How can we improve the ability of our public institutions to understand and engage with its communities?
{{renderer :wordcount_}}

I believe technology, data, and AI can provide hugely valuable services to our cities. My experience with AI at Hive also gives me confidence that there are many untapped ways that AI and machine learning can be used to improve our understanding of cities. However, we must be deliberate and thoughtful about ensuring that any use of technology promotes equity and justice.

We must also find ways to improve the ways cities and local governments engage with their communities. On BPAC, I’ve seen first hand how difficult it is for residents to play an active role in the design and planning of their urban environments. We must work to restructure our existing systems to bring back trust between the many disenfranchised communities in our cities and their governments. Whether through technology or through other systemic improvements, the primary goal must be to make our cities more equitable and safe by bringing more people into the process.

Related to this, I hope to have MIX eventually be a platform for developers and planners to provide 3D designs that can be viewed in mixed reality on the site of an eventual build.

The City Scanner and Urban Sensing projects at the Senseable City Lab are two projects at DUSP that use computer vision to better understand our cities. I would be curious to see the next generation of what’s possible with hardware developed for on-device model processing.