Paper short abstract:

The smart city is currently imagined in vivid colors and shiny surfaces, often neglecting those in need of access to the digital world. But alternatives have been developing for many years. This constribution voices a perspective influenced by technology-aware benevolent circles on three continents.

Paper long abstract:

Dreams of the smart city is currently imagined in vivid colors and shiny surfaces. Its prominent incarnations are often unimaginative company-driven highways to surveillance-capitalism, neglecting those in need of access to the digital world.

Independent initiatives following a bottom-up approach have been developing on the ground for years, and in some instances even decades. The hacker/makerspace movement has become prominent in creating (physical) social spaces with a technological imprint, often in contrast to cybernetic futures. There are apparent differences. European spaces are still very much influenced by ideas of the enlightenment. Asian ones often to focus on innovation to climb the social ladder.

Smart city initiatives everywhere tend to follow ideas of entrepreneurship and less ideas of engaging with the local population and their needs. The third spaces offer regional integration while connecting to the world at large. This is conducive to different ways to address social issues like poverty or migration and learning from shared experiences.

My perspective is informed by being a longtime member of the international hacker/makerspace movement. I will take a look at common patterns of empowering projects like choosing federation over walled gardens to ward off the detrimental effects of authoritarian monocultures. It will show how cheap silicon and free/libre open source software offer opportunities for particular African solutions. The case will be made that whatever the scholarly verdict about the concept of smart cities, it can be (re-)purposed. Urban centres have been catalysts, but rural areas have demonstrated a lot of ingenuity.