Global Resources and Promising Practices for Building and Refining Accessible and Inclusive Smart Cities from Darren Bates LLC.
How Human-Centered Design Helps Smart Cities Reach Their Goals Smart cities are becoming increasingly popular across the globe, with many cities introducing technology-driven initiatives to improve the standard of living for its citizens. As technology is becoming an ever-growing part of our daily lives, cities are turning to human-centered design to make sure that their technological initiatives are able to…
Read More
Traveling to work, meeting friends for a catch up or just doing some shopping are often taken for granted by people with no known disabilities. For the visually impaired, these seemingly simple things can be a serious challenge. But imagine a city equipped with technology that enables the visually impaired to recognise people, places or even bank notes, helping them…
Read More
Abstract Of the many features that smart cities offer, safe and comfortable mobility of pedestrians within the built environment is of particular importance. Safe and comfortable mobility requires that the built environments of smart cities be accessible to all pedestrians, mobility abled and mobility impaired, given their various mobility needs and preferences. This, coupled with advanced technologies such as wayfinding…
Read More
As many city environments are still designed to support an able-bodied working population, older people risk being excluded from the social and economic life of the city, especially when they lose functional ability. Age-friendly urban environments are therefore essential to enable a good quality of life across the life course, including the ability to age healthy and actively, with dignity,…
Read More
Citizen participation throughout the urban planning process can lead to the development of spaces and buildings that enable cities to develop urban environments that truly reflect people’s needs and preferences.
Read More
One of the principles we lift up in our report is to “build with, not for” affected communities. For technology to deliver on the promise of increased inclusion, design and implementation need to be grounded in the needs and priorities of communities. To do this equitably requires actively engaging and listening to residents throughout the process.
Read More
To ensure #SmartCities are correctly constructed for the elderly, it is necessary to include them in the planning phase. Young people cannot understand the issues faced by the elderly. such as climbing up the stairs or walking on an uneven sidewalk.
Read More
Travelling to work, meeting friends for a catch up or just doing some shopping are often taken for granted by people with no known disabilities. For the visually impaired, these seemingly simple things can be a serious challenge. But imagine a city equipped with technology that enables the visually impaired to recognize people, places or even bank notes, helping them…
Read More
Human rights must be put at the centre of development plans for smart cities. Civil servants should have a deep understanding of the technologies they are contracting, and enforce public procurement specifications that protect against abusive or wrongful use of the technologies. Technology needs to have safeguards to ensure that its use is consistent with human rights standards.
Read More
What Should Be The Criteria For A Fully Accessible Smart City? Ask The Disabled! Smart cities are failing to satisfy the basic public needs of the disabled – say 60% of the global experts as per a new survey conducted by ‘Smart Cities for All’. Although activists and startups are working to provide a better urban environment for the disabled.…
Read More
Hannes J. Lagrelius, WBU Programme Officer for Accessibility in Smart Cities Initiative sums up key highlights of the UN Habitat Assembly with reference to persons with disabilities. The Assembly was held on 27-31 May 2019, at the headquarters of UN-Habitat in Nairobi, Kenya.
Read More
Cities around the world are undergoing a dramatic digital transformation. They are using technology products and smart solutions in creative ways: to allow people to report issues like potholes and broken traffic lights; to create direct and personalized communication channels with residents; to facilitate digital or contactless payments for city services. But according to global studies by Smart Cities for…
Read More
Around 68% of the global population might live in urban areas by 2050. Smart cities will likely be a part of this future, promising to make our lives more convenient, more secure and more sustainable. Mostly, the stakeholders of smart city projects are politicians, consultants, academics and tech companies. However, the most important group of stakeholders is often missing: the…
Read More
When the Amazon Kindle was released, their ebooks didn’t work with commonly used screen readers, making accessibility difficult for the blind community. The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) in the United States campaigned to change this for years, in vain. Then Amazon won a $30 million USD contract with the New York City Department of Education in 2015 to…
Read More
The transit systems and social services of major metropolitan areas should be appealing to people with disabilities. Managing a condition that affects one’s vision, mobility, hearing or cognition is often easier in these environments — at least it should be in theory. The disconnect between theory and reality starts with problems in urban planning and development.
Read More
Public authorities, transport operators, civil society organisations and other public and private sector stakeholder in Greater Lyon have been successfully improving accessibility addressing it as a cross-cutting issue and investing substantially in creating a barrier-free and inclusive environment.
Read More
Researchers with the Global Disability Innovation Hub, co-led by UCL (University College London) in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-Delhi), are developing wheelchair-accessible maps of Delhi, India. Described as Street Rehab, the collaborative project has been conceptualized with innovative sensing platforms. This is how it works. UCL has arrived at low-cost sensors that can identify features of…
Read More
Asia and the Pacific’s phenomenal development has been a story of rapid urbanisation. As centres of innovation, entrepreneurship and opportunity, cities have drawn talent from across our region and driven economic growth which has transformed our societies. In South-East Asia alone, cities generate 65% of the region’s GDP. Yet, the ongoing scale of urbanisation is a considerable challenge, one which…
Read More
The city government said this roadmap will serve as a guide on how Philadelphia can adopt smart city solutions to better serve residents and businesses The city of Philadelphia has released the SmartCityPHL roadmap, which outlines three key strategies aimed to spur innovation and collaboration in the community related to smart city projects. The city’s mayor has signed an executive…
Read More
In the summer of 2018, start-up companies Lime and Bird flooded the streets of my hometown of Dallas with their electric scooters, which were followed by Razor scooters in the fall. Lime brands itself as “Smart Mobility for the Modern World,” and its Web site says that the company “is founded on the simple idea that all communities deserve access…
Read More