Digital Publics - Digital public infrastructures supporting hyperlocal and global communities

In this future, a digital public infrastructure is formed, that enables everyone to engage in digital civic life. This will take an effort of consolidation, transfer of control to the user, and making the process transparent. A digital public ID will bring together various social media and online profiles, and we’ll be able to access feeds of information from different social networks that we are already part of. At the same time, individual citizens will be able to understand, control, and filter how they view information, as opposed to letting tech companies control our view with their algorithms. This will help us to free ourselves from living in a digital echo-chamber, where we’re constantly introduced to people of similar interest, reinforcing our narrow perspectives of the world.

The digital public infrastructure is accessible to people with all levels of digital literacy and accessibility. Public light poles that we see everywhere on the streets can be augmented with sensors and various data-transmission technologies (wifi, 5G, Li-fi, etc) as well as display interfaces. When you’re near the light pole, you can access (receive, view, browse) community-specific and localized information.