MAZI means “together” in Greek and the main goal of MAZI is to provide technology and knowledge that aims to
- empower those who are in physical proximity, to shape their hybrid urban space, together, according to the specificities of the respective local environment,
- generate location-based collective awareness as a basis for fostering social cohesion, conviviality, participation in decision-making processes, self-organization, knowledge sharing, and sustainable living, and
- facilitate interdisciplinary interactions around the design of hybrid space and the role of ICTs in society.
MAZI identifies three main challenges raised by the evolution of the Internet as the global communication platform. These challenges pertain to political, social, and scientific domains.
- From a political perspective, the more information and communication technologies (ICTs) play a central role in our everyday communications, the more critical it becomes who has authorship in their design, who owns the corresponding infrastructure and information generated, who takes important decisions, and according to which objectives. When these privileges are granted to corporations with exclusively commercial orientation, the corresponding Internet platforms, even if they are very attractive and efficient in facilitating information sharing and other complex interactions, can severely undermine our privacy, independence, and quality of life. In addition to that, looking at ICT development from a purely commercial viewpoint dramatically limits the scope in which innovations emerge.
- From a social perspective, since the design of global Internet-based platforms is guided by commercial instead of humanistic interests and undermines face-to-face interactions and our everyday contact with difference, democratic dialogue, and conversations. Thus such platforms, despite their significant capabilities in facilitating various forms of information sharing, increase our addiction and dependence on technology and contribute to the alienation especially in the city.
- From a scientific perspective, the disciplinary gaps between engineers, interaction designers, and social scientists become wider as the virtual, digital, space overlays more and more the physical, and space becomes inherently hybrid.
Conclusions
MAZI delivers an advanced toolkit for empowering communities and individuals to deploy local wireless networks, shape their hybrid urban space and generate location-based collective awareness. These hybrid local spaces facilitate interdisciplinary discussions around the role of ICT in society, stimulate digital inclusion and promote social innovation. The toolkit was made “from the people, for the people” and the MAZI project involved real communities in the design and the development of all its components. The bottom-up approach enabled the integration of social aspects in the toolkit that are absent from the architecture of today’s Internet and ICT in general and empowered communities to take part on the design and configuration of their own network communication infrastructure. In addition, the MAZI toolkit gives control of data back to the people since all data produced in a MAZI Zone stay inside the zone and are part of the local hybrid space. By delivering this DIY social networking toolkit, the MAZI consortium provides the technology and knowledge for the engagement of citizens in the decision-making processes on local issues that concern their everyday life, for the stimulation of grass-roots participation in political life and for connecting local communities through broader networked systems, fulfilling this way the vision of a sustainable smart-city.
