Webfare
WEBFARE aims to transform data generated by human online activity into a new form of capital – human, rather than financial – based on need. This renewable and shareable capital stems from the digital traces of everyday life and aims to redistribute value to those most in need, promoting a new economy rooted in need.
Vision
WEBFARE transforms human life into shared value. Everyday activities—once seen as mere consumption—are recorded by the web and turned into data, creating a new form of capital. This capital is new because it captures human behavior at an unprecedented scale; rich because it reflects thoughts, actions, and emotions rather than money; and renewable because data can be shared without being depleted. Above all, it is equitable: generated by universal human needs, not by contested ideas of merit. As a collective patrimony of humanity, this capital can be harnessed and redistributed to support those who need it most—placing human need at the center of value creation.
Goal
WEBFARE returns the value of web-generated data to humanity. Data produced through human activity online expresses needs, generates knowledge, and creates economic value. As such, it should be recognized as a form of human heritage. WEBFARE enables this value to be shared with the people who generate it—especially those with limited resources or unmet needs—through trusted intermediary actors. By connecting academic research, industry, and civil society, the project fosters a virtuous cycle that transforms data into social impact. WEBFARE’s mission is to capitalize on and socialize data through a multidisciplinary approach that integrates the humanities and computer science.
Why
Webfare aims to support a new welfare for the digital age, addressing the pressing problems of the twenty-first century
Philosophy
Human beings need to consume and satisfy their needs in order to survive. For the past 20 years, most of our consumption has left traces on the web. Apps, digital platforms, smartwatches, and other devices constantly record our daily behaviors, which, in the form of data, come to constitute an immense economic capital. So far, the only beneficiaries of this new capital have been digital platforms. Webfare aims to acknowledge that this immense value is a heritage of humanity, insofar as it is ultimately produced by the activities of each human being, and that it must therefore be redistributed.
Service 2
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Society
Many changes currently underway or expected in the near future raise pressing social problems. Technological progress and automation risk eliminating jobs; declining birth rates and population ageing are putting welfare and pension systems under strain in all developed countries. Webfare aims to offer solutions to address these transitions by financing a new welfare for the digital age, through the capitalization of the data each one produces online. The capital generated through the valorization of data can be used to support the welfare state, partially compensating those who lose their jobs due to automation or helping to identify alternative resources to traditional contributions to finance the growing expenditure on pensions.
How
The theoretical foundation of Webfare lies in the recognition that need is not a mere loss but a source of value
Guidelines Definition & Corpus Creation
Webfare proposes a radical reversal of the traditional socio-economic attitude toward human need. Historically, need has been regarded as a deficit: a sign of weakness, dependency, or failure. By contrast, Webfare argues that, in the digital age, need is no longer a pure loss but a primary source of value creation. Human needs are today systematically translated into data through ordinary online interactions. These digital traces generate substantial economic value, currently captured almost exclusively by large technological platforms. Webfare aims to reclaim this value by treating data as a common good generated by human need itself.
Human-Centered Validation Design
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Model Development & Performance Evaluation
Digital data can be capitalized by collecting and aggregating them by means of intermediary institutions that act on behalf of data producers. These intermediaries (data trusts, public-interest platforms, or specialized data banks) obtain informed consent to collect personal data, anonymize and standardize them, and assemble them into interoperable datasets. Once curated, these datasets become economic assets that can be monetized either by selling access to them or by lending them temporarily to third parties (for example, research institutions, companies, or public agencies) in exchange for fees. Intermediaries play a central role in transforming dispersed digital traces into structured capital, while also enabling forms of governance and redistribution that would be impossible through purely individual data transactions.