Paper short abstract:

As the use of sensor technologies and data collection become an increasing part of the urban realm —through their presence in public spaces, their uses in city operations and business practices, and their outcomes for local communities—it’s increasingly important for city custodians like local governments to develop methods to ensure their design, testing, installation, use and maintenance are transparent, safe and effective for the people who live in and use cities.

Paper long abstract:

However, a lot of city custodians’ current technological and policy functions are 'black boxed' which obscures the inner workings of how, why and for whom decisions about the use of technology and collection of data are made.

Rather than earn trust and establish transparency, these ‘black boxed’ interactions actively obscure the purpose and use that are meant to make the city smarter and, most importantly, are meant to serve the needs of all.

To counter this there is an increasing need for city custodians to make their use of tech and collection of data transparent, accountable and create genuine opportunities for all citizens to engage with this work.

City of Melbourne has been working on this for the last 3 years with some global experts from universities, design research firms and technology companies.

Join this discussion to hear how the principles from these different disciplines are coming together to implement built forms, in person experiences and digital environments to draw attention to sensing, create opportunities for conversation and facilitate new relationships with community so that they can genuinely partner in the city’s future use of technology and collection of data.

In the session you’ll hear more about the key learnings of this process with a discussion focused on the opportunities for global application.