teamerror303

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the project!

The Brief - Building Community Resilience: Smart City Technology to Support the Development of Social Capital

The Task - To propose smart city technology that can develop social capital and support community resilience to help protect people and societies from the effects of these adverse events. Community resilience describes the collective ability of a neighbourhood or geographically defined area to deal with stressors and efficiently resume the rhythms of daily life through cooperation following shocks.

Takeaway Points -

Community resilience can be viewed as having a more fundamental foundation based in cohesion, engagement, participation and belonging. These concepts can be collectively considered as components of ‘social capital’ (see OECD Insights Social Capital https://www.oecd.org/insights/37966934.pdf ).

The development and enhancement of social capital can build community resilience, protecting societies and their people from the adverse effects of these events.

We propose that smart city technology presents an opportunity to strengthen social capital and, consequently, community resilience.

Types of Social Capital - Bonding, Bridging, Linking.

How could technology play a role in its development?

Dimensions to consider: - Building the capacity of a community to recognise and develop capabilities to prevent, withstand, and mitigate the impacts and stresses (not just psychological) of an adverse event - adapted from the Rand Health Research Brief (Chandra et al, 2011). - Murray, Pantidi and Hogan (2019) propose that a community can be considered to be resilient ‘when they respond to crises in ways that strengthen communal bonds, resources and the capacity to adapt, evolve and grow in the face of change’. - Silberman (2015) proposes that technology to support the growth of local economies provides protection for a community against wide-scale economic collapse.

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and that’s a wrap!

Start Time - 7:30 am (IST) End Time - 2:45 am (IST) error303 signing off!

Ending the day on the right note 

annnnnnnd now time to crash! 

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final concept video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga_pb14xIlk&feature=youtu.be

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a look into team error303

Hello! This is a small about us page -  We’re three 20 year old Human Centered Design majors studying in Srishti Institute of Art Design and Technology. We have a shared passion for meme culture, food and dogs. Somewhere, conversations about the integration of technology with the human also seep in.  Usually we don’t step out of our comfort zone but we really tried to for this challenge. If you go through this project, do comment! We’d love some feedback. Follow us on our socials or ping us on our email - Sohaya - sohayainderkaur@gmail.com Rashi - rashibalachandran@gmail.com Twitter : https://twitter.com/rashibee4

Vanshika - vanshika.sanghi@gmail.com Twitter : https://twitter.com/Vanshika_Sanghi

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final reflection - error303

Doing a 24 hour design challenge for the first time really tested our limits in terms of time, dedication, patience, creative thinking. After a while we realised we needed a much needed break because our brain wasn’t being creatively stimulative enough. We created a structure for ideation, brainstorming, research and presentation that gave us a concrete list of goals to achieve.  Going into this, we didn’t know what to expect plus, we thought timing would be our larger issue but turns out it wasn’t and we were able to complete the tasks we had set out to do in time. In fact, our largest issue was mental exhaustion. Maybe in the future, we’ll take more frequent breaks but shorter in time duration. We could also experiment with ideation techniques that we’ve never used before.  The brief educated us about a design problem we never knew existed and this was probably the first time we were reading such dense papers only for research purposes. A lot of the concepts were completely new to us so even grasping the issues and factors related to it took us a fair amount of time. We believe for the constraints provided to us and this being our first time ever doing a design challenge, we really pushed ourselves to come up with an idea that was both feasible and innovative. We’re content with our process of working and felt like we were really efficient throughout which was a surprise.  We used resources and multiple methods from our past learning and really tried to incorporate what ever we’ve learnt and apply our knowledge as best we saw fitting. We’re really proud that we took this on and it proved to be much more fun that we could have expected. Also, we really appreciated the constant momentum on the Slack group which proved to be a very strong motivator.  We’re definitely going to undertake more such challenges!  Thanks to Peter and Trevor for making this as smooth a process that it was.  And Kudos to everyone who participated, we would love to check their work out! Goooooooooodnight, team error303 (Vanshika Sanghi, Rashi Balachandran, Sohayainder Kaur) 19SDC025

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Final hours! Prototype Video in the making!

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final paper!

Here’s the link to the final paper - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1htDk2pIY0m0R93kVC1YjodcTbnnDOuDB/view?usp=sharing

So exhausted!

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mini challenge 4 - evaluation and review

Storyboarding - 

Person using the design intervention to prevent the cause as well as utilise during the cause.

Evaluation and Future Prospects -  1. People could demand resources that aren’t there and maybe a wish list system could be introduced. 2. Resources could be transported from place to place depending upon need. 3. Fully automated vending machine and quality check system. 4. A system to check it’s used for its intended purpose. 5. Expansion to include resources that aren’t staples. 

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mini challenge 3 - prototyping

After coming up with the final conceptual design, we moved onto prototyping the ‘magic machine’. First, we started with rough sketches (v. low fidelity wireframes) of the App and the LeLo Vending Machine Screens. 

- Rough Sketches and Wireframe Exploration Prototyping -  We then iterated and created our prototype.

Aim - To propose smart city technology that can develop social capital and support community resilience to help protect people and societies from the effects of these adverse events.  Magic Machine - To create the machine, we used materials like paper and cardboard and a plastic box. The Cardboard became the vending machine and the plastic box was from where the items are put in. An item ‘flour’ was creating to show the working. 

The Phone App scans the items present at home pantry and then recommends the user which abundant resources which items can be donated. The user then goes to the LeLo vending machine and puts in chosen items of their choice and the machines takes them in and stores them.  When in time of a crisis/unrest and resources are needed, the user who needs the resource goes to the machine and chooses the item of his choice. The machine only provides during time of crisis/unrest. When he gets the item, he’s thankful and leaves and the user who donated the item gets a nice, humble text which invokes empathy. 

Things we like - No wastage of resources, Can provide resources for free, Sense of collaboration and community, Invokes empathy, Bridges the divide between rich and poor, Sense of belonging

Things we dislike - Execution could be a hassle, human presence is required for some aspects for (eg. quality check), large storage spaces could be needed as pre-disaster, possibility of vending machine not working during disaster

Things that could contribute to our solution - Completely automated disaster proof vending machine, ethically used by the people.

 - The basic idea of the magic machine.

Some Picture Documentation of The Prototype - 

High Fidelity Prototypes -  Screen of the Box where items are put in - 

The Vending Machine screen which displays the list of items - 

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final concept -

Concept Name - LeLo (English Translation- Take It) Description - In times of disasters like floods, earthquakes, droughts, etc. when there is a shortage or lack of access to resources, our design aims to connect those who have the needed resources to those who require them. It integrates smart, technology-enabled vending machines, which allow donation and dispensing, with an app that allows donors to scan their homes (pantries, cupboards, etc.) to understand which resources are suitable for donation. All resources are donated anonymously, and can be accessed by anyone, only during times of crisis, since the vending machines are publicly located. Once collected, the donor receives information regarding the identity of the recipient to promote the feeling of giving back, togetherness, and empathy. 

The concept fulfills all our design goals successfully since it is entirely human-driven and controlled by the community, and it revolves specifically around the community and its needs. Furthermore, it is designed such that it can be accessed by people regardless of socio-economic strata, and it works to bridge the divide between those who have no shortage of resources and those who are in need. The system is trustworthy and reliable, since all donations are quality-checked and verified, and efficient since it connects demand and supply in an automated manner, while ensuring zero wastage of resources and direct delivery. These indirect interactions of give and take create a feeling of contribution, aid, connectedness, and togetherness in times of disaster. Thus these interactions help people make, create, and add value to their community, while ensuring economic efficiency and gain.

The design promotes ecological sustainability since it prevents wastage of unused resources, it provides a sense of security since there is always a bank of resources available incase of a crisis, giving promotes a sense of integration and cohesiveness in the neighbourhood, and the automated nature of vending machines ensures they can be used during a crisis as well. Some valuable insights which translated into our concept -

1. Engagement at the community level, including a sense of cohesiveness and neighbourhood involvement or integration.

2. Integration of preparedness and wellness.

3. Rapid restoration of services and social networks

4. Targeted strategies that empower and engage vulnerable populations

5. Individual-level preparedness and self-sufficiency

6. With the potential for bonding social capital to reinforce patterns of discrimination, though, decision makers should invest in programs that build bridges across groups in communities and up to those in authority

7. According to the dominant discourse, the smart city idea is currently being driven by three inter-rated factors: population demographics, the role of cities as economic drivers and sustainability.

8. In the main, most smart initiatives envisioned here come from either corporations or urban governments, not from actual people who live and work in cities.

9. Intelligent Communities adopt technology but do not make it their focus. Instead, they find vision-driven, community-based, technology smart solutions to their most urgent problems.

10. Most other major cities were taking a “top-down approach” – using digital initiatives and smart technology services by purchasing very expensive infrastructure, putting it into place, and then pushing out smaller, use case implementations downstream.

11. While ICTs can be used to improve energy reliability in a future with more renewable and intermittent energy, trying to solve a problem by installing electronic devices or digital solutions can also end up requiring more energy and resources than it saves.

12. Social hierarchies and resource and entitlement inequalities are rarely overturned in the course of adaptation, and external changes such as climatic extremes and other natural hazards tend to reinforce those inequalities.

13. Proximity can be construed in both physical and psychological terms. For example, people who find themselves at closer physical proximity to a disaster epicentre may engage in more helping behaviours than people who are further away.

Stakeholder Map - 

- Stakeholder Mapping

Working - 

1. At home, the user pulls out their phone and opens the Le Lo app.  2. They have some extra groceries, and the app scans their pantry and highlights items that are suitable for donation (in terms of expiry date, need of the resource, quantity, etc.) 3. The user can decide whether or not they want to donate these items. 4. Once they have selected some items for donation, they tick those particular items on the app and proceed to go to one of the vending machines which is located in the neighbourhood. The app helps them navigate to the nearest machine. 5. At the vending machine, they deposit their items one by one, and  there is a QR code that they scan with the machine. The items automatically get added on with the details of the user. 6. The items are put in a donation bin where they are categorised by size, type of product, etc. and are then grouped together and displayed in the vending machine. 7. In times of crisis, this vending machine is open to access. Someone in need can come to the vending machine, log in by providing their biometrics (fingerprint), and type in what they need. 8. The item is dispensed from the vending machine, if it is available, otherwise a request is made for the item. The receiver then takes the item. 9. Meanwhile, the donor gets a message with details of the person who received their resources, along with a little information like the crisis the person is undergoing and how these resources would help them. Key Use Cases and Actors - 

- Key Use Cases and Actors

The Functionality - 

- How the LeLo vending machine works

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mini challenge 2 - designing

After coming up with our focus points and design goals, it was time to reflect after which we started brainstorming!  Brainstorming -  We divided brainstorming into three different sessions, 10 minutes each after which we gave ourselves a buffer and discussed all the ideas and kept on marking the ones we found interesting.  From the focus points we found areas we wanted to explore/ think about further and brainstormed on those. The aim was to think about quantity.

Session 1 -  To think about - Intelligent Communities adopt technology but do not make it their focus. Instead of just technology progressing, the community should progress. 

Session 2 -  To think about - Since it is made up of such a diverse range of things, the smart city idea can inadvertently bring together different aspects of urban life that do not necessarily belong together, hiding some things and bringing others to the ideological fore.

Session 3 -  To think about - How people would respond to crises in ways that strengthen communal bonds, resources and the capacity to adapt, evolve and grow in the face of change. 

The reason we chose these particular focus points was because we thought it gave us a well rounded view on the kind of areas we wanted to focus on. Plus they seemed the most relevant to the brief provided and seemed like very important criteria for our design intervention. 

- Session 1

- Session 2

- Session 3 Ideation - After coming up with and discussing these rich ideas, we mapped out all the ideas we found interesting. We then focused on clustering ideas that went together and that could be combined together. We looked at each of these ideas and went through our design goals, focus points as well as the brief to see if they matched all the evaluation criteria. We had the critique session here itself. We were questioning everything.  This narrowed down our ideas further to ideas that satisfied the criteria we set, the ideas that didn’t and the ideas that only satisfied some. 

- Cluster of Ideas that we thought were interesting

- Ideas with the Design Goals and expected outcome

- Final Three Clusters of Key Ideas

This process helped us narrow down to our three key ideas - 

1. Technology connecting those who have the needed resources to those who require them during unrest/crisis situations.

2. A gamified way to crowd source people who have relevant skills and experience to help aid disaster efforts. They are also teaching their skills to the community. 

3. A technology that pinpoints people who are in need of help during crisis situations such that authorities and others who are available to help are alerted. 

To decide on the one we wanted to take forward for our concept, we performed the C-Box exercise. This helped us analytically decide without having our biases to figure out what best to work with as our final concept.

 This eliminated 2 and we decided to move forward with Idea 1 since we felt like it encapsulated bits of 3 as well. 

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reflecting -

Here’s our thoughts after challenge 1 and us reflecting on solutions we read about : Rashi - Based on our reading, it seems like most countries integrate smart technology for the purpose of economic gain, logistical efficiency, and for the title of a “Smart City”. There is no human aspect to these cities, and often due to the cost of integrating and using these technologies, they are restricted to only the top tier of society who can afford to access it. In fact often people of all kinds are actually viewed as hindrances to the functioning of this technological system, because their technological ignorance could affect its functioning. But I am of the view that people are extensions of the city, there is no city without the people and so the whole system should revolve around them. I think the key to this is to ubiquitously integrate computing into our surroundings, so people can behave the way they always have, and technology adapts. After reading about some existing smart cities like Rio’s use of sensors to detect landslides, data sharing for improving traffic surveillance, security and weather forecasts, or Boston’s mobile apps which allow citizens to contribute to recycling, road repairs, vehicle tracking, community groups and discussions, etc. show a clear benefit to allowing people to have a say in how their cities are run, despite the few drawbacks.In today’s time, when there are crises all around the globe, be it global warming or political unrest, citizens need to feel like they are capable of solving these problems, instead of leaving them to the politicians. More than ever, people need to unite and come together to solve our issues with conversation, collaboration, and contribution. I’ve seen how in a time of crisis, like the Mumbai floods, citizens were the ones affected, and fellow citizens were the ones helping. If these efforts were aided by technology they would be more reliable and trustworthy. And citizen co-created smart cities would be an ideal solution for that.In my opinion, smart city technologies should create awareness so every citizen is aware of the problem at hand and there are no rumours (like in the Kashmir riots happening currently), they should be accessible and inclusive so no one is left behind due to race, religion, age, gender, etc., and they should allow for communities to come together to solve problems. Sohaya - The topic regarding natural disasters was extremely interesting to read, we got a lot of insights from there. There were many  alleged perimeters that need to be covered to determine whether an individual will help during a natural disaster or not based on the proximity, the ethnicity, which region they’re from.Those were the criteria through which people decide to help today, but there are not just the people in close range but many people around the world who recognise the intensity of the matter and contribute to the max of their capacity,  even though proximity of distance may play an important role for most of it but not unless donation is presented as a convenient option to the people, for ex: Zomato launched a scheme where  they added an option above their menu, where during  a crisis of a natural disaster, there would be an option to send food to the camps in need for it provided you paid for it. Even though one was extremely far from the scene, you could still get involved in the recovery process in these small ways, it is humane option and gives you the feeling of helping someone ,and by the end of the day, any amount of help from anyone is appreciated. Same way during the earthquakes in Nepal, all the people from there were making extreme efforts to rebuild and try to collect funds for Nepal, out of which one was my friend from school . We went to boarding school in India so at any carnival or event she would sell cards we all made and brownies to collect funds for Nepal and send them back home, and all of us were more than happy to help. Even people who are buying were aware of the donation and were extra generous, thus despite the proximity of your location and the crisis there are always ways to contribute and participate in the rebuilding of a community. Vanshika - From all the research done, I saw that most smart cities are made technologically advanced by the government to fuel their economy and not for the purpose of the people. Urban issues are generally wicked and people are treated as ‘yes’ machines instead of being considered in the design itself. Most solutions for smart city technologies require people to have prior knowledge about the workings of technologies which leads to social exclusion of various community and user groups. It was interesting to see how social capital holds people together, generally we consider humans as ‘selfish beings’ but it was a refreshing perspective to see that in the time of unrest, humans help humans out. Here, trust and close relationships play a huge factor. Smart city technologies should be aimed more at making it efficient for the user groups and being inclusive rather than causing a divide. Major crisis like climate change and increasing temperatures, are getting communities closer together because their is a cause to be fought and people feel ownership towards it. These settings cause movements to break out which in turn makes people aware and they understand the consequences of their actions. A lot of the times, such news of crisis isn’t covered because of which people don’t receive any aid from political/government authorities which leads to an increase in social capital since people help people out. The same has happened in multiple cases in Tamil Nadu as well as Adaman during the heavy floods. I truly think that building resilience and in turn social capital is very important especially in the context of smart city technologies because people having a say in it can only improve the experience of residing there since their will be no divide because of religion, age, economic or social status, etc, and we as human centered designers should think of ways to make our technology desirable, efficient and inclusive for the human and not for the purpose of increasing economic wealth for the city.

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Work Mode vs. Quick Break Mode

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mini challenge 1 - literature review

We started out my mapping our takeaway and then proceeded onto reading all our research materials, after which we created our information dump! This is what we used to collaboratively select interest points which we then mapped under over arching themes. The themes were looked at from two different angles - one being looking at unrests/ crisis how how social capital builds during them and the other being smart cities with human involvement and control. 

We then researched on these themes further and then found interest points and insights from this huge chunk of information that we had collected.  This helped us set our design principles and focus points which is our evaluation criteria.  Our Information Dump - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EA88Lp6i3BTaSy5rH9NkF9WYs23QcwfBpzBWGKzast8/edit?usp=sharing

Paper we particularly enjoyed -  Hollands, R. G. (2015). Critical interventions into the corporate smart city. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society , 8 (1), 61-77. (provided in the reading material itself) Themes -  On the basis of Smart City Technologies: 1. Ubiquitous smart city technologies and their integration with human life 2. Smart cities and communities encouraging sustainability 3. Smaller scale community based, human driven smart city technologies

On the basis of Building Social Capital during Unrests/Crisis : 1. Civil/ Political Unrest 2. Climate Change 3. Natural Disasters  Interest Points -  1. de Lange and de Waal (2013) have argued, one of the key elements of imaging a different kind of smartness concerns ideas about ownership, not limited to proprietorship but rather in their words “how to engage and empower citizens to act on complex collective urban problems”. This not only involves starting with urban citizens taking responsibility and acting collectively but also raises issues of social learning, reliance and social cooperation. 2. Community resilience entails the ongoing and developing capacity of the community to account for its vulnerabilities and develop capabilities that aid that community in using knowledge from a past response to strengthen the community's ability to withstand the next health incident. 3. Across the focus groups, participants alluded implicitly or explicitly to divided identities with regard to new residents, as well as in-groups and out-groups in various contexts. 4. Decision makers need to recognize the potential “dark side” from strong in-group cohesion during and after disasters. 5. The problem in urban sociology generally is there appears to be a distinct lack of an alternative to the neo-liberal city, smart or otherwise (Harvey, 1989; though see Harvey, 2012; also Hudson’s 2010 notion of resilient regions). Rather, their purpose is to provide a glimpse into different and more human versions of smartness (using technology to realise progressive ideas, rather than see the technology as progressive in and of itself. 6. Since it is made up of such a diverse range of things, the smart city idea can inadvertently bring together different aspects of urban life that do not necessarily belong together, hiding some things and bringing others to the ideological fore. 7. Serious urban problems like poverty, inequality and discrimination appear to be largely absent from these neo-liberal urban visions and projects, and there appears to be little or no recognition that smart developments might contribute negatively to social polarisation in cities. 8. Explore smaller scale, community-based and more socially progressive uses of new technologies. 9. One of the key elements of imaging a different kind of smartness concerns ideas about ownership, not limited to proprietorship but rather in their words “how to engage and empower citizens to act on complex collective urban problems”. This not only involves starting with urban citizens taking responsibility and acting collectively but also raises issues of social learning, reliance and social cooperation. 10. Existing smart city models tend to see citizens as a barrier to the implementation of smart technology. 11. A smart city listens – and tries to give voice to everyone.  12. We should be wary of corporately inspired smart scenarios where urban problems have all been solved by technology and all of its inhabitants are happy and prosperous. 13. By design, smart cities exclude certain sections through what is known as the ‘digital divide’- the gap between the technology haves and have-nots. For instance, smart solutions like smart meters or internet banking are of no use to communities who lack access to electricity in the first place. 14. A smart city project in a developed country might have the potential to address urban challenges efficiently. However, in a developing country like India, where about 40 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line, and agriculture is still the largest employer — a bottom-up approach would be more conducive.  15. As ICT is becoming more integrated into people’s daily lives, we create new energy dependent social practices, and hence lock us into a world where we hardly can live without the technological devices. 16. The elderly and persons with little experience with technology stand out as groups that could benefit from ubiquitous computing and be disadvantaged by it as well. How might this paradox come about? The first generation ubiquitous computing applications are likely to demand a certain level of knowledge and requirements that will result in a temporary division between the winners and the losers. However, this divide should subside as the functional logic of later generation ubiquitous applications is automated and cost-effective mass production sets in. Once the technology matures and becomes publicly available, the less educated will begin to profit from it. 17. AI technology increases their expectations that their Generation Alpha babies will learn faster and more than they did, while for 20 percent, expectations are the same or less. In addition, three quarters (74 percent) of Millennial parents say they would consider an AI-powered tutor for their child. 18.��Higher levels of national identity, helping motivations, and disaster‐related helping were found after the earthquake, suggesting that in the aftermath of a disaster, people unite under a common national identity and are motivated to take action related to disaster relief. 19. Civil unrest contagion occurs when social, economic, and political stress accumulate slowly, and is released spontaneously in the form of social unrest on short time scales to nearest and long-range neighbouring regions that are susceptible to social, economic, and political stress. 20. Social capital is the glue that holds societies together and without which there can be no economic growth or human wellbeing.

Insights -  1. In order to build community resilience, a community must develop capabilities in the following areas: 

- Engagement at the community level, including a sense of cohesiveness and neighbourhood involvement or integration. - Partnership among organizations, including integrated pre-event planning, exercises, and agreements - Sustained local leadership supported by partnership with state and federal government - Effective and culturally relevant education about risks - Optimal community health and access to quality health services - Integration of preparedness and wellness - Rapid restoration of services and social networks - Individual-level preparedness and self-sufficiency - Targeted strategies that empower and engage vulnerable populations

2. Large-scale crises and catastrophes sit in the category of wicked policy problems as they have no technical solution, involve multiple stakeholders, and create ripple effects. 3. Social capital is commonly viewed as positively affecting disaster resilience. Yet social cohesion—primarily bonding social capital—can also bring negative consequences in disasters. As a public good, social capital can be used to resist various disaster recovery needs. 4. Given that social capital, like other forms of capital, can be generated or degraded, our focus as individuals and as a nation should turn toward enhancing our social cohesion and deepening trust in our communities. With the potential for bonding social capital to reinforce patterns of discrimination, though, decision makers should invest in programs that build bridges across groups in communities and up to those in authority (Aldrich & Sawada 2014). 5. The smart city is currently being constructed as the solution to many urban problems, including crime, traffic congestion, inefficient services and economic stagnation, promising prosperity and healthy lifestyles for all. 6. At its most basic level, a city is comprised of a government (in some form), people, industry, infrastructure, education and social services. A  smart city thoughtfully and sustainably pursues development with all of these components in mind with the additional foresight of the future needs of the city. (Comstock, 2012) 7. According to the dominant discourse, the smart city idea is currently being driven by three inter-rated factors: population demographics, the role of cities as economic drivers and sustainability.  8. Graham and Marvin (2001) have referred a term - ‘splintering urbanism’; also see Graham, 2002). In the main, most smart initiatives envisioned here come from either corporations or urban governments, not from actual people who live and work in cities. In fact, it might be argued that citizens are often cast as barriers in the corporate race towards the smart city and that they need to be educated by city leaders as to the benefits IT can bring (Greenfield, 2012 also makes this point). 9. There is a growing tendency for smart cities to be technologically led, corporately influenced and tied to competitive models of the entrepreneurial city. This is especially the case with regard to Asian models of the corporate ubiquitous city, although as Provoost (2012) has argued, smaller scale models of this type are also being trialled in Europe. Previous research into a number of smart city initiatives in Europe and North America showed that a significant proportion were undertaken by city governments for urban marketing/branding purposes (Hollands, 2008), rather than being citizen-led. 10. A ‘smart city’ must be inhabited by ‘smart people’. Smart, in this framework, is limited to being able to access, consume, and use the new technology to a certain degree, but not to question it or attempt to shape and contour its uses. For the citizen, smartness becomes reduced to a form of smart mentality, simply adopting the right frame of mind to accept and cope with the inevitability of urban technological change. 11. Smart City Projects apply information and communications technology to accurately monitor, measure and control city processes, from transportation to water supplies, the location of city vehicles to the performance of electric grids. Smart Cities are about saving money, becoming more efficient and delivering better service to the taxpayer. 12. Intelligent Communities adopt technology but do not make it their focus. Instead, they find vision-driven, community-based, technology smart solutions to their most urgent problems. 13. Most other major cities were taking a “top-down approach” – using digital initiatives and smart technology services by purchasing very expensive infrastructure, putting it into place, and then pushing out smaller, use case implementations downstream. 14. The smart city rests upon a contemporary dominant ‘cornucopian’ design paradigm, rewarding faster, richer and more pervasive digital services. One crucial consequence of this current paradigm is that “services most users were happy without become essential to everyday life for the majority of the populace in developed countries.” 15. While ICTs can be used to improve energy reliability in a future with more renewable and intermittent energy, trying to solve a problem by installing electronic devices or digital solutions can also end up requiring more energy and resources than it saves. 16. Groups that could suffer disadvantages as a result of ubiquitous computing include small businesses and retail, political minorities, critics or sceptics, marginal groups and persons with unusual backgrounds. 17. Social capital is inherited and hence, vested in the communities themselves (Narayan and Pritchett, 1999). But to a large extent individuals can generate their own social capital over time through building networks for informal credit and risk sharing activities. 18. Social hierarchies and resource and entitlement inequalities are rarely overturned in the course of adaptation, and external changes such as climatic extremes and other natural hazards tend to reinforce those inequalities (Adger et al., 2001). 19. Proximity can be construed in both physical and psychological terms. For example, people who find themselves at closer physical proximity to a disaster epicentre may engage in more helping behaviours than people who are further away (Beyerlein & Sikkink, 2008). 20. Unlike inter-state conflict that often mobilizes national unity and strengthens societal cohesiveness, violent conflict within a state weakens its social fabric. It divides the population by undermining interpersonal and communal group trust, destroying the norms and values that underlie cooperation and collective action for the common good, and increasing the likelihood of communal strife. This damage to a nation’s social capital—the norms, values, and social relations that bond communities together as well as the bridges between communal groups and civil society and the state—impedes communal and state ability to recover after hostilities cease. 21. People perceived to be less responsible for a disaster are more likely to be deemed worthy of help (Marjanovic, Greenglass, Struthers, & Faye, 2009). 22. People are more willing to donate to relief of natural disasters compared to human‐caused disasters (Zagefka, Noor, Brown, De Moura, & Hopthrow, 2011).

Design Principles and Goals - 

1. Ensure the design is human-driven, and controlled by the community. This is to ensure that the technology revolves around the people it impacts, and caters to their specific needs and goals, and not just those of the city. 

2. The design will be inclusive of all the socio economic strata of society, such that there is no hierarchy or social exclusion despite the presence of a community.

3. Helping people to make, create and add value to their community and its interactions through our design intervention.

4. The design should be trustworthy, reliable, and efficient in times of a crisis.

Focus Points - We mapped our focus points after looking the the takeaway, our themes and our insights. We’re planning on using these for our future ideation. 

1. How to engage and empower citizens to act on complex collective urban problems?

2. When they respond to crises in ways that strengthen communal bonds, resources and the capacity to adapt, evolve and grow in the face of change

3. Decision makers need to recognise the potential “dark side” from strong in-group cohesion during and after disasters. 

4. In-groups and out-groups of people in various contexts within communities.

5. Different and more human versions of smartness (using technology to realise progressive ideas, rather than see the technology as progressive in and of itself.

6. Since it is made up of such a diverse range of things, the smart city idea can inadvertently bring together different aspects of urban life that do not necessarily belong together, hiding some things and bringing others to the ideological fore.

7. Contribute negatively to social polarisation in cities.

8. Explore smaller scale, community-based and more socially progressive uses of new technologies.

8. The ‘digital divide’.

9. The elderly and persons with little experience with technology stand out as groups that could benefit from ubiquitous computing and be disadvantaged by it as well. How might this paradox come about? 

10. Social capital is the glue that holds societies together and without which there can be no economic growth or human well being.

11. Integration of preparedness and wellness.

12. Given that social capital, like other forms of capital, can be generated or degraded, our focus as individuals and as a nation should turn toward enhancing our social cohesion and deepening trust in our communities.

13. According to the dominant discourse, the smart city idea is currently being driven by three inter-rated factors: population demographics, the role of cities as economic drivers and sustainability.

14.  A ‘smart city’ must be inhabited by ‘smart people’.

15. Intelligent Communities adopt technology but do not make it their focus. 

16. Digital solutions can also end up requiring more energy and resources than it saves. References -  https://stfalcon.com/en/blog/post/smart-cities

https://www.boston.gov/departments/innovation-and-technology/apps https://delhipostnews.com/in-pursuit-of-equity-human-centric-smart-cities/

https://www.intelligentcommunity.org/from_smart_cities_to_intelligent_communities

https://memoori.com/smart-communities-make-smart-cities/ http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/3090000/3080559/p3-ringenson.pdf?ip=124.123.106.193&id=3080559&acc=ACTIVE%20SERVICE&key=4D4702B0C3E38B35%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35%2EBACDD7243E23BA7A%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35&__acm__=1566024283_1f08fb161f9355ef7b6e11d03fcfb397https://books.google.co.in/books?

hl=en&lr=&id=Ps6SAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=sustainability+and+social+capital&ots=Kdn15Dz3tW&sig=9_RtJ1Kj2KBKqh2h4qNFjkFWET4#v=onepage&q=sustainability%20and%20social%20capital&f=falsehttp://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/3060000/3054767/p1529-marinova.pdf?

ip=124.123.106.193&id=3054767&acc=ACTIVE%20SERVICE&key=4D4702B0C3E38B35%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35%2EBACDD7243E23BA7A%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35&__acm__=1566024218_fbfb23e4cd274cbb156df1102b0e7bb5http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/3340000/3335067/a12-lemonica.pdf?

ip=124.123.106.193&id=3335067&acc=ACTIVE%20SERVICE&key=4D4702B0C3E38B35%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35%2EBACDD7243E23BA7A%2E4D4702B0C3E38B35&__acm__=1566024221_c68213307c45b48e587dcacb0ef96ac4

https://facilityexecutive.com/2018/03/ten-principles-building-resilient-communities/

http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/july-august-2019/the-futures-hybrid-nature

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7c12/18890b8a5b5ee12e4a4c64696a50cb860362.pdf

https://www.itu.int/osg/spu/ni/ubiquitous/Papers/Paper_Ubiquity_and_developing_world.pdf

https://arxiv.org/vc/arxiv/papers/1011/1011.1960v1.pdf

https://medium.com/search?q=ubiquitous%20technology

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.580.5077&rep=rep1&type=pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228386024_Social_capital_and_climate_change

https://www.ajol.info/index.php/jfecs/article/view/156132/145752

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12281 + All the reading papers provided with the brief. 

Note - Design Goals are also a part of our focus points, we didn’t want to mention them twice!

[teamerror303]

our takeaway

The Brief - Building Community Resilience: Smart City Technology to Support the Development of Social Capital

The Task - To propose smart city technology that can develop social capital and support community resilience to help protect people and societies from the effects of these adverse events. Community resilience describes the collective ability of a neighbourhood or geographically defined area to deal with stressors and efficiently resume the rhythms of daily life through cooperation following shocks.

Takeaway Points - 

Community resilience can be viewed as having a more fundamental foundation based in cohesion, engagement, participation and belonging. These concepts can be collectively considered as components of ‘social capital’ (see OECD Insights Social Capital https://www.oecd.org/insights/37966934.pdf ).

The development and enhancement of social capital can build community resilience, protecting societies and their people from the adverse effects of these events. 

We propose that smart city technology presents an opportunity to strengthen social capital and, consequently, community resilience. 

Types of Social Capital - Bonding, Bridging, Linking. 

How could technology play a role in its development? 

Dimensions to consider:  - Building the capacity of a community to recognise and develop capabilities to prevent, withstand, and mitigate the impacts and stresses (not just psychological) of an adverse event - adapted from the Rand Health Research Brief (Chandra et al, 2011). - Murray, Pantidi and Hogan (2019) propose that a community can be considered to be resilient ‘when they respond to crises in ways that strengthen communal bonds, resources and the capacity to adapt, evolve and grow in the face of change’. - Silberman (2015) proposes that technology to support the growth of local economies provides protection for a community against wide-scale economic collapse. 

[teamerror303]

the journey begins!

The morning started with us understanding the brief, finding focus points and reading all the material provided.

[teamerror303]

error303 members -

Vanshika Sanghi Rashi Balachandran Sohayainder Kaur