Participatory Development of Technologies as a Way to Increase Community Participation: the Cidade de Deus Web Portal Case

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the process of development and improvement of a community web portal from the perspective of references such as social capital, solidary technology, local development and community organizing. As a case study we used the Cidade de Deus web portal (www.cidadededeus.org.br), result of a project of the Technical Solidarity Lab (Soltec / UFRJ) with community-based organizations (CBOs) of Cidade de Deus. Our main hypothesis is that more important than the technology itself, the process of developing this technology in a participatory manner can encourage community participation.