Fabien Girardin's blog

Leveraging the diversity and expertise of the participants, they were asked to sketch innovative services emerging from the accessibility to public data.

1. Connecting the different actors of the region (local authorities, public services, entrepreneurs, associations, citizens) around a common theme of "open data" in order to share visions and values.
2. Illustrating the emerging opportunities based on the accessibility to 3D and mobility data.
3. Launching internal initiatives within the public administration or foster external ones to encourage the exploitation of data as a new source of urban services.

The methodology applied during the workshop favoured transversal thinking and design, illustrated by the 5 services developed by participants. These ideas are evidence of the opportunity to co-produce innovative urban services.

The scenarios presented stressed the necessity for the public administration to be at the center of the dynamic around the use and exploitation of urban data. Digital technologies can indeed play a role in involving citizens and other regional actors in the design of services, integrating their visions and wishes in the decision process. To move forward, it seems inevitable that data needs to be more accessible and that projects based on citizens with the support of the multiple actors of the region need to be promoted.

The report of this workshop "Des gisements de données à la base de services urbains à Genève" (in french) is available under a Creative Commons license on the Observatoire Technologique web site (PDF 1.7MB).

Cities and their networked futures have been the focus of several Lift sessions. At Lift Asia 08, Adam Greenfield described “the long here” as the layer of persistent and retrievable history technology creates on the activities we do in a place. He also talked about the “big now”, the collection of local and immediate information creating new possibilities for cities. This blending of the digital and the physical stands to reshape the way citizens live and feel the urban environment (see Dan Hill’s talk) creating opportunities for architects and designer to explore new ways interactive technologies can transform our physical environment (watch Jeffrey Huang talk about interactive cities) or to develop data mining and visualizations techniques to make sense of the deluge of information (watch MIT’s Carlo Ratti on the “sensable city”).

^{Maintaining the arteries of a networked city.}

The theme of the “Networked City” will be further discussed and co-created at the Mobile Design Conference & Workshop on October 21, 2010 in Barcelona. After the great success of the first Mobile Design Session during the Barcelona Design Week 2009, this interactive one-day conference has invited past Lift speakers Matt Jones, Usman Haque, myself and Lift11 speaker Kevin Slavin to share their visions and experiences at the crossroads of the digital and the physical. Subsequently, Liz Sanders will run a co-creation workshop.

Program organized by BCD in collaboration with dotopen. On October 21, 2010 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona (MACBA) during the Barcelona Design Week.

Morning Conference: Designing for the Networked City with keynotes from:

• Kevin Slavin – Co-Founder and Chairman of AREA/CODE Entertainment
• Matt Jones – Director of Design at BERG
• Usham Haque – Director of HAQUE Design + Research Ltd
• Fabien Girardin – Co-Founder of Lift Lab

Afternoon Workshop – MDC Lab: Co-Creating for the Networked City

This years’ Mobile Design Conference is proud to present the MDC Lab: a co-creation workshop lead by Liz Sanders with expert participation of the Mobile Design Conference speakers Kevin Slavin, Matt Jones, Usham Haque, Fabien Girardin. This workshop is aimed at professionals interested in the outlook and potential of Mobile Technologies and Urban Living.

Registration here

Related links:

• Mobile Design Conference & Workshop
• Jeffrey Huang on Interactive Cities (Lift Asia 08)
• Carlo Ratti on the Senseable City (Lift 09)
• Dan Hill on Soft Infrastructure Superpowers (Lift 09)
• Adam Greenfield on The long here, the big now (Lift Asia 08)
• Adam Greenfield on The read/write city (Lift Asia 07)
• Yang Soo-on Living City (Lift Asia 08)