Workshop theme:Ubiquitous computing: Augmented Reality, location-based services, internet of things, urban screens, networked objects and robots
Over the past few years, "Smart Cities" have become a prominent topic in tech conferences and press. Apart from the use of this term for marketing purposes, it corresponds to a mix of trends about urbanisation: the use of Information and Communication Technologies to create intelligent responsiveness or optimization at the city level, the coordination of different systems to achieve significant efficiencies and sustainability benefits, or the fact that cities provide "read/write" functionality for its citizens.
The common approach to design Smart Cities is to start by upgrading the infrastructure first and consider the implications afterward. We will take a different path in our workshop and focus on situations that imply already existing and installed technologies (from mobile phones to user-generated content and social networking sites). To follow up on past Lift talks (Nathan Eagle at Lift07, Adam Greenfield at Lift08, Dan Hill, Anne Galloway and Carlo Ratti at Lift09, Fabien Girardin at Lift France 09) and workshops (about urban futures at Lift07 and Lift09), the goal of this session will be to step back and collectively characterize what could be a Smart City. This workshop targets researchers, designers, technology experts interested in developing an alternative approaches to technology driven visions of urban environments.
Co-organizers: Nicolas Nova, Vlad Trifa and Fabien Girardin.
A workshop I'd be organizing at Lift with Vlad and Fabien.