Cassio Renan Firmino das Chagas, João Marcelo Teixeira
A iniciativa Web3EduBrasil busca democratizar o acesso à educação sobre tecnologias Web3 no Brasil, promovendo um ambiente colaborativo onde tanto iniciantes quanto profissionais podem aprimorar seus conhecimentos e habilidades. Este artigo descreve a estrutura e os objetivos da Web3EduBrasil, incluindo seus Nós de Inovação, Programa de Mentoria e compromisso com os princípios ESG. A abordagem descentralizada da iniciativa capacita os participantes, promove a inclusão digital e impulsiona a inovação em diversos setores, como arte, negócios e sustentabilidade. Ao integrar educação, inovação e responsabilidade social, a Web3EduBrasil prepara os indivíduos para a participação ativa na economia digital descentralizada.
Abstract This chapter examines the insider–outsider dynamics shaping Web3 technologies as they navigate entrepreneurial ecosystems and the technology diffusion process. It establishes insiders as the developers, founders, and investor communities driving Web3 innovation, often operating in regulatory grey zones with a techno-solutionist mindset. In contrast, outsiders include institutions, policymakers, and the broader public reacting to Web3’s experimental nature and socio-technical novelty. The chapter situates Web3 within frameworks of technology adoption, socio-technical imaginaries, and models of diffusion. It highlights the tendency of insiders to overlook social nuances while pursuing rapid commercialisation and adoption. The chapter presents two case studies: the first examines the regulatory friction encountered by Ripple Labs and its digital asset, XRP; the second chronicles the rise and fall of Art NFTs, from their promise of empowering artists to their eventual decline due to legal uncertainties, environmental concerns, scams, and clashing community values. This decline mapped onto public disillusionment with the technology despite, and perhaps because of, its utopian techno-libertarian premise. The chapter argues that Web3 must navigate complex insider–outsider tensions while introducing disruptive innovations within existing socioeconomic structures. It concludes with policy recommendations spanning regulatory frameworks, consumer protection, responsible innovation, and public education to foster a more balanced and sustainable Web3 ecosystem.
Abstract The class of technology variously referred to as Web3 or crypto has been heralded as a democratizing force for economics and governance. This chapter argues that, to the extent such hype is justified, it is only partly due to the affordances of the technology itself. Perhaps more important is the amnesia it has induced, as an innovative paradigm whose novelty inclines people to neglect once-stable norms. In both economics and governance, crypto offers opportunities for greater democracy, but following through on them is guaranteed by neither the technology nor the amnesia it invites.
In an era of rapid technological advancement, decisions about the ownership and governance of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence will shape the future of both urban and rural environments in the Global North and South. This article explores how AI can move beyond the noise of algorithms by adopting a technological humanistic approach to enable Social Innovation, focusing on global inequalities and digital justice. Using a fieldwork Action Research methodology, based on the Smart Rural Communities project in Colombia and Mozambique, the study develops a framework for integrating AI with SI. Drawing on insights from the AI4SI International Summer School held in Donostia-San Sebastián in 2024, the article examines the role of decentralized Web3 technologies—such as Blockchain, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, and Data Cooperatives—in enhancing data sovereignty and fostering inclusive and participatory governance. The results demonstrate how decentralization can empower marginalized communities in the Global South by promoting digital justice and addressing the imbalance of power in digital ecosystems. The conclusion emphasizes the potential for AI and decentralized technologies to bridge the digital divide, offering practical recommendations for scaling these innovations to support equitable, community-driven governance and address systemic inequalities across the Global North and South.
Open access
2 source records
Innovative Approaches in Technology and Social Development
The new generation of digital intelligence technology enables knowledge creation, dissemination, and application to undergoing parallel changes. Scientific systems face an increasingly uncertain, diverse, and complex environment, making adopting multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches to research issues inevitable. Existing scientific systems follow linear value streams, leading to problems, such as inefficiency, unfairness, and knowledge monopoly. Decentralized science (DeSci) is a new scientific development paradigm based on Web3, Metaverses, and decentralized autonomous organizations and operations (DAOs) technologies, that can solve organizational and management problems in scientific systems through organizing, coordinating, and executing techniques. However, new economic theories and methods are still needed to effectively solve the problem of linear value flow in scientific systems. Metaeconomics based on the parallel intelligence theory, also known as decentralized economics (DeEco), provides a new approach and idea for redesigning the economic system of scientific markets. Thus, this article proposes a research framework and core mechanisms of DeSci MetaMarkets based on parallel economic theory to provide effective and practical methodologies for scientific system governance.
Over the past decade, technological changes have had a strong influence on society and science worldwide. Information and communications technology, big data, and artificial intelligence are only some digital innovations that have been transforming the research and practice of public policy. The impact of such technologies has recently become even more noticeable, for instance, through the prominence of machine learning chatbots. This raises several questions such as how to adapt institutions and regulatory processes to digital transformation, how such innovations can be used to enhance the design and implementation of policies, and how public policy and administration scholars should understand and make use of technologically driven futures. This third jubilee issue of Review of Policy Research (RPR) comprises six original articles which present a range of theoretical and empirical contributions to answering such questions. In the opening article, Kim et al. (2023) address the rising popularity of policy labs and examine to what extent they enhance the understanding and addressing of critical policy problems. To this end, they reviewed over 130 data-based policy labs across the world and their contribution to policy capacity. Most policy innovation labs are located in Europe and North America, initiated by governments or universities, and use various data types with a dominance of administrative data. Following the policy capacity framework by Wu et al. (2018), the authors differentiate between analytical, operational, and political policy capacity at the individual, organizational, and systemic level. The findings show that data-based policy labs enhance analytical and operational policy capacity at different levels but that they have only limited effects on providing political-based policy capacity. The article concludes with a future research agenda and suggestions for strategies to improve political capacity within policy innovation labs. These include promoting individuals' policy acumen as well as strengthening the environment for collaboratively learning about policy processes and political values on the organizational and systemic levels. Torfs et al. (2023) contribute to this issue with an application of the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET, Baumgartner et al., 2009, 2018) to analyze how institutional shifts impact digital policy change. Following an evolutionary perspective, the authors explored two decades of Belgian federal digital policy and its periods of policy stability (equilibrium) and change (punctuation). To this end, they analyze explanatory factors for negative and positive feedback mechanisms and the role of policy entrepreneurs. The methodological approach combines a distributional application of the PET with an explaining-outcome congruence case study, using documents, interviews, data on media coverage, regulation, and budgets. The authors illustrate that digital policy in Belgium is characterized by longer periods of stability and two periods of punctuation. It is shown that institutional shifts did impact Belgian digital policy. However, their explanatory power is limited as they lead to both positive and negative feedback mechanisms. More decisive factors in explaining digital policy (in)stability are attention allocation, policy entrepreneurs, and the political system. Torres and Fowler (2023) contribute to research on policy entrepreneurship with a study on the strategies bureaucrats used to change decision-making processes in the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). More specifically, the authors investigate how individuals drove organizational re-thinking on public participation and initiated the adoption of participatory technology assessment (pTA) within the space agency. The analysis of public documents and interviews reveals three main entrepreneurial strategies that helped shift the status quo and support citizen interaction in program design. The paper shows that the entrepreneurs reached out to and connected audiences across organizations in small-scale meetings where they presented a positive, solution-oriented reinterpretation of the program. In this discourse, they took a mediating position to have control over the narrative and decision-making process. Therefore, policy entrepreneurs, program-related group formation, and framing played an important role in the initiation of policy change within NASA. Di Giulio and Vecchi (2023) present further evidence for the influence of policy entrepreneurs and group formation on policy change with a case study on the public sector digitalization in Italy. After failed attempts to adopt digital technologies in the Italian public sector, the digital transformation agenda launched in 2016 was the first one to effectively induce policy change, despite the political instability at that time. Following theory-building process tracing (Beach & Pedersen, 2013), Di Giulio and Vecchi operationalize mechanisms that may explain this success, with a specific focus on related institutionalization processes. For this, they empirically investigate Italian innovation policymaking from 1993 to 2021. The results show that the Italian government used several strategies to increase organizational capacity and coordination as part of the 2016 digital agenda. This included engaging and appointing new professionals, restructuring the roles of governing bodies, and establishing new governmental agencies for digital transformation. This helped to build a community of policy entrepreneurs accountable for public sector digitalization which further created a bandwagon effect among implementers. Mukherjee et al. (2023) analyze how regulatory actors and processes surrounding digital innovation influence the creation of collectively shared and institutionally supported ideas of technological futures. Building on the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff, 2015), the authors conducted 33 interviews with regulators of two emerging technologies in the USA, namely the genome editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 and Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV). The in-depth interviews were used to understand how involved actors envision technology-driven futures and the social structures that enable them. In both cases, experts related ideas on technologically driven futures to questions on institutional authority, technological novelty, and risk management. However, the CRISPR and CAV stakeholders' narratives also differed along these aspects. For instance, the authors found that interviewees' imagined futures reproduce their respective regulatory environments, including power relations and intraorganizational boundaries. Mukherjee et al. argue that such differences across regulatory sectors, including institutional arrangements, norms, and practices, influence the imaginary formation around technologies and how they shape the future. Zeng et al. (2023) present another study on digitalized administration processes with an analysis of platform governance in China. The authors elaborate on the advantages of platform-based organizational processes and reflect, however, that the concept of Government as a Platform (GaaP) has been less promising. Zeng et al. argue that the platform-enabled government (PEG) concept which aims to accommodate institutional boundaries is better suited to improve collaborative governance than the GaaP with its focus on eliminating boundaries. The authors test the implementation and impact of 123 PEG cases in China across three policy areas, namely, administrative review, law enforcement, and contact tracing. The results support that PEG is an effective form of holistic governance as it enables to integrate functions of multiple departments in one workflow while respecting institutional boundaries. For instance, PEG facilitates cross-boundary exchange while enabling officials to retain intellectual property rights. The study indicates that PEG is supported by decentralized political systems and middle-tier platforms.
Innovation breakthroughs prompt sensemaking discourses that promote community learning and socially construct the innovation. Through this discourse, interested actors advance diverse frames, appealing to consumers with disparate preferences but raising concerns for the coherence of that discourse. We unpack this diversity-coherence paradox by recasting coherence as the relatedness of innovation frames and spotlighting the role of discursive fields that circumscribe meaning. Our empirical context is the first six years of blockchain discourse across seven discursive fields. Our research offers three insights in furtherance of an ecological perspective on innovation discourse. First, framing diversity emanates from discursive fields rather than from actors. Second, fields play differentiated roles in the framing process. Enactment fields comprised of actors with direct experience with the technology limit diversity. They do so by erecting walls that circumscribe discourse through imprinting on their original frame and retracting from or abandoning frames learned from other fields. In contrast, mediated fields, in which actors lack direct experience with the technology, enhance diversity. They do so by imitating or learning from other fields and foreshadowing or anticipating the frames used by other fields, thereby building bridges. Third, rather than opposing each other, diversity and coherence coevolve as the diversity induced by mediated fields increases framing redundancies, synthesizing frames into a coherent community understanding of the innovation. Our research signals to the actors who serve as innovation ambassadors and gatekeepers that diverse views of an innovation are not only inevitable, given the many discourse fields in which those views are formulated, but can also be coherent and desirable.
Digital transformation is emerging as a cornerstone of strategies aimed at addressing pressing global sustainability challenges, from climate change to resource scarcity and social inequality. By leveraging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing, societies are beginning to unlock new pathways for decarbonization, efficiency, and inclusive growth. AI and advanced analytics provide predictive insights for optimizing energy use, climate modeling, and resource management, while blockchain ensures supply-chain transparency and facilitates the verification of carbon credits. IoT-enabled systems and smart infrastructure enhance efficiency in energy distribution, agriculture, transportation, and manufacturing, contributing to circular economy practices and reduced environmental footprints. At the same time, cloud platforms and digital finance solutions democratize access to green technologies and sustainable investment opportunities. The transformative potential of these technologies extends across multiple sectors. In the energy domain, smart grids and decentralized renewables supported by digital integration are reshaping power systems. In agriculture, precision farming and digital supply chains reduce waste and improve productivity. Financial innovations, such as fintech-enabled green finance, are mobilizing capital toward sustainable projects, while e-governance platforms enhance transparency and data-driven policymaking for climate action. However, significant challenges remain. The digital divide threatens equitable access, while the energy demands of data centers and blockchain raise concerns about the carbon footprint of digital infrastructures. Cybersecurity, privacy, and governance gaps also pose risks that could undermine trust and resilience. Addressing these issues requires robust policy frameworks, public–private partnerships, and capacity building to ensure responsible, inclusive, and ethical innovation. Ultimately, digital transformation represents not only a technological shift but also a socio-economic opportunity to build resilient, net-zero, and equitable futures. Unlocking its full potential requires aligning digital innovation with global sustainability imperatives.
The proliferation of industrialisation and its environmental consequences over the last decades dictate the need for transitioning to a “Circular Economy” (CE) business model with a view to balancing manufacturers’ economic prosperity and environmental sustainability. Business models based on “Industrial Symbiosis Networks” (ISNs), within which traditionally independent industries continually exchange energy, materials and by-products, with no or minimum waste produced, have the potential to proceed in this direction. However, due to various cultural, organisational and managerial barriers, their state of development in Greece, similarly to rest of the world, is very low. That is exactly where this paper sets its objectives, aiming to alleviate these barriers and contribute in establishing cross-sectoral synergies by introducing an innovative business model, supported by an exchange platform in the form of a blockchain-based B2B digital marketplace. The proposed business model will detail a plan for creating symbiotic relationships among manufacturing companies in Greece and will be supported by a blockchain-based marketplace, which will enable material, by-product and energy exchanges in a reliable and secure way. Blockchain will act both as an exchange platform and a trust mechanism, since its decentralised nature, which is manifested in all its capabilities, i.e. smart contracts, tokenisation etc., will increase the business model’s reliability and facilitate its adoption and market penetration. The successful implementation of the porposed business model will bring about a multifaceted positive impact ranging from its contribution to exceeding the current state of the art in the intersection of environmental science and information technology, to benefiting society and economy through fostering sustainable regional development.
Michael Milovich, Jennifer Nicholson, Darren B. Nicholson
Within the ever-changing technology and business landscape, it is imperative that students develop skills in identifying and leveraging emerging technologies to create business value in innovative and novel ways. Drawing on the Net-enabled Business Innovation Cycle framework, applied learning techniques, and current events, we developed an assignment to explore one such emerging technology – blockchain – to enhance students’ ability to apply what they have learned to solve business problems. Our findings showed that students overwhelmingly found the activity and experience beneficial in three important ways: (1) understanding an emerging technology, (2) applying the technology to contemporary business issues, and (3) leveraging what they learned to create plausible solutions to business challenges and opportunities.
The G7 should address new, unprecedented and highly disruptive issues that characterise our complex world, rather than well‐understood international problems that fit into existing categories. We argue that the G7 can do this by playing to its strengths – informality and like‐mindedness in particular – in addressing emerging and transversal issues such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrencies.
The review discusses the ideas presented in the book by D. Tapscott and A. Tapscott - specifically, the concept of distributed capitalism allowed for by blockchain technology. The blockchain era is characterized by development of a new institution of trust; disruption of financial intermediation; economic inclusion of hundreds of millions of citizens in developing countries; an increase in competition and a decrease in inequality. The authors see the blockchain revolution as a solution to the problem of discrimination against intellectual property creators, who have to hand over a large part of the value created to intermediaries. They consider the main opposition to distributed capitalism to stem from the feudal financial system which loses ground under new conditions, where economic agents may use alternative currencies and interact directly with each other without risk and high transaction costs.
An upheaval is taking place in media circles globally. There are new programme services, new distribution vehicles and new devices; at the same time, financing sources are being eroded, with a growing competition for advertising revenues. The companies must deal with changing expectations of the viewers, especially younger viewers. The legacy models, formerly based on geographic boundaries and scarcity of certain kinds of resources (i.e. spectrum) are under pressure; new services (server-based distribution of content) are location-agnostic (customers can access, for instance, YouTube or DailyMotion from any location). The ubiquity and rise of the Internet are turning upside down the legacy media logic (Busson and Pham, 2010). Media and telecommunication networks were hierarchical and had centralized architectures; the Internet has a decentralized architecture, open and flexible, allowing interaction at both ends (the receiver can become the transmitter), forging a major schism from that model. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This paper postulates a life cycle model of university entrepreneurialism at the national level. Based on the analysis, this paper identifies two fundamental sources of such entrepreneurialism: 1) the institutional anchoring of the university of a public-private hybrid form in organization and finance; 2) decentralization of the system in such a way as to encourage a high level of competition and differentiation. We hypothesize that when national university systems grow and exhibit signs of demand overload, political pressures for system homogenization increase; system homogenization weakens both sources of entrepreneurialism and leads to decline. The sources of decline are thus unintended consequences of policy choices to cope with the side effects of demand overload within national university systems. Implications for the ascendant Chinese university system are derived.
The Soviet Union entered the 1960s with confidence after its victory in World War II, coupled with promising economic and political prospects. The Soviet bloc was having unprecedented productivity driven by the Information Technology Revolution, along with advances in finance, transportation, and agriculture. The Soviet bloc economy also received a boost following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953 and Nikita Khrushchev's reforms. The Soviets, with East Germany's Walter Ulbricht in the vanguard, were intent on harnessing the IT Revolution and cybernetics to overtake the West. Ulbricht's reform program of the 1960s, the New Economic System, was founded on cybernetics, cybermarxism, and innovation. Erich Apel, head of the State Planning Commission, designed the cybernetics program anchored on three basic reforms: decentralization, price and interest rate reform, and improved accounting and control systems. A focus of decentralization was forest management.