We finally can announce the panel we’re organizing at SXSW Interactive 2011! Our panel is entitled: “Web Mashup Platforms for Future Programmable Cities“. We are delighted to have Dominique Guinard from… well you know him, Christine Outram who is the director of the City Innovation Group at Senseable City Lab at MIT and project lead of the Copenhagen Wheel project, and Rachel Sterne who is the freshly appointed Chief Digital Officer for the City of New York, and I will be hosting and moderating the panel. The reason I invited these fine folks was because each of them can bring a different perspective on future cities, ranging from very technical, to architectural, to social, to public administrations, etc. and to engage in a deeper discussion about the potentials, dangers, and next steps for building more efficient and livable cities.
Have a look at the official page, and here’s the abstract for the session:
The public infrastructure of our cities are obscure structures whose workings are not accessible to most citizens. What if every sensor in our cities would have a Web API anyone could access in real-time and mashup? Open and easy to use Web platforms that enable efficient integration, processing, storage, and access to the enormous amount of data digital cities generate are increasingly needed, and we’ll explore the various technologies that are making such solutions possible. Furthermore, we’ll go much more beyond the technical aspects of such a platform to address the more controversial implications of such an Orwellian scenario. Hopefully, this session will provide a forum for the different disciplines involved in the design of future cities to establish a common ground for better interdisciplinary cooperation and understanding in this area.
We’re glad to be part of SXSW again and looking forward this exciting event and wanted to thanks our guests for joining us. We hope we’ll see you there as well!
