Community platform, built to measure

A platform on which a network signs up members, organises events and lets members find each other. Designed and built by LeX, set up for each network.

The platform

What it is

A community platform based on HumHub, open source software, with features LeX built itself. The same base runs for several networks, each with its own database, its own content and its own house style. Everything runs on a server of our own in the Netherlands.

What a network can do with it.

Sign up members, as individuals or organisations, with online payment and invoices.
Organise events: registration, tickets, a waiting list, reminders and session choice.
Sell merchandise in its own web shop.
Take new members through the platform step by step.
Work together in a chat and on an opportunities board for projects and calls.

Spaces: where the conversation happens

Members take part in spaces: standing rooms per theme, each with its own timeline, members and files. The Limburg AI Netwerk currently works with these spaces.

Overview of twelve spaces in the hub, from Welcome and introductions to Travel, each with a short description — The spaces in the Limburg AI Netwerk hub. Each network on the platform gets its own set.

Network tool

Who stands close to whom

The part LeX designed from the ground up is a network tool: custom-built into the hub, with its own algorithm that shows how close members stand to each other. The algorithm looks at what people share, each with its own weight: groups, role, sector, themes and location, at city level. From that comes a map of the network, with clusters and, for each member, the people who stand closest.

The tool also looks for the opposite: not who resembles you, but who shares a rare theme with you, or who forms a bridge to another part of the network. That is where the connections come from that bring a network new work. The administrator can also see who is drifting to the edge, before they leave.

Network map with 63 members as purple and orange dots, connected by lines of varying thickness — Network map from the Limburg AI Netwerk hub, without names. Each dot is a member; the thicker the line, the more two members share.

The tool connects people; it decides nothing. It makes suggestions, and members choose for themselves whom they talk to. An AI layer that reads the meaning of themes more precisely is only switched on when someone has chosen it. It runs through a European provider, and every call is logged, so it can be checked afterwards.

In use

For which networks

The Limburg AI Netwerk (Limburg AI Network) uses the platform as its hub: hub.ai-netwerk-limburg.nl (opens in a new window). CRES (opens in a new window), a European association, has its own English-language environment: cres.lexconsultancy.nl (opens in a new window).

Where roles meet. LeX is a member and board member of the cooperative behind the Limburg AI Netwerk (opens in a new window), and the director of LeX is President of CRES. In both cases LeX builds for an organisation where it also sits at the table. That is why we say so here.

How we keep roles apart

What it delivers. A network with its own infrastructure, instead of separate tools and the inbox of one person who keeps pulling. And a network that can see how it fits together.

Related service: Networks and European projects