Tue 12 September 2017 | 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm
Tel Aviv University - Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, FREE
Tel Aviv University’s Research Center for Cities and Urbanism – TAU City Center – will hold an international conference on “Smart Cities: Potentials, Prospects and Discontents” on September 2017.
The smartification of cities implies an integration of the real and virtual worlds by means of AI (Artificial Intelligence) artifacts that imitate and simulate cognitive capabilities such as learning and rational decision making. These have the potential to revolutionize the dynamics and structure of cities and the lives of those who inhabit them. There is therefore great enthusiasm that ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and IoT (Internet of Things) – with their big data and data mining capabilities – will make the control, planning and governance of cities more efficient, just, sustainable and resilient than ever before, and will thus solve chronic urban problems such as traffic jams, environmental pollution and the like.
At the same time, there is also skepticism that over-efficient urban planning and control have the potential to transform our cities into an Orwellian nightmare.
Smart cities are also currently discussed in the context of CTC (Complexity Theories of Cities), a domain of research that applies the various theories of complexity as a means to study and model the dynamics of cities. What is still missing in the general smart cities discourse as well as in the context of CTC concerns the implications to urban dynamics; namely, a response to questions such as: How can smart artifacts that partly imitate learning and rational decision-making affect the various urban processes? How to model such a real-virtual city? What is an ‘urban agent’ in such a context? Can the ‘things’ of IoT be considered agents?
The conference will comparatively discuss these and other questions and aspects of smart cities, and will thus explicate their potentials, prospects and discontents in general and in the specific reality of Israeli society.
Prelimminary Agenda:
Mon. Sept. 12, 16:30-20:00 | Jaglom Auditorium, Senate Building
Opening session – Chair: Juval Portugali
Tue. Sept. 13, 08:30-18:00 | Auditorium (B013), Porter Building
Sessions:
– Array of Things, crowd sourcing and big data
– The dark and bright sides of smart cities
Round tables – Chair: Ophir Paz-Pines
Wed. Sept. 14, 08:30-18:00 | Auditorium (B013), Porter Building
Sessions:
– Transportation
– The smartification of cities and their design
– Urban governance
Closing session – Joseph Klafter, TAU president
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