Frank Kresin (Research DIrector) will give a keynote at the one-day 'Future starts now' event in Lund (Sweden), themed 'Smart People make Smart, Sustainable Cities' on December 1st, 2015. This event is about space, innovation, change, business and sustainable cities.
Outline of his lecture:
A rapidly growing number of Smart Citizens take the future of the cities in which they live, work and play into their own hands. This takes knowledge, stamina, and access to networks of likeminded people. A large number of labs – like Fab Labs, Wet Labs, Maker Spaces and Code Clubs - are the places where this is happening at an increasingly massive scale. Their protagonists are artists, scientists and hackers, together cracking the code of hardware, software and wetware, coming up with new ideas and developing meaningful applications. In doing so, they gain a deeper understanding of the issues and forces that shape our world, and become (once again) the makers of change that our societies dearly need. This lecture will elaborate on its approach and several results, as well as the prerequisites needed to make meaningful change happen.
Frank Kresin will also give a workshop later on the day called: Making Sense – engaging citizens in science & change
This workshop elaborate on how open source software, open source hardware, digital maker practices and open design can be effectively used by local communities to make sense of their environments and address pressing environmental problems. After an introduction to the approach and results of the well established Amsterdam Smart Citizens Lab, participants will devise their own measuring strategies using self-imagined measuring tools. An analysis of the outcomes will provide them with insights in how to proceed using these methodology in their own contexts.
