Rethinking the Smart City

Published in 2018, the text by Evgeny Morozov and Francesa Bria offers a clear vision and action doc on the current trend of declaring many cities ‘smart’. Their plea for a far more democratic and in-control situation is not a refusal of technological developments but for a rethinking of data-ownership  and   responsibility. “The authors discuss alternative smart city models, which rely on democratic data ownership regimes, grassroots innovation, and cooperative service provision models.”

IoT & Built Environment 2015

On April 9th. 2015, the 4th. IoT, Built Environment & Smart City conference, now organized as a MeetUp, was held in Rotterdam, this year back on its original location, i.e. V2, Institute for the Unstable Media. Besides a fine line-up of speakers, among which Nimish Biloria (TUD-Hyperbody, Ben van Lier (Centric), Jan Belon (Buitengewone Zaken) , Floris Schiferli (Superuse), also one political party from Rotterdam (Nils Berndsen/D66) was present; which can only be admired, given the subject. Worthwhile in particular was the lecture (read by me due to her illness) from Cristina Ampatzidou; and especially the closing debate, moderated – like the whole event by Leon van Geest – delivered some interesting discussions and statements.

Engage Rotterdam

Constructive meeting and – above all – breakout sessions – yesterday on the 14th floor at Central Post Rotterdam as part of Engage Rotterdam; organized by Hogeschool Rotterdam and Livework on Smart City-issues. Once again a call for ‘rethinking the future’ (Ingrid Mulder, TUD & HR) and various attempts to create real participatory projects, some of which will be added to the CityLab-010.