Hacking, Prototyping and Smart Citizens

This session took place at the RE.WORK Cities Summit in London on 13th December 2013. https://www.re-work.co/cities-2013 The 'internet of things' and sensors are creating 'Smart cities' and collecting an unprecedented amount of information from citizens and movement in the city. However, these 'smart cities' must include the fears, anxieties, and opportunities for individuals and communities living in the urban area. How can we use different tools and approaches such as prototyping and crowdsourcing to incorporate the views of citizens into the 'internet of things', sensors, and open data sphere? This session will take a look from the bottom-up to see how we can use new technology in a creative way to ensure our future cities are sustainable and technologically efficient but also incorporate the needs of citizens. SPEAKERS Alicia Asin, Co-Founder & CEO, Libelium IoT: Smart Cities Involve Citizens With so much talk of a huge unmet opportunity to apply technology and create efficient Smart Cities in our Internet of Things era, we must remember that these new cities have to serve citizens. Citizens will use and benefit from technology advancements, and they will take part in the decision process and implementation. And whether the impetus stems from cities offering services, citizens cooperating with companies, or citizens on their own, through Open Data initiatives or crowdsourcing, we have learned that they have a lot to say about it! Joel Gethin Lewis, Co-Founder, Hellicar & Lewis Paper Prototyping the City Joel Gethin Lewis, co-founder of Hellicar&Lewis will discuss paper prototyping and some previous outcomes of this technique related to how everyone can think about urban futures. Paper prototyping is a technique that allows individuals and groups to ignore awkward constraints on innovation such as funding, ability and experience to get to the core of an idea quickly - before large capital outlay. He will focus particularly on the filtering down of technologies from the military, to large corporations and finally to artists and individuals. Priya Prakash, Founder, Design for Social Change How to Prototype Better Cities with Smart Citizens? This session will focus on current smart city & internet of things trends analysing the pros and cons of large-scale infrastructural rollouts which lacks citizen engagement/input in its design. By taking a case-study approach on how best to prototype better cities using people centred design, low-cost technology and mobile devices, the session explore how by harnessing neighbourhood loyalty, crowdsourcing, solving and funding community created solutions councils, businesses and cityplanners can co-create better cities with people who live in it. Finally learn an approach to co-create a better neighbourhood with your community using the mobile in your pocket. Sam Hill, Founder, PAN Studio In 2013 PAN Studio launched Hello Lamp Post -- an 8 week, city-wide installation across Bristol, commissioned by Watershed Art Trust for the Playable City Award. Hello Lamppost brought thousands of objects across the city to life -- including (but not limited to) post boxes, lamp posts, bus stops and parking meters. By referencing the existing identifier codes seen on these items of street furniture, the people of Bristol could converse back and forth with objects via text message.