Beyond the smart city. How open data, maker spaces and open IOT infrastructures can empower citizens to become the makers of change we duly need. While technology can make our lives easier and service provisioning more efficient, disruptive innovation comes from people who want to take their futures into their own hands. Entrepreneurs, hackers, designers, civil servants and inhabitants unite: here comes the hackable city. Presentation delivered at Mess & Order, Stavanger, during the 2016 Hackathon.

1. Beyond Smart Cities
Frank Kresin
Research Director
@kresin / frank@waag.org

2. Smart Gadgets

3. Smart Assistants
http://www.pixedge.com/lastmoment

4. Smart Buildings

5. Smart Cities

6. 1. Smart Grids

7. 2. Smart Mobility

8. 3. Smart Policing

10. Flaws in Smart Cities
• Start with technology,
instead of urban &
human challenges
• Insufficient use and
production of evidence
• Lack of awareness of
how others improve
cities and lives
• Little role for citizens

11. Smart Citizens

12. Smart Citizens
• Will take responsibility for the place they live, work and love in
• Value access over ownership, contribution over power
• Will ask forgiveness, not permission
• Know where they can get the tools, knowledge and support
• Value empathy, dialogue and trust
• Appropriate technology, rather than accept it as is
• Will help the people that struggle with smart stuff
• Ask questions, before they come up with answers
• Take part in design efforts to come up with better solutions
• Work agile, prototype early, test quickly, start all over
• Will not stop in the face of huge barriers
• Continuously share their knowledge and their learning
http://waag.org/nl/blog/manifesto-smart-citizens

13. Agency &
Empowerment

14. • Institute for Art,
Science & Technology
• Since 1994, 63 Staff,
based in Amsterdam
• Artistic Research,
Critical Design &
Social Innovation
• Exploring Emergent
Technologies &
opening them up
Waag Society
http://www.waag.org/

15. Code = Culture

16. http://digitalsocial.eu
Technology is not Neutral

18. http://digitalsocial.eu

19. 1. Access over Ownership

20. https://www.couchsurfing.com/

22. https://www.peerby.com/

23. 2. Crowdfunding

24. https://www.kickstarter.com/

25. https://www.fairphone.com/

26. http://www.thehighline.org/

27. http://bristolpound.org/

28. 3. Collective Awareness Platforms

29. Open Source Sensors
http://blog.safecast.org/

30. AirBezen

32. Smart Citizens Lab
http://waag.org/en/project/smart-citizens-lab

33. 4. New Ways of Making
http://fablab.waag.org

35. Cheap but Powerful Tools

37. Open Designs

38. 5. Participatory Democracy

39. http://localprojects.net/project/change-by-us/

40. http://www.participatorybudgeting.org/

41. Hackers?

42. Platforms have a Central Role

44. [Hacker]
A person who enjoys
exploring the details of
programmable systems
and stretching their
capabilities, as opposed
to most users, who
prefer to learn only the
minimum necessary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_culture

45. Hackers & Progress

46. • Hacking is crucial
to understand
and act in our world
• Best producer
is the user
• (S)he can learn
to make
(almost) anything
• Sharing knowledge
freely is the key to
innovation
Hacker Ethics
http://makezine.com/2006/12/01/the-makers-bill-of-rights/

47. [Civic Hacker]
One who collaborates
with others to create,
build, and invent open
source solutions using
publicly-released data,
code and technology to
solve social, economic,
and environmental
challenges relevant to
their neighborhood, city,
state, or country.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/civic_hacker

48. Civic Platforms

50. What to do?

51. Value & Teach Coding Skills

52. Labs (Fab-, Maker, Wet-, Citizen)

53. Open By Default

54. Collaborate Across Boundaries

55. Invite Coders in Governments

56. Tap into Collective Intelligence

57. Design for Smarter Cities
• Your citizens know more than you.
• Don’t separate the design and development process
• Embrace self-organization & civic initiative, but help to make
the results sustainable and scalable.
• Never rely on consultants that will sell consultancy, not solutions.
• Have binding decisions made at the lowest level possible and
actively preach self-governance.
• Small, connected systems tend to fail sometimes; large systems
will fail for sure.
• Build systems based on reciprocity and transparency.
• Reuse existing parts and design your additions for reuse,
adding to the public domain and strengthening its capacity
to act and learn.
https://www.waag.org/nl/blog/design-rules-smarter-cities

58. Empower
Civic Hackers

59. Empower
Civic Hackers
Become

61. Impact Spiral
http://youngfoundation.org/publications/the-open-book-of-social-innovation/

62. Smart Cities
Based on Control
Top Down Mind-Frame
Maximize Efficiency
Minimize Friction
Stifle Innovation
http://waag.org/en/blog/smart-cities-make-dumb-citizens

63. Hackable Cities
Strive to Empower
Embrace Bottom Up
Maximize possibilities
Welcome Friction
Enable Creativity
https://tinyurl.com/illuminated-cities

64. Inspiration

65. Sint Antoniesbreestraat 69
1011 HB Amsterdam
waag.org / info@waag.org
Frank Kresin
Research Director
@kresin / frank@waag.org