Integrative secondary-education programs and research in smart cities context

A smart city can be considered as a specific form of modern city that emphasizes the efficiency of infrastructures by using ICT: many early models equate a smart city with the systemic integration of ICT in e.g. the energy or the mobility sectors – while not considering societal aspects. Innovation is recognized as a key driver in smart city, and thus people, education, learning, research and knowledge gain central importance. This paper sums up the relevant national smart cities activities in Austria and provides an indepth insight into the smart cities activities at the University of Applied Sciences (UAS) Technikum Wien, focusing on gender, diversity and citizen integration in the smart city decision processes. Current steps towards integration of smart cities into research and teaching include recently established smart cities competence team, endowed professorship and the planed smart cities conference in Vienna. Furthermore, the paper is summarizes elaborated educational programs at the UAS Technikum Wien with smart cities focus. Initial base for the smart cities integration in educational and research activities at UAS Technikum Wien has been built within the framework of the European Academic Smart Cities Network (EU-ASCIN) project, with the main goal to establish an Academic Smart Cities Network in cooperation with national and international universities and research institutes. Furthermore, the project allowed to build up professional competence in the area of smart cities oriented education and to expand the training opportunities at the UAS Technikum Wien with smart cities tailored Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs. This paper summarizes the project results of the EU-ASCIN project and in particular describes exemplary integration of the proposed educational programs based on practice- and professional field-oriented, diversity-fair approach. Along with the educational approach, UAS Technikum Wien also supports with research and demonstration projects, to guerantee sustainable integration of the smart cities topic at the UAS Technikum Wien. This paper provides information concerning selected, demonstration project “Korneuburg WAY2Smart”. The project “Way2Smart” is driven by the intention to live up to its 2036 Vision Statement and Master Plan. The municipality of Korneuburg intends to rehabilitate two municipality-owned residential buildings, densify them by way of superstructures and annexes and equip them with energy-generating areas, and thus at the same time contribute to covering young tenants’ demand for affordable small apartments. This paper shows the endeavors to achieve the ambitious objectives in terms of energy and CO2- saving in Korneuburg by 2036 and concentration on “social togetherness”

Transition UGent: a bottom-up initiative towards a more sustainable university

The vibrant think-tank ‘Transition UGent’ engaged over 250 academics, students and people from the university management in suggesting objectives and actions for the Sustainability Policy of Ghent University (Belgium). Founded in 2012, this bottom-up initiative succeeded to place sustainability high on the policy agenda of our university. Through discussions within 9 working groups and using the transition management method, Transition UGent developed system analyses, sustainability visions and transition paths on 9 fields of Ghent University: mobility, energy, food, waste, nature and green, water, art, education and research. At the moment, many visions and ideas find their way into concrete actions and policies. In our presentation we focused on the broad participative process, on the most remarkable structural results (e.g. a formal and ambitious Sustainability Vision and a student-led Sustainability Office) and on recent actions and experiments (e.g. a sustainability assessment on food supply in student restaurants, artistic COP21 activities, ambitious mobility plans, food leftovers projects, an education network on sustainability controversies, a transdisciplinary platform on Sustainable Cities). We concluded with some recommendations and reflections on this transition approach, on the important role of ‘policy entrepreneurs’ and student involvement, on lock-ins and bottlenecks, and on convincing skeptical leaders

Smart & sustainable cities

The University of Strathclyde is creating a new Institute for Future Cities that aims to improve the quality of human life across the world through innovative research that enables cities to be understood in new ways, and innovative approaches to be developed for the way we live, work, learn and invest in cities. The new Institute will create a focus and strategy to coordinate academic research on urban themes, and partnerships with cities, businesses, research institutions and governments across the world. This paper outlines the wider context and issues for urban policy and research, and describes some of the key objectives and activities of the Institute for Future Cities - including the €3.7 million EU FP7 STEP UP project on sustainable city planning and implementation, a new ESRC research programme on crime prediction, and the City Observatory within the £24 million TSB Future City Demonstrator in Glasgow

Ethics and Design in the Brazilian Context

Often driven by practical and immediate requirements, more and more people are incorporating technology into a variety of aspects of their lives, often without reflecting on the consequences of using them. On the other hand, studies on interactive system development that lead to behavioral change have been gaining ground on the agenda of large HCI conferences. This movement brings to the forefront the fundamental issues of ethics in design and technology use. A designer’s intentions, when directing certain actions or behaviors, are not always explicit or desired by the stakeholders affected by the use of the technology. Systems that induce an undesired purchase, or even those that use conditioning strategies to cause a behavioral change are examples of such intentions. The challenge proposed is therefore about the relationship between design and personal freedom in a way that these technology users do not become victims, either passively or submissively, of the effects of its use. This advance allows for the redefinition of the relationship between man and technology, and the application of new forms of designing and developing interactive systems that take into account the ethical aspects of this relationship

The impact of the brics’ universities on internationalization of smart cities technologies

Within the past decade, the increased use of technology in all sectors of society has created a push for cities to integrate the latest and greatest into their city development economically, socially and politically. As cities gain greater control over their development and progression into the 21st cen-tury, they face a range of challenges and threats to sustainability in a varie-ty of ways. At the same time higher education institutions have a unique role in ensur-ing sustainable and smart development of the regions, since the list of their commitments include promotion of responsible knowledge and practice. The smart city is a complex and aspirational concept that is quickly shap-ing how we reimagine urban centers, especially in light of global trends (population growth, urbanization, climate change) and rapid innovation development. We live in an age of tremendous progress and many cities in emerging markets are leapfrogging old technologies and practices to im-plement faster, cheaper and more sustainable infrastructure and programs. In this paper we would like to look at smart city initiatives and technolo-gies developed and disseminated by the BRICS countries universities. We have conducted case study analysis in order to consider several exam-ples of smart city initiatives of HEIs from the sample

Towards evaluation design for smart city development

Smart city developments integrate digital, human, and physical systems in the built environment. With growing urbanization and widespread developments, identifying suitable evaluation methodologies is important. Case-study research across five UK cities - Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough - revealed that city evaluation approaches were principally project-focused with city-level evaluation plans at early stages. Key challenges centred on selecting suitable evaluation methodologies to evidence urban value and outcomes, addressing city authority requirements. Recommendations for evaluation design draw on urban studies and measurement frameworks, capitalizing on big data opportunities and developing appropriate, valid, credible integrative approaches across projects, programmes and city-level developments

Disaster Resilience Education and Research Roadmap for Europe 2030 : ANDROID Report

A disaster resilience education and research roadmap for Europe 2030 has been launched. This roadmap represents an important output of the ANDROID disaster resilience network, bringing together existing literature in the field, as well as the results of various analysis and study projects undertaken by project partners.The roadmap sets out five key challenges and opportunities in moving from 2015 to 2030 and aimed at addressing the challenges of the recently announced Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. This roadmap was developed as part of the ANDROID Disaster Resilience Network, led by Professor Richard Haigh of the Global Disaster Resilience Centre (www.hud.ac.uk/gdrc ) at the School of Art, Design and Architecture at the University of Huddersfield, UK. The ANDROID consortium of applied, human, social and natural scientists, supported by international organisations and a stakeholder board, worked together to map the field in disaster resilience education, pool their results and findings, develop interdisciplinary explanations, develop capacity, move forward innovative education agendas, discuss methods, and inform policy development. Further information on ANDROID Disaster Resilience network is available at: http://www.disaster-resilience.netAn ANDROID Disaster Resilience Network ReportANDROI

A Tale of Evaluation and Reporting in UK Smart Cities

Global trends towards urbanisation are associated with wide-ranging challenges and opportunities for cities. Smart technologies create new opportunities for a range of smart city development and regeneration programmes designed to address the environmental, economic and social challenges concentrated in cities. Whilst smart city programmes have received much publicity, there has been much less discussion about evaluation of smart city programmes and the measurement of their outcomes for cities. Existing evaluation approaches have been criticised as non-standard and inadequate, focusing more on implementation processes and investment metrics than on the impacts of smart city programmes on strategic city outcomes and progress. To examine this, the SmartDframe project conducted research on city approaches to the evaluation of smart city projects and programmes, and reporting of impacts on city outcomes. This included the ‘smarter’ UK cities of Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough. City reports and interviews with representative local government authorities informed the case study analysis. The report provides a series of smart city case studies that exemplify contemporary city practices, offering a timely, insightful contribution to city discourse about best practice approaches to evaluation and reporting of complex smart city projects and programmes