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Phyrtual

Innovation

Phyrtual is a knowledge-based community-building environment for social innovation

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Phyrtual.org is a website dedicated to social innovation, that is, innovation driven by the motivation to improve the lives of all people and, particularly, of the disadvantaged sectors of the population. Phyrtual aims to stimulate and facilitate the creation and widespread diffusion of projects and experiences of social innovation.

The functionality of Phyrtual blends knowledge, arts, social networking and instruments of communication, collaboration, productivity and evaluation to support processes of social innovation. In this environment, people and organizations can explore, find, and participate in social innovations; above all, they can join and collaborate with other people and organizations to create, share and grow their ideas, knowledge, and communities, around projects in social areas such as education, health, poverty-elimination, active ageing, independent living, community development and countless others.  As an environment for open and collective social innovation, Phyrtual challenges every project to become a social innovation movement and every participant to become an innovator.  

The fundamental units of Phyrtual are projects and people. All other aspects are subordinated to them: navigation, content, instruments, etc.  Empowerment and unity are two keywords in the governance of Phyrtual.

 

Empowerment is the will and ability of people to shape their own future through the release of their creative and innovative energies. Phyrtual pursues empowerment for all and, particularly, the weakest sectors of the population.

Unity is the will and ability of people to learn and work together to multiply the forces of creation, development, diffusion, implementation, and impact of social innovations.

 

These principles of empowerment and unity inform the content of Phyrtual governance and development policy and, hence the model of participation by individuals and organizations. 

 

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2. Objectives: 
<p>The specific objective of Phyrtual.org is to develop, scale up and diffuse globally a virtual environment for social innovation with the following characteristics: evolutionary, interactive, modular and configurable. From the viewpoint of social innovation, the website aims at enriching and empowering people’s and communities’ multi-dimensional potential through the pursuit of knowledge, wisdom, arts, positive emotions and values, community building, and the application of supporting instrumentation for all these aspects. &nbsp;It is a virtual environment that integrates with physical innovation environments (Physical &amp; Virtual = Phyrtual) giving rise to Phyrtual movements dedicated to social innovation projects, programmes and initiatives for a better world. Phyrtual intends to be an environment favouring the individual and collective growth of positive human traits in the “battlefield” of humanity. &nbsp;</p>
3. Beneficiaries: 
<p>People supporting and participating in social innovation processes are all Phyrtual users and customers. Social innovations can involve any or all sectors of society (e.g., for-profit, government, non-profit, and community organizations); they may take many forms from projects that improve the lives of specific disadvantaged people to large social movements that seek to benefit the entire population as in the case of the environment. People can play multiple roles inside social innovations: social innovators and entrepreneurs, developers, champions, financial donors, in-kind donors, teachers, volunteers,&nbsp;supporters, beneficiaries, etc.</p> <p>All these people are potential users of Phyrtual and, given the huge challenges facing the world in the 21st century (e.g., education, poverty, health, environment, peace and security), the potential numbers are very large indeed. At the core of the growth of Phyrtual, however, are the social innovators who are the initiators and the energy pulsing social innovation processes everywhere.</p>
4. Expected results: 
<p>Project Phyrtual pursues ambitious results in quantitative and qualitative terms. It aspires to become one of the referent environments for social innovation worldwide. At this early stage, the first main result is the development of Phyrtual.org, accompanied by the appearance of the first projects, partnerships and alliances.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>It is expected that this activity will grow continuously over time thus generating statistical data about users of various kinds, visits, projects, clicks, partnerships, alliances, project clustering, knowledge objects, creative and learning activities, and so on. Above all, project Phyrtual expects to generate strong value for the growth of social innovation experiences in terms of solidarity, generosity, feelings, knowledge, arts, fun, community building (movements), automatic instrumentation (evaluation) and eventually resources (human, financial, etc.).&nbsp;The development of instrumentation to assess these results is also part of the expected results.&nbsp;</p>
5. Partners: 
<p>Phyrtual is at the start of its public life and it is beginning to enter in strategic partnerships and alliances. <strong><em>Partnerships</em></strong> are agreements signed between organizations to work together in activities that advance the technical, content, organizational and social evolution of Phyrtual. &nbsp;<strong><em>Alliances</em></strong> may take shape between one or more organizations, for example, around a specific project involving Phyrtual.&nbsp; The partnerships and alliances are established through the Fondazione Mondo Digitale and they are just beginning to accumulate.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Partnerships</strong> so far include:</p> <p>Viraçao <a href="http://www.viracao.org/">www.viracao.org/</a> - Brazil</p> <p>Aequinet &nbsp;<a href="http://www.aequinet.it/">www.aequinet.it/</a> - Italy</p> <p>Fundetec <a href="http://www.fundetec.es/mte/home_fundetec/index.html">www.fundetec.es/mte/home_fundetec/index.html</a> - Spain</p> <p>Datamation Foundation <a href="http://datamationfoundation.org/">http://datamationfoundation.org/</a> India</p> <p>MitraMandal Foundation <a href="http://www.mitramandal.org/">www.mitramandal.org/</a> - India</p> <p>The University of Edinburgh <a href="http://www.ed.ac.uk">www.ed.ac.uk</a> - UK</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Alliances</strong> involving the use of Phyrtual in projects include the following organizations:</p> <p>- Auser <a href="http://www1.auser.it/IT/HomePage">http://www1.auser.it/IT/HomePage</a>&nbsp;- Italia</p> <p>- Anteas <a href="http://www.anteasnazionale.it/">http://www.anteasnazionale.it/</a>&nbsp;- Italia</p> <p>- Romanian Society for lifelong learning&nbsp; (<a href="http://www.srep.ro/">http://www.srep.ro/</a>) - Rumania
</p> <p>- 50 Plus Hellas (<a href="http://www.50plus.gr/english">http://www.50plus.gr/english</a>) - Greece
</p> <p>- ICVolunteers, (<a href="http://www.icvolunteers.org/">http://www.icvolunteers.org/</a>) - International</p> <p>- Zentrum fuer Soziale Innovation (ZSI)&nbsp; <a href="https://www.zsi.at/">https://www.zsi.at/</a> – Austria</p> <p>- Delft University of Technology <a href="http://www.tudelft.nl/">http://www.tudelft.nl/</a> - The Netherlands</p> <p>- Social Innovation Fund - Lithuania</p> <p>- Centre for Visualisation and Interactivity in Education (CVIV) - Czech Republic</p> <p>- Associazione Nuovi Europei - Italia</p> <p>- Lazio Form <a href="http://www.lazioform.it/">http://www.lazioform.it/</a>&nbsp;- Italia</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Contacts, conversations and negotiations for other partnerships and alliances are under way.</p>
6. Technologies used: 
<p>At this initial stage, the process technology is straightforward. Hardware includes a few computers and a server. Software includes Drupal modules and web development software such as JavaScript, php and others. It also includes graphic software such as PhotoShop and Illustrator. &nbsp;Network technology is at 10MB.</p> <p>This process technology will undertake substantial upgrading as Phyrtual begins to grow. For instance, the server and connectivity capacity will be&nbsp;quickly&nbsp;challenged by such growth.&nbsp; A mixture of internal resources and in-kind and financial donations constitute the main source of technological resources. Thus, individuals and organizations supporting the project can make contributions in kind (e.g., tools, equipment, software, connectivity, etc.) or support their acquisition.&nbsp;</p>
Personal Contact Information
Name: 
Alfonso Molina
Job Title / Profession: 
Professor of Technology Strategy and Scientific Director
Organization: 
The University of Edinburgh and the Fondazione Mondo Digitale
Email: 
A.Molina@ed.ac.uk
Tel: 
00 30 06 420 14 109
Fax: 
00 39 06 42000 442