Global Resources and Promising Practices for Building and Refining Accessible and Inclusive Smart Cities from Darren Bates LLC.
Ford has unveiled a prototype smart car window that will allow blind people to “feel the view” that sighted drivers can enjoy. “From rolling hills to mountain ranges, views make any road trip memorable, but for blind passengers this is part of the experience that they miss,” the company said. The smart car window aims to change this by enabling…
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How co-creation is shaping the future of cities As the famous urban activist Jane Jacobs once wrote, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” It’s a truth that lies at the heart of a number of urban co-creation projects, which tap into the collective knowledge of citizens to…
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Even just walking on Via del Corso in Rome or on Esplanadi in Helsinki it is possible to notice how much people live their city through the smartphones, but we rarely focus on how the use of the new technologies is contributing to promote inclusion and participation to the life of the urban contexts. The metropolitan areas of Helsinki and…
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Are smart cities another fad that benefits only big tech companies, or can the power of citizen sensing help make life better for all who call the city home? Who would have thought frogs could be enlisted in the fight against household mould? It happened in Bristol in the United Kingdom when a digital ‘damp’ sensor in the form of…
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Google Maps is filling in an important detail for its transit navigation by giving users the option to check a box that will highlight wheelchair accessible stations. The addition of wheelchair accessibility is meant to round out other location and direction features on a global basis. “This feature is rolling out in major metropolitan transit centers … Continue reading Google Maps…
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Technological fixes such as smart cities make a system more complex, resulting in “wicked problems” that require ever more extensive technological remedies. In October 2016, at the World Urban Forum 8 in Quito, Ecuador, UN Habitat launched its third planning cycle with Habitat III, now known as the New Urban Agenda. The agenda defines the work of the global urban…
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article-context-nav context-nav article article-hero-lede article-hero article-contents post-contents On the Sidewalk Labs website is a 200-page document explaining its vision for a smart neighborhood in Toronto. It’s packed with illustrations that show a warm, idyllic community full of grassy parks, modular buildings and underground tunnels with delivery robots and internet cabling inside. The text describes “a truly complete community” that’s free…
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CONNECTHINGS LAUNCHES PILOT PROGRAM BRINGING CAPITAL METRO BUS INFORMATION TO PEOPLE WHO ARE BLIND OR VISUALLY IMPAIRED IN AUSTIN Network of beacons at bus stops deliver real time schedule and alert information to riders via the BlindSquare app Demostration is part of AustinCityUp’s vision of using innovation to facilitate a truly inclusive community while raising the quality of life…
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The goal of Smart City engagement is to meaningfully connect all citizens, the local developer community, artists and cultural institutions, entrepreneurs, start-ups, universities, and companies to improve the lives and the quality of life of all Smart City citizens. Darren Bates LLC In June 2015, the ministry of urban development came out with guidelines for a smart city. These guidelines…
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At the Council, we often look at smart street lights as a great first smart cities project. From energy efficiency to manageability, they deliver visible, quick-wins. And they’re also a platform for growth, a vehicle for collecting and communicating data. The possibilities of what you can do with that platform are limitless, as you’ll read below. Several of our…
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Submissions are now open for the six-week Open Innovation Competition, with $20,000 cash and up to $40,000 of in-kind prizes up for grabs for winning solutions. Chair of the City of Melbourne’s Knowledge City portfolio and Deputy Chair of the People City Portfolio, Councillor Dr Jackie Watts, said that the Open Innovation Competition aims to cultivate tangible solutions to make…
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‘I feel like a second-class citizen’: readers on navigating cities with a disability We asked readers with a disability to share their experiences – good and bad. Their responses show the many ways people can be shut out of their communities. Only 50 out of 270 tube stations are fully accessible. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian …
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What would a truly disabled-accessible city look like? Most cities are utterly unfriendly to people with disabilities – but with almost one billion estimated to be urban-dwellers by 2050, a few cities are undergoing a remarkable shift by Saba Salman To David Meere, a visually impaired man from Melbourne, among the various obstacles to life in cities is another that…
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BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – In the fashionable Poblenou district of Barcelona, hipsters and entrepreneurs rub shoulders with homeless people and immigrants, as the city authorities try to reduce digital inequality. The futuristic Media-TIC building is one of several venues around the city where disadvantaged people can sign up for free courses to improve their online literacy skills under a…
Read MorePutting Digital Equity in Cities Front and Center There are plenty of opportunities and challenges for municipal leaders who want to expand access to high-speed Internet in their communities. WASHINGTON — Providing Wi-Fi hotspot devices that can be checked out from libraries, connecting residents in public housing with high speed Google Fiber service and beaming down wireless Internet signals to…
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The WeDC Campaign is Washington, DC’s initiative to showcase SmarterDC as the “Capital of Inclusive Innovation” at SXSW. As one of the top digital campaigns at SXSW, DC’s community of innovators and leaders share what makes DC the #1 place to do business. Transcript 0:03 that working in DC it’s very natural 0:06 energy about itself everywhere else 0:08 thank…
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The Smart Dubai initiative is anchored in the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to make Dubai the happiest city on earth. OUR MANDATE Collaborating with private sector and government partners, Smart Dubai was established to empower, deliver and promote an efficient, seamless, safe and impactful city experience for residents and visitors. To achieve its strategic…
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n the Government, digital services projects too often fail to meet user expectations or contain unused or unusable features. Several factors contribute to these outcomes, including the use of outdated development practices and, in some cases, overly narrow interpretations of what is allowed by acquisition regulations. OMB is developing tools to significantly upgrade the ability of Government digital services to deliver better results to our citizens and improve the way we capitalize on information technology (IT [1]) to better serve the American people.
One tool is the Digital Services Playbook, which identifies a series of “plays” drawn from proven private sector best practices to help agencies successfully deliver digital services. Another tool is the TechFAR, which highlights flexibilities [2] in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR [3]) that can help agencies implement “plays” in the Playbook that would be accomplished with acquisition support.
The vision for the TechFAR is that it will be expanded in future iterations to address many areas of IT. This edition of the TechFAR is aligned with the Digital Services Playbook guidance to use contractors to support an iterative development process. In particular, it emphasizes Agile software development [4], a technique for doing modular contracting and a proven commercial methodology that is characterized by incremental and iterative processes where releases are produced in close collaboration with the customer. This process improves investment manageability, lowers risk of project failure, shortens the time to realize value, and allows agencies to better adapt to changing needs. Agile software development is geared towards projects where significant design and development are needed, such as digital services (e.g., healthcare.gov or recreation.gov) as well as internal digital services and business systems. It is not designed to be used for commodity IT purchases, especially where commercially available off-the-shelf items can be used as-is at a lower cost and lower risk to the Government….
Read More The American people expect to interact with government through digital channels such as websites, email, and mobile applications. By building digital services that meet their needs, we can make the delivery of our policy and programs more effective.
Today, too many of our digital services projects do not work well, are delivered late, or are over budget. To increase the success rate of these projects, the U.S. Government needs a new approach. We created a playbook of 13 key “plays” drawn from successful practices from the private sector and government that, if followed together, will help government build effective digital services….
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The age of the “Smart City” is upon us!
It’s just that, we don’t really know what that means. Or, at least, not yet.
So far, many “Smart City” pilot projects that we’ve undertaken here in Boston have ended with a glossy presentation, and a collective shrug. Nobody’s really known what to do next, or how the technology and data might lead to new or improved services.
We want to change that. We address this playbook to the technology companies, scientists, researchers, journalists, and activists that make up the “Smart City” community. In return for heeding this advice, we commit that we, the City of Boston, will not sit in City Hall and complain about the lack of solutions to our problems. We promise to get out into the City, find ways to help you pilot new ideas, and be honest with our feedback.
Our goal is to create a City-wide strategy for the use of sensor technologies that is people-centered, problem-driven, and responsible.
We need your help to get there.
*This playbook is a living draft being developed by the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics and is inspired by the US Digital Service’s Playbook. Please send us your thoughts for building it out further, and watch for new updates!
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