RLabs: A South African Perspective on a Community-driven Approach to Community Information

Abstract

Stakeholders in a community project commonly include academics, businesses, and people from within the community.  Community empowerment is a central motivation for community informatics; however it is debatable how the community is empowered and benefits from many community research projects.  This paper presents a community-driven case study, Reconstructed Living Lab, identifying factors that aid or hinder community-driven technological innovations.  The RLabs case study identifies the community as the main stakeholder and identifies the factors that aid or hinder community empowerment.  The conclusion is that Living Labs is an appropriate and effective vehicle for community empowerment.