Legal frameworks, environmental impacts of AI, big data, quality data, safety, strengths and difficulties of designing for broad target audiences, and more, was discussed at the WASP-HS Community Reference Meeting (CRM) Sustainability and Smart Cities on March 17.
WASP-HS CRMs are intended for public and private organizations in Sweden, and for stakeholders who want to learn more about the challenges and issues related to AI and its impact. It is also an opportunity for WASP-HS to share the latest research developments within the program to identify opportunities for collaboration across sectors.
The event started with an introduction by Professor Virginia Dignum, WASP-HS Program Director, which was followed by a panel discussion between Linda Gustafsson, Gender Equality Strategist at Umeå City and Martin Güll, Director of Digitalization at the City of Helsingborg.
Linda Gustafsson presented gender aspects to take into consideration when designing a smart city, as men and women may use the city differently. Gustafsson argued that the citizens have to be understood in order to develop a smart city, and that this can be done via, for example, open data and accessible information. Martin Güll emphasized the importance of enabling the citizens to create smart cities together and collaborate to form and shape the city.
After the panel the participants took part in one of the following roundtable discussions of their choice.
Autonomous Public Transportation – Getting Across the Smart City
Chaired by : Fabian Lorig, Assistant Professor, Internet of Things and People Research Center, Malmö University, Mikael Wiberg, Professor, Department of Informatics, Umeå University, and Henrik Danielsson, Professor, Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning (IBL), Linköping University.
AI in Disaster Crises – From Corona to Climate Change
Chaired by Lina Rahm, Assistant Professor at the Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and co-chaired by Tatyana Sarayeva, WASP-HS, Department of Computing Science, Umeå University.
From Boomtown to Bust: Being Critical About the Smart City
Chaired by Barry Brown, Professor of Human Computer Interaction, Stockholm University, and co-chaired by Mareike Glöss, Digital Futures Postdoctoral Fellow, KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
A publication summarizing the discussions and conclusions from the day is underway and will be published on WASP-HS’ website.
