Trivik Verma on "Just Data"

10/24/22 • 45 min

The primary purpose of this session is to teach future data scientists to look beyond the technical power of artificial intelligence and recognise the possibilities and limitations of data and the spatial inequalities that galvanise as a result of data-driven technology and policy. This session will engage students at the intersection of data science, urbanisation, and effective communication. By interrogating the sociotechnical nature of urban problems, students should then be able to approach solutions to these problems in ways that prioritise social equity and justice. In the last decade, technological advancements have led us to embed large-scale networked systems, sensors, and computers into the built environment. Urban data has emerged as an excellent stream of constant, real-time, and accurate information about all urban activities. The big data revolution, coupled with the capacity of infrastructure to be “smart” has enticed cities and urban managers worldwide to participate in machine learning-based decision-making for improving the course of humanity. But city planning has largely been instituted around loosely coupled organisations within municipal and regional governments, project developers, companies and investors, transport, water, and energy operators. While some communities have enjoyed the benefits of policies based on the use of big data, machine learning and AI, many have also suffered disproportionately by being pushed to the physical and technological periphery of rapid development in cities. As data scientists, and especially as engineering and policy analysts, it is our responsibility to interrogate the quality of data, the design of intelligent systems and their impact on communities.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Mariana Fix on "Commodification & Financialization of the City"

At this episode we have Professor Mariana Fix from the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Sao Paulo. Mariana talks to us about the "Commodification & Financialization of the City". Mariana Fix is the author of the books “Partners in Exclusion” (Parceiros da exclusão) and “São Paulo, Global City” (São Paulo, Cidade Global), both published in Brazil. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Campinas, a master’s degree in Sociology from the University of São Paulo and she is also an architect. She was IIAS Re-Theorizing Housing as Architecture Research Fellow and was a visiting research scholar at CUNY’s Graduate Centre as an Urban Studies Foundation fellow. She is a member of the Housing and Human Settlements Laboratory at FAU-USP, and has been working with Right to the City movements for several years.

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Next Episode

"Housing as a Human Right" with Leilani Farha

Today we have with us Leilani Farha, speaking to us from Canada. Leilani was UN special rapporteur for the right to housing and is now director of SHIFT, a large NGO based in Canada that fights for and promotes the right to dignified housing. Leilani will talk more about the SHIFT, but it is important to highlight their philosophy. In their own words: “THE SHIFT recognizes housing as a human right, not a commodity or an extractive industry. The Shift restores the understanding of housing as home, challenging the ways financial actors undermine the right to housing. Using a human rights framework, The Shift provokes action to end homelessness, unaffordability, and evictions globally”. https://www.make-the-shift.org

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.