Panel: (Not so) Smart Cities: technology, security and privacy

Last May 31st I was invited to give a speech in the panel “(Not so) Smart Cities: technology, security and privacy”, alongside privacy expert researchers Aaron K. Martin (@_nomap) and Gus Hosein (@privacyint). The event was part of a set of public sessions organised in the framework of the 2012 conference of the Living In Surveillance Societies (LISS) COST Action.

I was asked to make an introductory speech around the concept of the Smart Cities, which was quite unknown by wide part of the audience. I tried to offer, from the point of view of the social sciences, a critical view on the popularity of the term Smart City among worldwide cities. 

I made some reflections on, from my experience, what is the situation in cities when trying to develop Smart City strategies receiving tremendous number of offers from a variety of business sectors and the big gap between those solutions and citizens expectations. I offered a selection of projects developed under the Smart City tag where citizens don’t seem to be at the centre of any designed action.

After all the criticism, I ended my speech with positive hopes. As commented in the past in this blog, the Smart City enthousiasm and the strong political commitment that the term has collected in many cities are an excellent opportunity to face the real problems of the city alongside citizeneers as city activists, taking the action and decisions to the streets and starting doing projects by and for the citizens, using technology as an excellent communication instrument to engage and empower people in finding solutions for our common shared urban problems.

These are the slides I used:(Not so) #smart cities - May 31 2012 - LISS conference

View more PowerPoint from Júlia López Ventura

http://www.slideshare.net/jlopezventura/20120531-liss-conferencecccb 

Disclaimer alert: I take this opportunity to remind that any opinion in this blog or any other personal content is mine only