Latest and greatest launch plan as of November 26, 2011

1. Introducing
living dhaka,
a social technology
experiment to
measure activity
in the city
tiger tags

2. a tiger tag is just a piece of paper with a qr code
embedded with a unique but anonymous id e.g.
bengaltiger445
Living
Dhaka

3. when an individual carries it, he or she becomes a tiger who
can then be tracked by smartphone carrying volunteers.

4. one scan can log a host of information on those tigers
4:59 pm (time)
smiling
(happiness)
23.70, 90.44 (location)
walking (transport mode)

5. which can then be sent into the cloud and aggregrated to
produce measurements like the following which we tested at mit

6. Living Showcase at MIT | Nov17,2011
where the tigers roamed when the tigers came and
went, how long they stayed
the relationship btwn what
what the tigers were interested in they liked and where it was
located

7. Living Showcase at MIT | Nov17,2011
6 smartphones, 8 volunteers, 140 tigers
total cost - $200
(t-shirts, printing zebra tags, phones borrowed)
development time – 4 (long) days, 1-2 people
Living Dhaka | weekofJanuary12, 2012
50 smartphones, 100 volunteers, x tigers?
total cost - $10-20,000
we’d like to measure things not normally
measured (e.g. pedestrian flows, bus ridership,
cycle rickshaw flows) and understand how both
the measurements themselves and the social
process of measurement is received by the city
development time – 2 months

8. Living Dhaka | weekofJanuary12, 2012
Old Dhaka Pedestrian Density & Flows
10 AM 1 PM 6 PM
(LARGER SCALE)
experimental design
50 scanners at 25 fixed nodes main pedestrian
3 separate scanning times
corridors
color of dots = high no. of scans/
minute

9. Living Dhaka | weekofJanuary12, 2012
Firmgate Bus Ridership and Speeds
estimated
speeds
experimental design
<5 km/h
50 scanners
@ 6 fixed nodes
size of colors represents tap-outs
number of people alighting
from those stops from
farmgate
speed calculated by
average of consecutive 5-10 km/h
scans
10-15 km/h
tap-ins
6 PM
(MEDIUM SCALE)

10. Living Dhaka | weekofJanuary12, 2012
Dhanmondi Lake
Happiness and Density Map
experimental design
50 roaming scanners
1 scanning time at peak
time
favorite spots
blue color = places of
highest number of happy
people
8 PM
(MEDIUM SCALE)

11. Living Dhaka | weekofJanuary12, 2012
we’d like to measure before and after an
experiment that improves car-free travel*
Before After
did this experiment work?
would data change your mind?
* are there any experiments that improve car-free travel in
dhaka that can be measured in mid-january?

12. Living Dhaka | weekofJanuary12, 2012

13. Collaborators
Albert Ching is an aspiring urban innovator, a lifelong Hawaiian and former
Googler based in Mountain View, Hyderabad and Singapore. Albert is enduring
the frigid cold of Boston to help cities innovate, specifically by using the
proliferation of information technologies to solve transport problems in South
and Southeast Asia. He is a researcher for the Singapore-MIT Alliance’s Future
of Urban Mobility project. www.mrching.blogspot.com
Stephen Kennedy is a designer and artist formerly based in Atlanta with a
background in Industrial Design from Georgia Tech. At first a reluctant
transplant to Boston, Stephen has enjoyed trying to escape frigid New
England by working as a hybrid planner-designer on signage initiatives in New
Orleans, greenway planning in the Bronx, urban realm technology in
Thessaloniki, and participatory planning in Indonesia. His focus is on both
physical planning and spatial information design.
www.stephenjameskennedy.com
Muntasir Mamun Imran is a nature lover, adventure-trekker, and an
experienced social entrepreneur from Bangladesh. He is the co-founder of
Kewkradong Bangladesh, country coordinator for the Ocean Conservancy’s
International Coastal Cleanup, and Organizer of the Banff Mountain Film
Festival World Tour. He has organized cycling rides throughout Bangladesh
including the Sir Edmund Hillary Ride, the Ride for Green, and the
LiveStrong Ride. www.muntasirmamun.com/

14. Advisors
P. Chris Zegras is the Ford Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and
Transportation at MIT. His research interests include the influence of the built
environment on individual travel behavior, transportation infrastructure and
system financing, indicators of sustainable transportation, and mitigating
transportation greenhouse gas emissions. On these and other related topics,
he has consulted widely, including for the World Bank, the Inter-American
Development Bank, the Canadian, German, US, and Peruvian Governments,
the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the United
Nations Center for Regional Development.
Zia Wadud is an Associate Professor in Civil Engineering at the Bangladesh
University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Zia completed his PhD
from Imperial College London in Civil Engineering Policy in 2008 as a
Commonwealth Scholar and held research positions at the University of
Cambridge and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Zia’s current
research interests are in modeling and valuation of policy interventions in
the transportation and environment sector (including climate change
policy), modeling energy demand and assessing risk and vulnerability in the
context of broader Civil Engineering topics.

15. inspired by the bengal tiger and stripe spotter

16. appendix

17. why dhaka?
small window of opportunity to avoid car-centric
development but need creative solutions that employ a
limited number of smartphones
mobile phones
window of opportunity smartphones
penetration
Chicago
Sydney
cars
48% Bangkok
Jakarta
auto lock-in line (10-20%)
1%
<1%
time
Dhaka
today

18. We have big ambitions . . .
Can the mayor of Dhaka run his city like an MIT
scientist managing a lab of experiments?
we are
here Feelings à Decisions
Data à Decisions
People à Data à Visualizations à
rebranding car alternatives + the city
à Decisions
Experiments -> measurement
(through people and phones) à
Iteration à Remeasurement à new
experiments à repeat à rinse ->
where we’d like repeat faster
cities to be
zebra tags

19. but there’s a lot we don’t know
finish
4 SUSTAINABLE
zebra tags as a store
3 IMPACT of commercial value
data -> decisions integration with
mobile payments
people à data à
visualizations à incentives to motivate
rebranding car users to scan
2 MEASUREMENT alternatives + the city
à decisions value to local
start businesses and
measure pre- and post- transport providers
experiments ->
experiments
measurement
how to tell if there is a
1 SOCIAL (through people and
difference?
phones) à Iteration à
TECHNOLOGY Remeasurement à new
measure things
experiments à repeat
Social otherwise difficult to
à rinse -> repeat
will people in dhaka measure
faster
want to be how often the rich and
measured? in what poor meet
format? how
should volunteers make visible the invisible
be organized and pedestrians, cycle
motivated? rickshaws, the poor, the
aged
technology
will the technology
work as planned in
dhaka? how fast
can the system be
rapidly iterated on
and deployed?

20. Living Dhaka | weekofJanuary12, 2012
1 PRINT QR 2 DISTRIBUTE 3 SCAN 4 REGISTER
BADGES TO CITIZENS CITIZENS IN CITIZENS AT
OUTSIDE TARGET AREA NOTABLE
TARGET AREA POINTS
Measurement Process

21. Living Dhaka | weekofJanuary12, 2012
1 NO. OF 2 SCANNING 3 FIXED vs. 4 SIZE OF
SCANNERS TIME FLEXIBLE MEASUREMENT
SCANNERS AREA
target is 50 target is <1 second
10 teams of 5 fixed
single street or
few blocks
peak capacity =
50 x 60
= 300 data points per large neighborhood
minute, or 18,000 per or street network
hour flexible
Measurement Variables

22. The Urban Launchpad is a MIT-started social mission-driven company /
research lab aspiring to accelerate experimentation and innovation in cities
through rapid prototyping and performance measurement on an urban scale