Human Values For Smarter Cities
This four-year research project aims to develop an integrated, value-based and multi-stakeholder design approach for the ethical implementation of smart city technologies. Our case study consists of an ‘ethical scan car’, as a concrete and urgent example for the deployment of computer vision and algorithmic services in public space.
Workshop | Proactive civic relationships with urban tech in public spaces
The ‘Human Values for Smarter Cities’ project will contribute with a workshop to the upcoming ThingsCon 2024 conference, which will take place on December 12-13, 2024 at the Volkshotel in Amsterdam. See details below: Workshop | Proactive Civic Relationships with Urban Tech in Public Spaces With Mike de Kreek, Researcher at the AUAS – Civic Interaction Design Research…
The scan bike came to your street
Since the autumn of 2023, we followed a citizens panel getting engaged with the municipality’s development of a new smart city technology: the scan bike. In a series of sessions, we discussed ethics around implementing such technology and brainstormed on topics like privacy, blurring algorithms and other forms of data minimalization. Throughout these sessions, we…
Highlights & main takeaways from ThingsCon Salon – Don Quichot in the Smart City
On 5 September, ThingsCon teamed up again with the Human Values for Smarter Cities project to organize a Salon linked to the research project. This time, we were guests at Marineterrein in Amsterdam. We focused this meetup (and workshop) on participatory design for machine learning. Don Quichot in the Smart City? In this ThingsCon Salon,…
ThingsCon Salon Participatory Machine Learning | Sept 5th, 2024
On September 5th, 2024, the Human Values for Smarter Cities project will once again team up with ThingsCon to organize a Salon featuring a meetup (and workshop) focusing on participatory design for machine learning. The event will take place at the Marineterrein, in Amsterdam. Don Quichot in the Smart City? In this ThingsCon Salon, we will explore the…
Public values in the procurement process
In our cities, municipalities are using computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) to make public spaces more efficient and enhance residents’ quality of life. These technologies are often developed through tenders: a contract for future supplies, services or works that is published by the client, for example the government, so that companies and organisations can…
Diner Pensant – The Transparent City
Our research team has been engaging with a group of citizens for a number of months around the topic of transparency. Due to a lack of transparency about the introduction and implementation of so-called “smart” technology in the public space of Amsterdam, there was a desire to have an open conversation about this with a…
Highlights and takeaways from AMS Conference – Reinventing the City
During the AMS Conference – Reinventing the City, which took place from April 23 – 25, 2024, the Human Values for Smarter Cities project was involved in two sessions. Check out below the main highlights and takeaways we got from them. Human Values in Public Procurement On April 25, Sylke van Duijnen and Imme Ruarus…
Policymakers get informed on scan vehicle collaboration
In February 2024, the Human Values for Smarter Cities research project was featured in an article published on Binnenlands Bestuur, the knowledge platform for policymakers working for and with the Dutch government. The article sheds light on the development of new scan vehicles set to be deployed in Amsterdam. Collaborating with partners such as TU Delft, Waag Futurelab, AMS,…
MS Scientific Conference: Reinventing the City
Mike de Kreek will give a presentation on redesigning existing urban technologies to accommodate professional leeway, autonomy and community empowerment. Click here for more info >> Human Values in Public Procurement During a co-creative session, Sylke van Duijnen and Imme Ruarus will share their expertise on citizen involvement in the procurement process, discussing opportunities and best…
Scan bicycle co-design and prototyping
In January 2024, the City of Amsterdam launched a co-design project involving a citizens’ panel consisting of 14 members. Alongside citizens, this panel included design researchers from TU Delft, AUAS, AMS, and Civic AI, as well as civil servants. Utilizing Design Thinking, a method often employed to address complex challenges, the project primarily focused on…
How do we design the smart city together?
When a municipality opts to implement smart city technologies, it typically entails a procurement process. This involves the municipality issuing a tender, and inviting organizations and companies to participate. Waag Futurelab has meticulously mapped out this tender process and is currently exploring opportunities for citizen involvement at various stages. Workshop Participatory Procurement at Waag Futurelab During this workshop,…
Paper | When ‘doing ethics’ meets public procurement of smart city technology – an Amsterdam case study
From October 9-13 the 2023 edition of the International Association of Societies of Design Research conference took place. Human Values for Smarter Cities’ researcher, Mike de Kreek, presented the paper When ‘doing ethics’ meets public procurement of smart city technology – an Amsterdam case study, which was written together with the research team and consortium partners. City governments increasingly…
TH/NGS 2023: Un/ntended consequences
Join us on 14 & 15 December, at Nieuwe Instituut, for the annual ThingsCon event powered by CLICKNL. This year’s theme: ‘Un/ntended Consequences’, explores and promotes the development of fair, responsible, and human-centric technologies for the IoT and beyond. The Human Values for Smarter Cities research team will contribute to the program with the following activities: Workshop |…
‘The Camera Fair / The Fair Camera’ at Dutch Design Week 2023
During the upcoming Dutch Design Week, CivicIxD Researcher Tessa Steenkamp will be presenting the experiment ‘The Camera Car Fair / The Fair Camera Car’. What does the camera car in your city see, that you can’t see? Come explore the journey its data travel, and how they are used. Most Dutch cities have a camera…
Workshop | Blind efficiency or thoughtful improvisation? Scrutinizing urban technology in public space
Join us in this workshop where we delve into the long-term drawbacks of smart city technologies that largely take human presence and communication ‘out of the loop’. In this workshop we dive into these developments by using real-life cases to explore what values are important to us. Ultimately, we might have ideas on how citizens, community workers and…
Human Values for Smarter Cities at Innofestival
The Human Values for Smarter Cities researcher, Tessa Steenkamp, together with Responsible Sensing Lab have organised the the break-out session, ‘Camera Cars: from ethical framework to design features‘, which will take place at the ‘Innofestival’, an initiative by the City of Amsterdam and AMS Institute. Our contribution will focus on Camera Cars and will explore how policy makers from city governments and institutions now…
Takeaways from ThingsCon Salon Doing Ethics
On September 6th, the ThingsCon Salon Doing Ethics took place, and Mike de Kreek wrote a short article compiling his main reflections and takeaways from the event. Check out below a few key takeaways and click below to read the full article. Based on what was shared and discussed, Mike lists, among other conclusions, the following takeaways…
Responsible Sensing Toolkit & Sensing Safari Workshop
Together with Tom van Arman, from TAPP, we willing be hosting a workshop on October 4th about the sensors on the Marineterrein, in Amsterdam. The Marineterrein is a public living laboratory to explore learning, working and future living. It contains a number of sensor-experiments that collect data to improve city services, experiences and living environments for its…
Doing Ethics in Smart City Tech – The good, the bad and the acceptable
We are glad to have teamed up with ThingsCon to organize a Salon on Doing Ethics at VONK Rotterdam, the innovation center of the municipality of Rotterdam. In the Human Values for Smarter Cities project, the central focus lies on what we can do to do ethics, to facilitate this process, and when to do this in the life cycle of…
Agonistic Machine Vision Development
A Tangible Approach to Involving Citizens in the Development Phase of Machine Vision Systems for Scan Cars For her master thesis (MSc Design for Interaction – TU Delft) Laura de Groot explored opening up the discussion about the acceptability of a machine vision system during the development phase, using the scan car development process in Amsterdam as…
Scan car conversation piece – Master Digital Design project
In this project, students from AUAS – Master Digital Design explored how a scan car can communicate what it is doing while driving around the city. An interesting question, especially when the scan car is going to detect several objects at the same time for different purposes. The students started by talking to passers-by. The students approached them…
Living Lab Scheveningen Tour
On June 5, our research team and partners got together at Living Lab Scheveningen for a tour and presentations. We started with a presentation by research lead Mike de Kreek. He gave an overview of the finished and upcoming activities in the Human Values for Smarter Cities project. One of the finished activities was related to…
Two years anniversary responsible Sensing Lab
Thijs Turèl is as AMS Program Manager part of the project team of Human Values for Smarter Cities. Next to AMS Thijs co-founded the Responsible Sensing Lab. The Responsible Sensing Lab explores how to integrate social values in the design of sensing systems in public space. On February 16 the Responsible Sensing Lab celebrated it’s 2…
Workshop | Bringing the Tada Values to life for a future ‘ethical scan car’
Mike de Kreek, lead researcher, held a workshop at the Mozilla Festival on March 22 with interesting participants from, among others, the City of Rotterdam and the scan car company Arvoo. The workshop was called Bringing the Tada Values to life for a future ‘ethical scan car’. Mike used an evaluation method developed by Tapp, a smart…
Tender for new scan car service in Amsterdam
Human Values for Smarter Cities had a flying start in October 2022, when the project team – consisting of AMS, TU Delft and AUAS – was asked by the municipality of Amsterdam to collaborate on identifying values and prerequisites for contestability for a new scan car service. A scan car service that ensures an ethically…