Smart Community Research Project
An infraNET Project
Communities and Information Technology
Every day we live, work, study, and play
in many different geographic and virtual communities. For example, many
of us live and play in a community such as Waterloo and work, study and
play in both the community of the University of Waterloo and in the
internal and external communities of employers, students and professors.
These communities and their “citizens” are using information technology
such as e-mail and the World-Wide Web to communicate and conduct various
business transactions. The numerous sources of information and electronic
destinations and the amount of communication at times feel overwhelming
and unmanageable. Are there better ways to manage our interactions with
these communities? This research project is focused on developing
software and processes to bring the power of the Internet and the Web
to the community level. Examples of the work being done at the University
of Waterloo and some of its spin-offs to manage communities and their rich
information content are:
