Archive for August, 2011
Together with Michael Mürling, I organised a workshop on behalf of Forschung Austria at the Alpbach Technology Forum. It’s theme was “Digital Cities of Tomorrow“.
The workshop was motivated by the fact that we are living in the age of cities: estimations suggest that by the year 2050 over 70 % of the world’s population will be living in cities (BTW: in many countries in Europe we had the moment of urbanisation already in the 1950s). There are many open issues and research questions related to this development, from urban development, transportation and economic development to social services, healthcare, energy, public safety, education and more.
In general the participants (30 overall) agreed that overall the objectives towards smart cities are driven by factors such as sustainability, energy efficiency, high quality of life, safety & security, etc. and that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will (only) serve as enabling technology. Amongst the services that ICT could offer several aspects were mentioned:
- visualization as a communication tool between different parties
- geographic information systems for handling spatio-temporal data
- semantic interoperability of the various data sources to allow a standardized processing
- open data policies enabling communities to create low-cost services
- real-time systems for managing and monitoring huge data volumes in a near real-time manner
- simulation and prediction to enable decisions by stakeholders in a timely manner
- as well as the possibility for new business models enabled by digitized processes.
At the same time the participants pointed out the need to address the vulnerability of connected services e.g. smart meters and to consider the privacy of customers and to take into account the threats post by decentralized autonomous systems.
As a conclusion there was a consensus that technology-only approaches towards smarter cities will not be sufficient to realize these cities. As a basis a holistic approach is needed, considering the different cultures, the willingness to experiment – especially at the level of decision makers -, the constraints in public funding and most prominently the interaction with the citizens (e.g. crowd intelligence, inclusion of local knowledge, open innovation, modern lifestyles of digital natives).
Further details at www.forschungaustria.ac.at
August 26th, 2011
Published today (Aug. 24, 2011): Andreas Meier and myself edited an HMD issue on “Communitys im Web” (in German).
It includes an objection by Matias Roskos who critically comments on crowdsourcing and the contribution by “others” (where we all benefit from).
And: besides technical and research papers it also addresses the issue of the knowledge society and how we can deal with relevant issues such as privacy, etc. IMHO the issue of a knowledge policy is a crucial one: we need to define rules, principles, guidelines, legislation, infrastructure, etc. for dealing with knowledge.
Some pointers
August 23rd, 2011
Yet another booklet on “mega trends 2020+” has been published. This one is by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and it describes 7 mega trends (1. changing demographics; 2. globalization and future markets; 3. scarcity of resources; 4. the challenge of climate change; 5. dynamic technology and innovation; 6. global knowledge society; 7. sharing global responsibility) and 21 subtrends (too many to name them explicitly here).
What I personally like about this publication: it is well argued which methodology they use and how they derive the trends; they refer to urbanisation (on the global level – here in Europe we are mostly urbanised since the 1950s) – this is in line with many other scenarios, e.g. also Matthias Horx; also, they explicitly name the “war for talent” as an issue; and furthermore, there is an argumentation which corporate actions are to be taken to address the individual trends.
But still: it is just another (mega) trend publication. So, if you need other arguments for your lecture, for arguing specific business cases, your personal scenarios, etc. have a look for instance at
I am sure your there is mega trend or at least subtrend that fits your purposes …
August 23rd, 2011
Some guys, mainly from Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, founded the Journal of unsolved questions.
What I like about it: they also except research papers that describe research that has “failed”, i.e., did not (yet) lead to the results expected. I think we need more of this! Why? Because most (all?) of the research projects we do are doomed to success. But how can that be, given the fact that all research activities include risk and that risk is typically taken over by the public. We call that “funding” and sometimes we receive 75 % funding (see for instance the current European Framework Programme). Consequently, a certain percentage of research projects would need to fail – if research were so perfectly calculable, one could go to the next bank office and ask one’s bank of choice to provide the money (at least for applied research that would be the case).
I am not arguing for inferior project management. This has to be top/professional! But the research activities as such are risky and sometimes risk factors will apply. We – as a research community and also the funding agencies – need to be more honest. So: let your research project fail!
August 11th, 2011
