Digital technologies and the social economy: New technologies and digitisation: opportunities and challenges for the social economy and social enterprises

The ongoing digital transformation is crucial for the social economy as it presents both enormous opportunities and challenges. Digital technologies, such as online platforms, software applications (apps), distributed ledger technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI), offer a wide variety of tools to support the creation of social values and the development and further expansion of the social economy. Budget constraints, digital skills shortages and technological gaps are clear barriers for the social economy to uptake new technologies. We selected 26 social economy organisations using innovative digital technologies effectively across Greece, Italy, The Netherlands and the UK. Our objective is to understand how they are working through the digitalisation process. The study, based on primary information and insights collected via personal interviews, workshops and on relevant literature, sheds light on the key questions stated above. Here we present highlights of the study.