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Designing Smart Cities – Opportunities and Regulatory Challenges

Posted on    by Andrew McHugh
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Designing Smart Cities – Opportunities and Regulatory Challenges

By 6 November 2014No Comments

Conference Resources

A full resource page including images, audio, video and presentations from the conference is now available .

Context

WP1C2 - Live to Digital - Live events, streaming and digital business models_page1_image44Glasgow, and many other cities around the world, are part of the new phenomenon of “smart cities” i.e. the notion of creating innovative services, applications and delivery platforms by integrating public and private data sets at a citywide level.

Glasgow was awarded £24m in 2012 to run a prototype projects based around smart transport, energy, policing and health to demonstrate how ubiquitous computing might enhance societal, economic and environmental well-being.

This conference, chaired by Prof Lilian Edwards, will focus on how contemporary urban life is increasingly marked and shaped by technology, and critically assess what this means for existing societal norms and regulatory structures.

While the engineering & architecture worlds are already excited by smart cities, attention from a societal perspective is newer. CREATe, alongside Horizon, are interested in the possibilities of “smart” urban environments for new creative opportunities, including digital walls & graffiti, audience awareness & UGC engagement with sport.

Practical Information

The event will take place on Tuesday 31st March and Wednesday 1st April 2015 at the Technology and Information Centre (TIC) in Glasgow. The TIC is the University of Strathclyde’s new £89m state of the art hub that aims to revolutionise the way that researchers in academia and industry collaborate and innovate together.

Panel and Themes

WP1C2 - Live to Digital - Live events, streaming and digital business models_page1_image49Intelligent Built Environments & Urban Living: Consider the role of big data in planning & design. Also growth of adaptive architecture e.g. buildings changing due to biometric inputs

Smart transport Infrastructure: consider aspects of intelligent roads and autonomous cars

Creative Smart Cities: consider ambient public art e.g. digital grafitti; Play through sports e.g. marathons; large scale events like Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2014;

WP1C2 - Live to Digital - Live events, streaming and digital business models_page1_image25Policing and privacy in smart cities: look at ambient public space monitoring, public engagement & algorithmic surveillance

Future Energy Management and Sustainability: consider implications of smart grids & metering e.g. climate change, privacy

Trade offs: look at consent and privacy challenges from Ubiquitous monitoring by ambient technologies vs environmental, economic or convenience benefits.

Comparative International Perspectives: consider differences between developing & developed nation projects

Programme

Tuesday 31st March

9.30 – 9.45 am Welcome (Lilian Edwards)
9.45 – 11.00 am Introductions to Smart Cities: Opportunities and Challenges

  • (ch) Lilian Edwards, University of Strathclyde, Prof of E-Governance
  • Richard Bellingham, University of Strathclyde
  • Alastair Brown, Glasgow City Council
  • Paul Galwas, Catapult, London
  • Rob Kitchin, National University of Maynooth, Dublin, Ireland (keynote overview)
  • Q&A
11.00 – 11.30 am Coffee
11.30 am – 1.00 pm Understanding Smart Cities Through the Globe
(ch) Abhilash Nair, University of StrathclydeKeynote: David Murakami Wood – Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada

  • Ayona Datta, University of Leeds
  • Melissa Low, Energy Studies Institute, National University of Singapore‘Many Smart Cities, One Smart Nation: Singapore’s Smart Nation Vision’
  • Dieter Cuypers, Flemish Institute of Technological Research – VITO
1.00 – 2.00 pm Lunch
2.00 – 3.30 pm Regulating Smart Cities 1: Ubicomp and Quality of Life in Smart CitiesSmart cities can be defined as urban environments where extra value and services are created for citizens by the amassing, sharing and harnessing of data, both from digital and real world (“Internet of Things”) sources. Yet such data driven regimes also raise legal and social, as well as technical, issues. Who owns data generated in smart cities? Who gets to buy and sell personal data? If consent is the key to user trust in smart technologies, how can real prior consent be obtained in smart “ambient” environments, including domestic space such as smart homes, fridges and bathrooms?! How can standards help establish interoperability and prevent smart cities becoming the modern version of “company towns”?

  • (ch) Lilian Edwards
  • Judith Rauhofer, University of Edinburgh
  • Alison Powell, Dept of Media and Communications, LSE‘Data Intermediaries and Citizenship: Who benefits?
  • Ewa Luger, Microsoft Research, Cambridge
  • Derek McAuley, Horizon, University of Nottingham
3.30 – 3.50 pm Coffee
3.50 – 5.30 pm Regulating Smart Cities 2: Policing and PrivacyThe development of smart cities involves the development and integration of new technologies and services, including technologies used for public safety and security. This session will consider SMART ‘surveillance’ and how surveillance oriented technologies are evolving novel in smart city environments. Issues covered include: the emergence of SMART surveillance systems, the degree to which they are transparent and accountable, how they are regulated and governed, and potential future developments in technology and practice. Technologies specifically considered include SMART CCTV, social media and drones.

  • (ch) Judith Rauhofer, University of Edinburgh
  • David Murakami Wood, Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada
  • William Webster, Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy, University of Stirling
  • Paul Mackie, CameraWatch
  • Daniel Trottier, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands
6.00 pm Civic Drinks Reception at Glasgow City Chambers

Wednesday 1st April

9.30 – 11.00 am Energy/Environment/Climate Change and Smart Cities

  • (ch) Karen Turner, Centre for Energy Policy, University of Strathclyde
  • Francesco Sindico, Strathclyde Centre for Environmental Law and Governance‘Are cities smarter than States when it comes to climate change?’
  • Melissa Low, Energy Studies Institute, National University of Singapore‘Energy Smart Cities: Perspectives from a City-State, Singapore’
  • Stuart McIntyre, Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics‘Feed-in Tariff design in the UK; cities and economic inequality’
  • Colin Reid, Wheatley Group‘Glasgow: a Case Study in housing regeneration through energy, environment and sustainable communities’
11.00 am – 11.30 pm Coffee
11.30 – 1.00 pm Planning, Design, Transport and Smart Cities

  • (ch) Mark Poustie, University of Strathclyde
  • Branka Dimitrijevic, University of Strathclyde‘From transition towns to smart cities: Opportunities and challenges’
  • Holger Schnadelbach, Embodied Adaptive Architecture’, University of Nottingham
  • John Miles, Cambridge University – ‘The Challenge of Driverless Cars’
  • Daithi Mac Sithigh, University of Newcastle‘Joe Chamberlain’s Smartphone: local government and the sharing economy’
1.00 – 2.15 pm Lunch
2.15 – 3.45 pm Culture, Sports and Participation in a Smart CitySmart cities are not just economic or surveillance entities, but positive places for the public to engage, for grassroots participation and perhaps for better or even new forms of artistic and sporting endeavour. Our panelists will report from Glasgow, Ghent and Edinburgh on how network connections can be made in smart cities at a social level; how participation in sporting events can be extended to engender legacy; and what challenges there are for bottom up citizen participation in the “smart cities idea”.

  • (ch) Philip Schlesinger, University of Glasgow
  • Robert Rogerson, University of Strathclyde
  • Chris Speed, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh
  • Dieter Cuypers, VITO, Belgium, ‘Embracing bottom up – the case of the Trojan Lab in Ghent (BE) and its Living Streets’
    • Key Note – Rob Procter, University of Warwick‘How do Smart Cities Promote Social Welfare?’

This keynote will explore the tensions between the top-down, technocratic vision of the smart city, as delivered by professional urban scientists, with the simultaneous emergence of bottom-up, community-led ‘citizen urban science’. Procter will suggest that realising the benefits of smart cities depends on being able to reconcile the two.

3.45 – 4.15 pm Concluding Thoughts and Cross Cutting Themes

 

 

Registration

The event is free but registration is required. If you wish to attend please complete the form below.