Social media has made crowdsourcing possible on a larger scale. Some new web initiatives crowdsource in the name of city development showing it’s time to look beyond simple social networking and join digital forces to benefit the physical world.
A short while ago Anthony Townsend, Research Director with the Institute for the Future, paid Copenhagen a visit and gave a talk about some projects of his. His inspiring examples and ideas about well-matched marriages btw online technology and urban life demonstrated beyond any doubt his background: Technology forecaster by profession, Townsend holds a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional planning from MIT.
One project Townsend expressed particular enthusiasm about is DIYcity – a joint initiative by John Geraci and himself. It’s a user-driven project that aims to leverage emerging web technologies to make smarter cities. The official introduction goes:
Twitter bots, aggregators, social software, mobile apps – we use these things more and more in our daily routines to make our lives better. But can we also use them to remake our cities altogether? How can these technologies be applied to transform urban spaces, changing them from the centralized, hard-coded things they are today into finely-tuned, fluid, user-operated systems that are efficient, sustainable and fit for life in the 21st century?
Challenges are periodically posted to the site, inviting people to build applications that solve some particular problem or improve city life in some particular way.
Challenge #1:
Build a Twitter bot that helps users avoid traffic and get where they’re going faster.
Anyone can respond to these challenges by building and submitting an application that then become open for comment and free to use by anyone, anywhere.
[My comment regarding Challenge #1: Unless you live in North America or India you can’t as of August 2008 receive Twitter text updates – only send them. Inhibits traffic bots somewhat but shouldn’t discourage anyone; hopefully they’ll figure out a sustainable SMS solution soon.]
Local groups of city reinventors are forming at DIYcity. Copenhagen has a group of 3 members so far. Be sure to sign up too if you have ideas about how to make the capital of Denmark smarter and more online with its citizens.
When talking traffic and social web I feel the urge to mention IbikeCPH – a beta launched social forum for people that bike the streets of Copenhagen. As anyone who have ever visited will know: There are a lot of us. IbikeCPH is developed by Socialsquare and already has good postings on everything from bicycle songs to bicycle innovation.
Why indeed not crowdsource across networks and have IbikeCPH users respond to DIYcity challenges? Smarter bike culture through emerging web technologies. Reminder to self: Create groups on each site drawing attention to the other.
Hopefully web technology solving real world issues will become an even bigger thing of the future.