Building Community with the Help of Information and Communications Technologies – Opportunities and Challenges A netCommons event http://netcommons.eu Wednesday, January 25, 2017 18:00-20:00 University of Westminster 309 Regent Street Fyvie Hall London W1B 2HW Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/building-community-with-the-help-of-informati... Building Community with the Help of Information and Communications Technologies – Opportunities and Challenges Professor Claire Wallace, University of Aberdeen will present work carried out in Aberdeen among four rural communities that have used information technology in different ways to help build community networks and an enhanced sense of identity and social cohesion. Adam Burns, member of the netCommons project Advisory board and founder of the Free2Air community network, will provide insights into how community networks are organised and what opportunities and challenges they pose. netCommons is a Horizon2020 research project, which proposes a novel transdisciplinary methodology on promoting and supporting the creation of network infrastructures as commons, for resiliency, sustainability, democracy, self-determination, and social integration. The partners of the project have strong expertise in engineering, computer science, economics, law, political science, urban, media, and social studies; and close links with successful Community Networks like guifi.net, ninux.org, and sarantaporo.gr. Claire Wallace is Professor of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen and was co-investigator on both the CCNetwork+ and the Aberdeen Rural Digital Economy Hub. She was formerly President of the European Sociological Association and has worked in Research Institutes and Universities in England, Austria, Czech Republic and most recently Scotland. Adam Burns has worked as an IT security advisor and has been instrumental in the development of alternative wireless networks since the 1990s, first in Australia, subsequently in London and Berlin, where he now resides. He is predominantly associated with the Free2Air network in east London but has also been very active in the alternative networks movement worldwide publishing extensively on community networks and participating in numerous meetings. Subscribe to the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies' newsletter to receive updates about events, publications, conferences, special issues, calls related to digital media research: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter