs are nourished by civic participation. Now, for the first time, John Smith can not only vote every four years but also to say his opinions and publish his information on the Net.

e) Finally, it depends the system you use, you can even combine local and global in the same CN. You don't need to oppose be on the Net and be in your local community.

Digital cities need digital citizens, digital services and digital NGOs acting on the Net.

In Canada, Telecommunities Canada, the national association of community networks, has signed in 1997 a Memorandum of Understanding with Industry Canada, to "enhance the ability of Canadian communities to utilize electronic public space". The first point of this agreement says: "All Canadians should be able to participate effectively in community-based organizations and share the new tools of electronic information".

In the European Union, although we have defined "an European way to the IS" stressing the word Society instead of Infrastructure, unfortunately the citizens organizations have arrived the latest to the understanding of the Info Society. At the beginning it was the Bangemann report in 1994. The only reference to infocities was the last point of their strategy: "Building Civic Information Highways". In 1995, Telecities started as a consortium of European cities administrations, engaged in paving the way to the Info Soc. Finally in 97 the European CNs movement is starting to walk.

This Civic Network Movement in Europe is the first one where Community Networking representatives and thrid system organisations officials are starting to know and collaborate each others. What we try to obtain is a perspective of establishing strategies of digital cities with the implication of the different actors of the civil society in an open environment. Digital cities need digital citizens, digital services and digital NGOs acting on the Net.

How to establish the collaboration? We are suggesting designing the idea of digital citizenship (in ciberspace jargus named as "netizens"). The basic tool for that is the experience and extension of a demonstrative action on transnational cooperation between organisations of the third system in Europe

Objective of the proposal

The Netizens Project is a basically demonstrative action which has the aim of identifying, promoting and spreading the possibilities of creating long-lasting jobs in the Information Society, with the direct intervention of the Third System. The chosen scenario to achieve this aim is the Citizen Network, if this is understood as a copy of the city and its citizens in the Internet Network. Currently, these Citizen networks are promoted by the Local or Regional Administrations and are formed as Associations or Foundations with the participation of local Associations and citizens, public bodies (such as the City Halls, Training centres, etc.) local firms or professionals' consortiums. The mutual commitment among these organisations is based on the main objective of building an information Society from their own local environment.

Citizens Networks offer possibilities and opportunities for the launching of a multiple range of services to the community such as the management of processes such as electronic democracy, telesales, telework, multi-discipline distance consultation, etc. These employment possibilities, launched towards an emerging market are specially sensitive to their consolidation thanks to the geometrical progression in the annual increase of users of information Technologies both at local environments as well as world-wide. Co-operation between suppliers of services to the communities, the local administrations and the firms in Europe is becoming an opportunity which the Third System has to make profit of.

The development of the project is foreseen for a period of 22 months and will have a starting point in the first year on a previous study of the conditions of the Third System organisations in relationship with the use and profit of the information Technologies and of the Citizen Networks. Citizen networks of Manchester (UK), Bologna (Italy), Cuenca, Barcelona & Madrid (Spain) and Carelia (Finland) are interested in carrying out the pilot actions and the identification and development of capitalisation, development and social, economic and cultural viability of experiences aimed to job creation. Once these capabilities and adequate solutions have been determined, parallel demonstrative and awareness actions will be carried out during six months. After this period, and during the last four months, the demonstrative experiences will be consolidated in specific collaboration agreements among the Third System entities within the Citizen Network and among the actors belonging to them: Entrepreneurs, local administrations, training centres and other associations and foundations of different European cities..

Collaboration among the Citizen Networks of Manchester and Bologna and a group of Citizen Networks in Spain and Science Park of Carelia in Finland, as well as the participation of the EPITELIO European Project will allow the achievement of the project .