Published on 29.08.2025
Written by FinEst Centre for Smart Cities
Lauriana Sapienza is a councilor, researcher, and social innovator who bridges politics, digital innovation, and urban inclusion. At the FinEst Centre, she is exploring digital twin technologies from a socio-technical perspective, studying how technology and human practices intersect in Smart Cities.
We invite you to get to know her journey, from classical literature to participatory urban innovation – who is Lauriana and what brought her to Estonia? Discover her story in our short chat!
My education is classical: a degree in Classical Literature at Unibo (University of Bologna), studies in Comparative Literature in Heidelberg. I am an expert in political and institutional communication in the Emilia-Romagna Region.
In 2023, I obtained a master’s degree in public management and Innovation at Bologna Business School. I started my PhD studies in Sociology and Social Research in 2024 at Unibo.
In 2024, I was elected and appointed councilor for a second term in Castenaso (Bologna). As a councilor, I am committed to women empowerment: my policies help women with a migrant background learn Italian, obtain a driver’s license, and find a job.
I deal with inclusive cities, housing policies, people with disabilities, the elderly, rights protection, anti-racism, inclusive digital innovation, energy communities, participatory processes.
I would like to mention the latest project I carried out as a councilor: a women’s crowdmapping initiative through which we collaboratively created a digital map featuring 42 places in the city that offer services for women. The group consisted of about 30 women of various nationalities, ages, and social backgrounds.
We deeply reflected on how we women experience urban space, starting from an intersectional feminism perspective. We examined whether we experience it in the same way men do, and whether the services we need as women are available. Then we reassessed the main places in the city (libraries, municipal offices, health centers, etc.) from a gender perspective and compiled a profile for each of them. The map is on a collaborative and public social network created by the University of Turin called FirstLife.
My research focuses on digital twins conceptualized as socio-technical systems. A socio-technical system highlights the inseparable interdependence between social practices and technological infrastructures, emphasizing that technological artifacts are embedded within human, organizational, and cultural contexts.
This topic is closely connected to the Smart City, as Smart City infrastructures often enable the development and deployment of digital twins.
Within Smart City literature, two main theoretical frameworks can be identified: a technocratic approach, which emphasizes efficiency, optimization, and data-driven control, and a critical perspective, which seeks to include citizens’ voices and account for social equity and democratic governance. In this context, I am particularly interested in how digital twin technologies incorporate human–machine interaction and whether their implementations have been shaped through participatory processes.
Participation is crucial to ensure that digital twins are not merely technical instruments of urban management but co-produced with the communities and decision-makers they aim to support, thereby enhancing legitimacy, inclusiveness, and social relevance.
Lauriana & MoussaDuring the Master, I deeply reflected on the concept of data-driven policy making and the concept of innovation, starting from my political perspective and asking myself whether the two could somehow be linked. Innovation means new ideas, new people, new businesses in the labor market.
How can politics promote innovation without favoring already established groups that know how to ask for and obtain? In other words, how can politics support the entry of new entrants, unformed groups, who neither know how to ask nor obtain because they are unaware that they can?
Only by facilitating the entry of new players do we produce innovation. For this, participatory processes are necessary, and above all, a culture of transparency and data sharing is essential. I have thus wondered whether the actual “data deluge” (to quote Chris Anderson from Wired) has made politics more transparent, whether politicians can use data to build policies and make decisions in a participatory way. As a case study, I took the City Digital Twins implemented in some European cities, including Tallinn.
From my experience at the FinEst Centre I expect to gain value for my studies by closely observing how digital twin technologies are implemented in practice within Smart City projects.
While the Centre’s expertise lies primarily in technological development, this offers me an important opportunity to study digital twins from a socio-technical perspective by analyzing how technical infrastructures are designed, tested, and integrated into urban contexts.
This experience will provide me with empirical insights into state-of-the-art implementations, which I can then examine in relation to questions of participation, governance, and human–machine interaction. In this way, my time at the FinEst Centre will not only deepen my understanding of the technological side of digital twins but also strengthen my ability to connect these implementations with broader theoretical debates on Smart Cities and democratic urban innovation.
In a certain sense, it was the FinEst Centre that discovered me. As a civil servant of the Emilia-Romagna Region and for my responsibilities in digital innovation as a counselor, I participated in the presentation of the Tallinn DT in Bologna on December 7, 2023, during the kickoff meeting of VERA, the digital twin that the Emilia-Romagna Region is implementing. On that occasion, two international experiences were presented side by side: Tallinn and Herrenberg.
From the centre I noticed that it has beautiful infrastructure: modern and sunny offices, a kitchen with all the comforts, restaurants, outdoor green areas, and excellent connections to the city center with public transport.
I also noticed the high quality of its researchers and the international guests it hosts, in addition to the great work flexibility.
Regarding work life, I appreciate the weekly update meetings, the sharing of information, and the focus on relationships.
Regarding the team, I appreciate the passion and dedication to work and research, as well as the competence, things I have been able to capture in the interviews conducted so far.
Concerning Estonia, I appreciate the cool days, the sea, and the quality of life. Tallinn is a beautiful city full of nightlife. I have only been here for a short time, but it seems to me that there is a constant reflection between the former Soviet past and a present that is trying to critically and positively strengthen its own identity. The digital transition is very advanced in Estonia, and this makes me curious to learn about the results.
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