The WI-FI for local communities project represents an innovation under multiple points of view:
1) promotes the re-use of public broadband networks for addressing digital divide of peripheral urban areas;
2) offers a solution for reducing the digital divide affecting those “grey areas” – according to European Commission Definition - in which neither public nor private investments in broadband networks are, respectively, allowed or profitable;
3) promotes the contribution of local communities in designing solutions to their own problems and requires their active role in managing and financing them;
4) leverages on the traditional function of Social Centres as points of reference for local communities and contributes to their evolution towards becoming digital-social hubs for City Neighbourhoods

The project already completed both its pilot implementation in the Coviolo area and its first extensions to the Massenzatico and Fogliano areas. Both the Social Centres of the concerned areas and LEPIDA SpA, in its capacity of body responsible for deploying and managing the public broadband network of Emilia-Romagna, are monitoring quantity and quality indicators of both the Wi-Fi bandwidth available and of its actual use by citizens and businesses of the concerned areas. In parallel, qualitative surveys of citizens degree of satisfaction are being carried out. The outcomes of monitoring and evaluation will help to fine-tune and adapt the project scheme of implementation and/or its technical features for further implementations in other city neighbourhoods.

Pilot implementations in Coviolo, Fogliano and Massenzatico were based on the practices of public-public-community partnerships.
Public:close cooperation by the Municipality with LEPIDA SpA and the Emilia-Romagna Region for providing all premises of public bodies in the city area with broadband connection.
Public/Community: bringing broadband signal via a radio bridge to the concerned neighbourhoods was identified in cooperation between LEPIDA and the Social Centre, facilitated by the Municipality.

Citizens and businesses in Coviolo, Massenzatico and Fogliano can access internet resources through good quality connections at a reasonable cost. Government officials at different levels (i.e. regional, municipal) report their satisfaction for a solution that improves the social return on public investments in broadband infrastructures. Social Centres are satisfied as they can develop several new activities and services for their local communities based on broadband availability.

Up to a maximum of 300 households signed up for annual memberships to access the Wi-Fi broadband signal spread by the three Neighbourhood Social Centres. At present, some 150 annual memberships are still active. However, the number of subscribers is expected to grow significantly, provided that informative and promotional campaigns are properly implemented in the next future.
Very few complaints have been received so far by users for malfunctions and/or failures of the systems.
Membership prices are lower than available offers by market operators for connections which are of lower quality, as the investments needed to reach specific city districts were not implemented on account of a projected low profitability.

One major challenge faced was the scarce availability of staff with proper digital and system skills in Neighbourhood Social Centres, with few able to set-up and run a help-desk for assisting Wi-Fi users. The issue was solved directly by the Municipality via the procurement of technical assistance services to both NSCs and Wi-Fi users by a specialised company.
A significant challenge is also the operationalisation of suitable means to fully exploit the transfer and replication potential of this innovation. Such challenge is being addressed through the start-up of a City Laboratory for Open and Social Innovation. One of the mandatory tasks of the City Lab is to nurture, incubate and prototype innovations deriving from the initiatives co-designed and co-managed by the City and stakeholders in the policy frame “Neighbourhood as Commons".

The availability of a broadband network connecting all Emilia-Romagna public administrations is the most important single factor for the success of the initiative. Beside that, a number of reforms of the juridical framework ruling TLC shall be considered as pre-conditions for such an innovation to be implemented: first, use of TLC networks that cross public properties was exempted from payment of duties and from the authorisation of the Ministry for Telecommunications, provided that broadband is offered only on a membership basis. Law decree n. 69/2013 authorised the offer to the general audience through hyperlan and radiolan, provided that this does not represent the main commercial activity and that any margin is reinvested in social activities (Code for Third Sector). The “Neighbourhood as Commons" process set the framework and supported the collaborative design and pilot implementation in the Coviolo area and its first extension to Fogliano and Massenzatico.

The potential for replication of this solution is significant as it addresses digital divide issues in areas where public investment is not allowed and private investments are scarce. The policy technical tools for prototyping and scaling the innovation up have been set up in parallel to pilot implementation: Priority Axis 6 of Emilia-Romagna ERDF Programme for 2014-2020 implements the European Urban Agenda, giving cities a central role as innovation hubs. ERDF funds, matched by Reggio Emilia’s co-financing, covered both the complete refurbishment and renovation of the Cloisters of St. Peter and the opening inside such space of a City Laboratory for Open and Social Innovation. Reggio Emilia City-Lab’s main task is to act as an incubator of innovations in social services and welfare policies; to promote practices of open governance; to incubate and promote new ventures based on the paradigm of creative, shared and community economy by exploiting the potential of digital technologies.

Beside the specific technical aspects of the innovation, the initiative is having a positive impact on social capital and cohesion of the concerned neighbourhoods. Further, the project is providing Neighbourhood Social Centres the opportunity to enrich their typical range of activities. This in turn contributes decisively to extend the typologies of NSC’s users.

Reggio Emilia designed the ambitious plan of setting up a city-wide collaborative governance model. These projects are emblematic examples of how the City’s policies have worked towards the development of such a model. By investing in access, participation, co-management and/or co-ownership of technological and digital urban infrastructure and data, the region seeks to affirm the key role that digital tools play as enabling drivers of cooperation and co-creation of urban commons.
The bottom-up drivers of this transition will be the 28 Neighbourhood Social Centres (NSCs) which are public buildings run by no-profit associations that operate at the local scale which will become “Social hubs for digital transition and innovation” (SDI).
The underlying policy vision is centred on the evolution of the local communities into active protagonists of the social-digital transition process at the neighbourhood level. The main expected result is the creation of an innovative network of SDIs that act as decentralised nodes able to facilitate and accompany - through specialized knowledge, training processes, continuous learning and constant supervision/valorization - the transition to the envisaged city governance.