Cities have become the economic bedrock of modern nations and this transition will likely be continued in the coming years as an estimated three billion people will move into cities by 2030. Nevertheless, while urbanisation can entail economic dynamism and social development, it can also create enormous social challenges. The management of natural hazards and pollution, the exclusion of the poor from the city’s socioeconomic fabric and the subsequent surge of social and economic inequalities have become some of the pressing issues that modern metropolises need to address.

Teodoro Criscione, a 2nd year PhD candidate at the Department of Network and Data Science, presented his ongoing research on the network of the Community Currency System (CCS) in Kenya, the so called Sarafu Network. The emergence of CSS is driven by the need for an alternative credit system outside the official monetary system in a small and close-knit environment. In order to increase the well-being of a community, this aforementioned scheme focuses on financing community projects.