Global Resources and Promising Practices for Building and Refining Accessible and Inclusive Smart Cities from Darren Bates LLC.
Location shouldn’t be a barrier and neither should a disability. Disability groups have been lobbying for better accessibility on transport for many years. How many times have you got on a train to find there was a lack of space for wheelchair users, or that there wasn’t a toilet on board? For many people this can be extremely limiting.
Read More
Whether for work or personal enjoyment, reading has long-lasting social and cognitive benefits. However, for seniors experiencing barriers to reading such as low vision or a physical impairment, using traditional print materials is a struggle, if not impossible. Benetech’s growing library of over 685,000 accessible titles, Bookshare, enables seniors to read in ways that work for them, choosing from a…
Read More
Accessible Public Transportation and Housing, a Need for People with Disabilities in Major Cities This article is part of a series of stories on disability inclusion. – Even though over six billion people—nearly one billion of whom will have disabilities— are expected to live in urban centres by 2050, many of the world’s major urban cities have a long…
Read More
Cities sometimes fail to make sure the technologies they adopt are accessible to everyone. Activists and startups are working to change that. Victor Pineda travels the world to make speeches and advise governments on urban planning and development. But when he encounters a touch-screen kiosk, he’s stymied. For people like him, who use wheelchairs and have limited use of their…
Read More
On Wednesday, November 14, 2018 — Amsterdam, Barcelona and New York City formally launched the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights, a joint initiative to promote and track progress in protecting residents’ and visitors’ digital rights. The Cities Coalition for Digital Rights builds upon five shared principles to create policies, tools and resources to promote and protect resident and visitor rights…
Read More
The Promise and Peril of “Smart” Cities Technology can help us govern better, but at what price to urban life? Technology can help us govern better, but at what price to urban life actual article chapter content Last year, American newspapers published more than 800 stories about “smart” cities. Readers could learn how municipal governments are deploying sophisticated technology to…
Read More
Watch the Video! In our third public talk, author and community organizer Jane Farrow will moderate a conversation with three accessibility experts who are challenging cities to incorporate principles for inclusive design and ensure accessibility for all: Luke Anderson – Founder & Executive Director – StopGap Foundation; Consultant – AccessAbility Advantage Darren Bates – Founder – Smart Cities Library™;…
Read More
A renewal of public spaces is underway and underpinning this is new technology. Throughout history, public spaces have enjoyed many different roles in social, political and economic life, changing to suit the needs of the time. We know the ancient Greek agora and Roman Forum as the primary political centres of the city and the spatial cradle of democracy. In…
Read More
Zach Anner ’s quest to get a rainbow bagel in Brooklyn sheds light on New York City’s accessibility issues.
Read More
Cities are at the forefront of innovative new solutions to long-time issues like access to housing, transportation, or education. Innovation is a group effort, though, and requires collaboration. To solve problems in cities, governments need to act not only as service providers for essential city functions, but also as conveners who facilitate new partnerships and relationships among their civic tech…
Read More
London’s Chief Digital Officer talks the smart city transition © iStock / MarioGuti Government Europa spoke to London’s first Chief Digital Officer, Theo Blackwell, about how the city is pledging to lead the way and create a bundle of small smart cities within London. Cities throughout Europe are in transition; becoming smarter, using technology to make them more sustainable and…
Read More
As a student, the daily walk up London’s Exhibition Road, past its profusion of popular museums, was hindered by groups of tourists that stood four-abreast on the pavement, eager to learn more about the cretaceous period, or space flight, or ornamental Renaissance metalwork. I was therefore pleased when, one spring, the street was quickly transformed from a bustling thoroughfare for…
Read More
How to foster dynamic civic participation, ignite citizen co-creation, and leverage human-centered urban design Lessons learned in the 20-year history of Smart Cities are testaments to the truth that successful and sustainable Smart Cities cannot be built solely upon the technology mainframe. Instead, cities must support and engage the broader community, prioritize and practice human-centered urban design, and provide diverse, accessible,…
Read More
Erich Manser has run 18 marathons and set an Ironman world record for a physically-challenged athlete. He’s also legally blind. For him—and all athletes who are blind—carefully navigating the swirling stampede of runners, the chaotic cowbell-banging crowds, and the crush at water stations can be exceptionally tricky, even with the help of a guide. So when Manser ran the Boston…
Read More
Designers — real modern designers who conduct human-centric research to create products and pages that work for people rather than systems — have started to arrive in local government, bringing with them philosophies that are changing cultures. This culture change is one in which governments have begun to modify their services to better meet the needs of constituents, seeing themselves…
Read More
OASC Brazil publishes a Manifesto to raise awareness among city leaders and stimulate the implementation of social, economic and digital policies. The Manifesto has been shared with Brazilian authorities. A joint collaboration of OASC Brazil and OASC Portugal: Cláudio Nascimento (at speaker desk, left) and Margarida Campolargo (1st from the right) have presented the Brazilian Manifesto for human, creative, and…
Read More
London and Singapore topped a list of the world’s 50 smartest cities released by Eden Strategy Institute, following a study conducted by OXD. Seoul, New York City and Helsinki, Finland rounded out the top five. The study examined the role governments play in creating smart cities and ranked them on several criteria, including budget, clarity of vision, leadership, support programs…
Read More![Screenshot_2018-07-17 New policy brief “Towards inclusive cities Making UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 a reality in Eur[…]](https://i0.wp.com/www.smartcitieslibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Screenshot_2018-07-17-New-policy-brief-%E2%80%9CTowards-inclusive-cities-Making-UN-Sustainable-Development-Goal-11-a-reality-in-Eur....png?fit=338%2C374&ssl=1)
EDF just launched its new policy brief titled “Towards inclusive cities: Making UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 a reality in Europe”. The presentation of this paper took during a side event to the High Level Political Forum 2018 on Sustainable Development. The side event ““Goal 11: inclusion of persons with disabilities in societies” was organised by EDF, in partnership with…
Read More
Madison McVeigh/CityLab/David Ryder/Reuters The Tech That’s Changing How Cities Help the Homeless From mapping apps to the blockchain, new tools are intended to give cities the information they need to address this growing challenge. Every day, a team of community health paramedics in Austin, Texas, fans out across the city to provide aid to the growing number of people on…
Read More
.blog-post-single-thumb For Smart Cities, Blockchain Technology Opens New Possibilities .blog-post-meta Today, Americans have supercomputers in their pockets, on their wrists, in their cars and in their home appliances. Internet usage is at an all-time high, with 89 percent of the population having access in 2018 — compared to 52 percent in 2000. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 90…
Read More